Press for O+ Mural, Kingston O+ Festival 2018

7 New O+ Murals to Watch Out For 

by Marie Doyon, Chronogram, Oct 4, 2018

https://www.chronogram.com/hudsonvalley/7-new-o-murals-to-watch-out-for/Content?oid=6334858

O+ Festival to feature more than 50 bands, wellness and new murals in Kingston

by Brain Hubert, Daily Freeman, Oct 2, 2018

https://www.dailyfreeman.com/lifestyle/o-festival-to-feature-more-than-bands-wellness-and-new/article_502f1fea-c585-11e8-90fd-5b771e20a4e6.html

The lineup for the ninth annual O+ Kingston

O+ Kingston

Art, Music & Wellness Festival 

October 5-7, 2018 

http://opositivefestival.org/kingston/#lineup

Lindsey Wolkowicz has been selected to produce a public mural as a part of the 9th annual O+ Festival in Kingston, NY. Updates will follow as the project progresses in coming weeks. 

Every October during the O+ Kingston Festival, curators invite local and nationally/internationally known artists to make murals that respond to the annual festival theme. This year's theme is Shadows. These large scale works of public art reflect the history and culture of the city and its diverse population. 

Participating mural artists receive health and wellness care, including primary care, integrative medicine and massage therapy in the Artists' Clinic, as well as in-office dentistry and optometry. This exchange of the art of medicine for the medicine of art in one of the ways the nonprofit O+ (pronounced O positive) empowers communities to take control of their collective wellbeing. 

 

 

Lindsey A. Wolkowicz: Drawing Connections

https://madkingston.org/2018/04/24/lindsey-a-wolkowicz/

Lindsey A. Wolkowicz: Drawing Connections

Posted on April 24, 2018 by Rick Whelan 

When did you first know you were an artist?
Like many of the artists I know, I was the artist child in the family. But I believe that identity is something that is at once inherent and felt, as well as ascribed and cultivated. There are things we are told that we ARE as children because we have natural abilities in certain areas. There are things that we are good at, or that make us feel the way we want to feel, that we spend time and energy cultivating through work as a means with which to develop self-esteem and a sense of agency over our lives and identity. And then there are the things that we are drawn to, the things we desire and seek out, the things that make us feel at a heightened level, the things that connect us to some things and make us feel separate from others. The latter seems more connected to our experience of being us in our bodies in the world and that aspect seems to determine what is important to us, what we value and are willing to give ourselves over to, separate from anyone else’s expectations, experience or opinion.

Over the years, I have evaluated many times this label of artist and where it comes from. I have been faced with challenges that have forced me to make an active choice to continue to make work, to continue to occupy that space as I move through the world. It is perhaps through my realization that, as I saw and analyzed connections, I was observing differently that I inhabited that space of artist.

I remember going to a play as a small child at the Masonic Temple in Detroit and looking across the street. There stood a house that had clearly been burned out years before. Waiting outside I looked into the glassless windows of the house and saw a staircase still standing against the back wall. On three consecutive stairs grew three small saplings. This image stayed with me and, I am sure, still informs my work like so many images, observations and experiences that followed.

Favorite medium(s) you use to make art.
Drawing has always been at the center of my work though I work in whatever medium is appropriate to flesh out my ideas. I think in bodies of work, making several pieces that are, in my mind, meant to occupy a space together in order to complete each other’s thoughts. Most of the work is wall hanging surfaces of paper or wood, but some ideas have to occupy the same space as the body of the viewer, some have to be found in the world outside of the studio and some ideas have to move. I use photography as both a tool to keep my eyes and compositions sharp but also as a means for gathering reference imagery and have, at times, shot some video as a way to realize ideas.

My partner and I also work, about once a year, on an ongoing collaborative project, called Movement & Stillness. Whenever we return to that project, it helps me to clarify my ideas for an upcoming body of work and stretch my formal and conceptual thinking. She has a background in dance and performance, and brings her own experience of the world to the work. She and I agree upon a conceptual framework and a physical location or structure but then she comes to it with movement and ideas that are outside of anything that I could envision on my own. It is like an incredible conversation with the person I love and respect most in the world. It gets me out of the studio and out of my own head, pushing me beyond the boundaries of my own thinking and limits of my own vocabulary.

