April 19, 2004
The Star Ledger
BY Dan Bishcoff
Transcultural New Jersey, a Rutgers-inspired idea involving exhibitions at just about every major visual arts institution in the state, has a trifecta going on in Summit.
Not only does the show, "Unveiling the Image" at the New Jersey Center for Visual Arts, include the work of artists who hail from diverse cultures and were born, work or live in Jersey, the art makers are all also women.
That women artists are a special category, especially in New Jersey with its New York-beating number of female art administrators, seems an aesthetic no-brainer these days. Shows of women's work, and collections devoted to it, grow more numerous every year.
What is unique about the NJCVA's show is the way it brings relatively large-scale works by nine women artists together in a remarkably smooth and very handsome whole.
Maybe it's the rubber tire wall sculptures by Newark-born Chakaia Booker scattered throughout the gallery like unifying tropes, or the similar scale of the different artworks, culminating on the far back wall with Soyoo Hyunjoo Park's show-stopping quilted mural/painting, "Mother," a diptych nearly eight feet wide and seven feet tall.
Whatever the reason, "Unveiling the Image: Multicultural Women Artists” is both grand and irrepressibly optimistic, striking just the sort of generously upbeat note the organizers of Transcultural New Jersey hoped these shows might.
...Maria Lau of Jersey City uses a computer to print brilliantly colored photos on coated canvas, an increasingly popular technique derived from advertising technology, that hang from poles like quilts. Her subject is her roots in Cuba’s thriving Chinese community, and these photos were taken on a trip back to see her ancestral family...
April 19, 2004
The Star Ledger
BY Dan Bishcoff
Transcultural New Jersey, a Rutgers-inspired idea involving exhibitions at just about every major visual arts institution in the state, has a trifecta going on in Summit.
Not only does the show, "Unveiling the Image" at the New Jersey Center for Visual Arts, include the work of artists who hail from diverse cultures and were born, work or live in Jersey, the art makers are all also women.
That women artists are a special category, especially in New Jersey with its New York-beating number of female art administrators, seems an aesthetic no-brainer these days. Shows of women's work, and collections devoted to it, grow more numerous every year.
What is unique about the NJCVA's show is the way it brings relatively large-scale works by nine women artists together in a remarkably smooth and very handsome whole.
Maybe it's the rubber tire wall sculptures by Newark-born Chakaia Booker scattered throughout the gallery like unifying tropes, or the similar scale of the different artworks, culminating on the far back wall with Soyoo Hyunjoo Park's show-stopping quilted mural/painting, "Mother," a diptych nearly eight feet wide and seven feet tall.
Whatever the reason, "Unveiling the Image: Multicultural Women Artists” is both grand and irrepressibly optimistic, striking just the sort of generously upbeat note the organizers of Transcultural New Jersey hoped these shows might.
...Maria Lau of Jersey City uses a computer to print brilliantly colored photos on coated canvas, an increasingly popular technique derived from advertising technology, that hang from poles like quilts. Her subject is her roots in Cuba’s thriving Chinese community, and these photos were taken on a trip back to see her ancestral family...