“Broiler Pan Gongs” by Skip LaPlante
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I AUGUST 2019 31
Photos courtesy of the Materials for the Arts
Feature
to MFTA, whether they are from the art
world, educational communities, or the
broader NYC community, and we are
showing a wide audience works that
are very personal.”
Get inspired, think sustainably and
explore the creative potential in commonly
found objects, just as MFTA’s
artists have done. A few weighed in
about their submissions.
Brooklynite Avani Patel has been a
teaching artist for MFTA for three years.
“It has been a wonderful experience
teaching the community about recycled
art projects and reusing materials to
create different art crafts, etcetera,” said
Patel, who works through MFTA in a
Brooklyn preschool program, teaching
budding artists.
“Music evokes the body to respond to
a rhythm and become an embodiment
of exuberance, expression and movement.
My idea of painting is a rhythmic
performance with music that creates a
whole new language of abstract harmony,
as a means of expressing music
in visual form,” she added.
Her paintings invite the viewer to
wander through a universe of color and
pattern in motion and she creates an environment
of “joy and passion, conveying
a feeling of organic nature and festivity,
while using the psyche’s imagination.”
Art has been an integral part of
Patel’s life since she was a young girl.
“I used to go to the theater with my
sister for rehearsals and her dance
shows. Looking at all the colorful costumes,
flowing dresses and festivity
around, I felt that the colors are speaking
to me. It made me joyful, and painting
became entertainment for me,” she recalled.
“I have always admired different
art forms and techniques but my culture
and the experiences I have lived through
have a great influence on what I present
through my drawings/paintings.”
Another imaginative art form is meant
to mirror the ones and zeroes of data. Julia
Ladds Clauss used coffee cup sleeves,
MFTA finds, paint and oil pastel to create
her “Thinking about data…” piece.
Viewers are invited to move the
pieces as they wish and ponder these
questions: Who makes data? What are
the sources? What are the dimensions?
What senses are engaged? What will
data do, going forward?
“My experience at MFTA has been
literally awesome and full of beauty in
endless ways. I am so grateful for everything
MFTA does and is,” said Clauss,
who lives in Manhattan and travels to LIC.
“Making things … with mud, grass,
eggs, paper, tiles, thread, paint, cardboard,
etcetra, has always been part
of my life.”
Astoria-based artist Jairo Toro, has
participated in important art shows in
his native Colombia; his pieces were
on display at distinguished galleries
and museums in Europe and South
America. After moving to NY in 1991,
he continued to teach art and exhibit
his work across the U.S.
Toro calls his unusual MFTA creation,
“Illuminated Connective Device” (phone
case/LED lights/aluminum wire).
“MFTA is a laboratory of medicine
where artists find their own pills, to
explore new materials for the arts,” Toro
noted, pointing out that to him, being
an artist in Queens, means “interacting
with a global interdisciplinary group of
art thinkers and cultures.”
During “Third Thursdays,” the general
public is welcomed into the warehouse
for free programs, including craft making,
artist talks, performances and gallery
openings.
Robert Visani, “Antelope Helmet Mask”
and “Ancestor Helmet Mask”
David Marini, “Light,
Color and Bop” and
“The Experiment”
Annalisa Iadicicco, “I’ll Be Your Mirror”
MFTA gallery guests explore the exhibition
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