What are the most interesting new trends in your field? Is your work changing as a result?
Increasingly, over the course of the last decade, we have seen a reemergence of figurative work as a celebrated genre. After a long period of being devalued in comparison to abstraction, dismissed as romantic or simply about beauty or desire, the presence of the human body in visual art is being reframed through some pretty incredible, even revolutionary, work.

Furthermore, we see that the figurative work being made and celebrated now is no longer dominated by a Eurocentric, white, cisgendered male gazing at the female body as an object of desire. In my opinion, the most significant figurative work being put forward in the present moment is being produced by and of bodies that have historically been othered, objectified, oppressed or invisible: black and brown bodies, queer bodies, non-binary bodies, women presenting their own bodies, the bodies of the displaced, bodies dressed in something other than western or Christian adornments, and bodies of all sizes.

As a female-identified, queer figurative painter, this is thrilling. Artists from Kerry James Marshall to Mickalene Thomas, Ghada Amer, Zanele Muholi, Jenny Saville, Laylah Ali, Amy Sherald, Wangechi Mutu, Swoon, Clare Rojas, Catherine Opie, Nick Cave and Nicole Eisenman, to name just a few, as well as some incredible artists who are less well known, provide inspiration, permission, encouragement and a challenge to be as honest, as observant, as brave and vulnerable about who we are, where we are and what we want to be as we can.

Talk about your creative process – where/when do you get most of your ideas and how do you know a piece is ‘finished’?
Generally, bodies of work come out of a feeling, an experience or a situation I am wanting or needing to analyze, makes sense out of, let go of or gain/regain control over. When I get ahold of that core element, I then seek out spaces, structures and postures that seem to relate to that feeling, that place, and gather the references I feel I need to help me anchor those intangibles in the physical work. Photography allows me to grab at images quickly and take from them what I need later. Not overthink. I go through them, make edits and start to imagine pieces of various images layered on top of one another or in juxtaposition to one another.

In my drawings, figure, surface, lines, geometry and color simultaneously interrupt and support one another. Within three-dimensional space, objects and architectural surrounds are constructed to promote a physical and evocative connection with the body of the viewer. The work is not about representing a location but instead about presenting what is found there. The bodies exist in a situation as much as they do in a location. They seek to ground themselves in the “places” they occupy through their hands, feet, through touch and strength. But they are also nowhere. And so, at times the body is also absent from the structures I build. Intersecting lines, partial views of the body and planes of dislocated material produce windows into this experienced place. When both the formal language and the sense that I have presented a part of that feeling or experience or relationship – that “place” – as honestly and accurately as I can in that, that a piece feels resolved and I can move on to the next.

Do you also teach or are you strictly a creative artist? Who was your most influential mentor and why? How do you see the role of being a mentor?
I will admit that I am skeptical about the word mentor when it comes to my creative practice. My general feeling is that if you follow someone else too closely you will either end up getting lost or be disappointed. I have certainly had important teachers, both in and out of an academic environment, that have exposed me to experiences or ideas that have opened my thinking or pushed me to reassert my values in and out of the studio.

When others’ voices, or even my more self-critical voice, are too present in the studio, I find it hard to start, to move, [and feel] unclear about why I am making the choices I am making. I far prefer to go out in the world and gather and then be a solitary worker bee in the studio, protecting that productive space and inviting voices in my own time.

I am certainly moved or pushed by the work of others that I see. But more often than not, I go to music and words to propel my work forward. Outside of the studio, I underline passages with a push pencil so that I can return to them when I feel unsure. In the studio, I may have the music of a particular artist on that provides me with the right atmosphere, tempo or feeling, sometimes even singing the kind of words I need to hear or making me move a certain way through the space. When I am not playing music I “watch” documentaries in the studio. Rarely do I actually look at the screen, but there is something about receiving factual information, in a storytelling telling sequence that I can follow, that I find both comforting and rewarding. I love the learning that happens almost by osmosis as these films play in the background but there is something about having a toe in the act of listening that helps me keep a toe out of my own head. In other words, I invite these “voices” into the studio to keep me focused on doing and to keep me company on that line between emotional openness, impulse and rational decisions that I need to hold to keep moving forward in the studio.

What are you working on now?
We have a busy household and maintaining the studio work/life/family/day job balance is something that has to be consciously and constantly attended to. I am proud to say that I make work consistently and, while I could say “today I worked on” or “this body of work is,” ultimately the work is one endless continuum. It comes out of my ongoing process as a person [who is] seeking to understand herself in the world. I am comforted by this notion and it honestly relieves the pressure or internal judgment about whether the work is new enough, different enough, or enough in some quantitative way.

