One of Us, One of Us, One of us!
We have some new inductees to our coven of artistry here at Like the Spice! Reuben Negron and Noa Charuvi will be exhibiting works for our First Friday's New Artists' Silent Auction on February 6th, 2009 from 7-9pm. Come for a cocktail and to bid silently on their gorgeous paintings.
Noa Charuvi was born in Jerusalem, Israel, but lives and works in New York City. Her work contains a sense of documentation but also of universality, since the places in the paintings are not anchored to a specific event. 
Her paintings present the absurdity of that reality, but at the same time create a composition of color and shape that is purely formal, evoking beauty and harmony. The experience of the work is therefore a mix of pleasure and terror. In all her work, she skillfully pulls the realism out of her subjects, and selectively applies abstractions.
Reuben Negron was born in Florida, raised in the Bronx and entered adulthood in Connecticut. He began studying theater and set design at an early age but embraced the challenge of watercolor while attending the Maryland Institute College of Art. Of his work, he says "I have always been interested in the domestic and the mundane. Interpersonal relationships, the unseen and the under-appreciated have always been represented in my work. I often use shared experiences as a way to draw closer a seemingly disparate world. 
In some of his work, viewers were are invited to invent or "finish" the stories for themselves thereby becoming part of the narrative process. The result, as they essentially take ownership over part of the creative process, is an elaborate emotional play between the image and the audience that is rooted at the very heart of storytelling. 
A second series, Dirty Dirty Love™ is a frank look at modern relationships. This series aims to challenge social expectations by presenting taboo subjects in a mundane light. 
Well, that's it for now! See you on Friday!
Friday, January 30, 2009
New Artists Silent Auction at Like the Spice!
Monday, January 19, 2009
One Diner's View
We had a wonderful sold out dinner as we blogged in the previous post. This is one view from the ever delightful Olympia Lambert of Olys Musings.
This gives us the diner's experience of the dinner as well as a fantastic video of Jenny Morgan speaking about her work during A-braised. 
Saturday, January 17, 2009
A-Braised Dinner with Jenny Morgan
Thanks to everyone that came out to the dinner on the Jan.16. It was a delightful evening we have never seen the gallery filled with such energy and enthusiasm. We got to hear Jenny Morgan talk about her work and were given a more...risque experience by Rachel Beach. If you were there you know what we're talking about. If you didn't make it shame shame. Lucky for you Jenny's show is up for another two weeks!
Friday, January 16, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Opening Abrasions (a selection of dark verse by Deathandra Wingbat)
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I wandered weak and weary,
Over a many cracked and cobbled section of the Brooklyn Bor'(ough)
I was shaken, nay, arrested, by the sight of naked breasted
Giant ladies glaring proudly at me through a gallery door.
`'Tis bewitchery,' I babbled, `glaring through that gallery door -
For my eye doth crave for more!'
Ah, what underestimation, for within my destination
Lay a vision unlike any I had ever seen before.
Bodies twisted, deconstructed; while vast throngs of the inducted
Drank a suspect crimson liquid and whirled madly round the floor.
All enthralled by "Bridge" and "Kindred" as they whirled around the floor -
Wanting ever, ever more.
"Captured", "Gone", "Untitled (Claire)" - intricately rendered hair,
Skin that glowed as though alive - yet was both outer flesh and core.
Hands and feet that opened redly, all joined in the rapt'rous medly
Of this exhibition stunning, and for hours did I pore,
Over Jenny Morgan's paintings, on the upper gall'ry floor,
And downstairs- ah! Even more!
But "Abrasions'" strokes and sanding, still are standing, still are standing,
On their canvases - and calling to me - beckoning me o'er.
And so, be it hell or heaven (since it's open twelve to seven
every day except for Tuesday) back to Like the Spice's door
I'll return. I'll see "Abrasions" and stand rooted to the floor
Gazing raptly - evermore!
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Santa makes a last minute dropoff! New works by Nicole Stager
OmigodOmigodOmigod. We just opened up this package of 24 new resin-mounted photogram cubes from Nicole Stager, and we cannot BELIEVE how beautiful they are. Actually, we can. Every single one of the cubes we brought to SCOPE Miami was taken from us, so we've been waiting for these like a kid who just KNOWS that that's a puppy-shaped box jiggling under the tree. Nicki's works will be on display at Like the Spice throughout our next show!
