Artists that artists love

A core component of Epicenter — and a crowd favorite — is our featured artist section. A reminder on how it works: anyone is welcome to submit their art — poetry, paintings, spoken-word recordings, short films — we take it all. If an artist’s work is selected to be profiled, they will receive a $100 honorarium and become part of our growing network. This week we are highlighting some of our contributing artists, each of whom recommended another artist that they think you should know about. Please keep in mind that your support of Epicenter-NYC allows us to feature — and pay — local artists.  

Meena Hasan

“My works come out of a deep and rigorous research component focused on global textile traditions, including investigation into fractal patterning methods and specific formal textile symbols transformed through perpetuation over time across the globe, such as the Paisley shape, Batik’s methodologies and the Acanthus plant. The textile histories of Bangladesh, Pakistan and India constitute my personal art history, as the first visual languages I learned, as part of my DNA, and I use this influence to speak to my cultural heritage as a Bangladeshi American.”

Hasan has a forthcoming solo exhibition at the Lee Gallery at the Miami University Museum of Art in Oxford, Ohio, in February 2023. She is currently an assistant professor of painting at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island.

Hasan is calling our attention to Queens-based Tony Bluestone, who has a solo show coming up at Freight and Volume gallery opening on Sept. 9. 

“Tony’s a prolific painter and one of the funniest, most charismatic artists I know, I highly recommend their episode on artist Neil Goldberg’s podcast She’s A Talker,” Hasan says. “Tony’s paintings illuminate bodies and environments that magically physicalize our internal desires, especially concepts of care, control, love and friendship. Tony’s upcoming show is not to be missed!”

Marc Alain

Alain’s collages are meticulously assembled by physically cutting and assembling printed matter.

“Cutouts are then layered together to form dense landscapes, heart-shaped forms, or abstract skies. Similarly to my previous experience as a portrait photographer, working in collage allows me to speak about the human condition, but without involving actual figures. Using discarded objects, I show the aftermath of human actions. Examples of this include elements like blown bubbles, or a statue in decay. As a suggestion of something human, occasionally parts of the body are visible, but rarely an entire person.”

Alain is giving a shout out to the artist Joe Bochynski. “Bochynski is a visual artist using tile and found artifacts to rewrite the problematic narratives of white middle class America,” he says.  Both Alain and Bochynski were included in the Wassaic Project’s 2022 Summer exhibition on view through Sept. 17. 

Jaishri Abichandani

“The art I produce in the studio synthesizes the aesthetic languages of South Asia with contemporary socio-political concerns. Developing whatever technical skills I need to execute the work as I go along, I employ humor and a hand crafted baroque aesthetic of embellishment and ornamentation to seduce viewers into contemplating topical questions of conscience posed by our dysfunctional society.

A quest for social justice lies at the heart of my sprawling practice. Deeply inspired by Black, queer, feminist and craft art forms, I make work rooted in love to create equity. As an immigrant, South Asian feminist cultural producer, I have devoted over two decades to developing my studio practice along with creating the support structures necessary for my peers to become visible in the art world.” 

Abichandani’s recent museum solo show at Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles was a NY Times Critics Pick.

She wanted to bring attention to the work of Ruby Chishti, whose sculptures embody a particularly feminist and emotive beauty and pathos. 

M. Florine Démosthène

Démosthène’s work investigates the Black female body as a central motif which she represents through an almost alchemical process of allowing paint to take its own agency by pouring, pooling, and bleeding areas of color across paper and mylar, a polyester film. In her recent series, “In the Realm of Love,” she explores how the African concept of love manifests and whether it exists in the confines of what love is now. The work emerges from the Démosthène’scontemplation of conversations she has had while living and working in Ghana.