When I look back through my work, there is so much incremental change and it is all moving in a direction. I cannot fully perceive that direction and it does not help me to judge the pace with which I progress in it. I have to trust the process of working and I am a Mid-western worker at heart. The work is the constant so I have to believe that as long as I am making, something will happen, something will be “good,” ideas will change and grow and improve … as I will.

I show work regularly and am constantly navigating the business side of my studio practice with the making. Thankfully, there is a natural cycle I move through every year that allows me to compartmentalize these two very different modes a bit. I am also part of an artist representation program called Art Shape Mammoth, which is a non-profit committed to supporting artists by providing them with exhibition opportunities, access to community and creative public exchange. I am transitioning into doing some writing for them this year, in addition to being one of their represented artists, and that is a part of myself that I am excited to engage with in a focused way again.

I am also participating in Riley Johndonnell’s initiative, the Paint the Town Yellow campaign and exhibition with an exhibition and events throughout Kingston from March through May.

How has being in Kingston enhanced/inspired your work? What do you like best about living in Kingston/being involved with MAD? How long have you been here?
My family moved to Kingston in the summer of 2017 after a decade in Brooklyn. We were seeking a different rhythm, more immediate access to nature and a home to cultivate and call our own. It is a giant transition that we took head on and, as we realize that it is a long-term, still unfolding process, we are also trying to be patient with ourselves through it.

It is an opportunity for growth for all of us, and that is exhausting and exciting all at once. My daughter just being able to explore the outdoors alone has been an incredible benefit. She played in the snow with her friend for hours the other day without us and that simple joy would not have been possible at our Brooklyn apartment.

The move has also enhanced the quality of my life as a maker. Being able to build out a home studio so that I can establish a new live/work balance and not having the stability of my studio situation subject to landlords, shrinking spaces and rising rents is freeing. It also allows me to have more fluid movement between time with my family and time in the studio, which gives me a sense of consistency and integration in my practice that I have long desired.

There seems to be a wonderful, diverse active artist community in Kingston, which certainly influenced our initial choice to move here. I have only scratched the surface of it so far but it seems vibrant, active and supportive. We are excited to meet more people, see more work and continue to build our lives here.

Click to view CV.
Click to view statement and bio

www.lindseyawolkowicz.com

 

Color, Shape and She @ ARTBAR, Kingston, NY

Opening Reception
October 7th, 2017
5-9p.m.

artbargallery.com/exhibitions/

The Artbar is pleased to present a collective art exhibition: Color, Shape and She. This cutting edge exhibit explores the metaphysical breakdown of what “She” represents to the curators. Each artwork has been hand picked as a way to create a conversation amongst the artworks. The different genres and vantage points will create a landscape in a journey through a terrain of emotions that reflect color and shape.

The artist’s visual interpretations of this collective will be depicted through vibrant works of: figures, feelings, interactions, and the relationships that breathe life into “Color, Shape and She”. The featured artists are: Scott Ackerman, Ryan Myers, Stetzism, Dack, and Lindsey Wolkowicz.

The works range from fine art, mixed media to street art samplings. The “Color, Shape and She” exhibition embodies the creative innovation of a new generation of artists and the marks they are making to define today’s contemporary art scene.

Tympanum @ Wayfarers, Brooklyn NY

Opening Reception: October 6, 2017, 6-8pm
On view through October 22, 2017
Artist Talk and Q&A: October 22, 2017, 4-6pm

Tympanum brings together eight artists whose work examines the interface between the inner life and the outside world of the other through the membrane of the body. Presented by Art Shape Mammoth and curated by Erin Gleason, this exhibition at Wayfarers will be on view October 6-22, 2017. The opening reception is Friday, October 6 from 6-8pm, and an Artists Talk and Q&A will be held on Sunday, October 22 from 4-6pm.

Wayfarers is located at 1109 Dekalb Avenue in Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY 11221.

Artists Wendy Copp, Zachary Fabri, Leslie Fry, Paul Higham, Vishnu Seesahai, Sandra Stephens, Julie Ward, and Lindsey Wolkowicz all address the body as a tympanum between the outside world and our inner lives through the lenses of identity, technology, architecture, nature, and psychology. The tympanum, a thin, transparent membrane that separates the auditory canal from the middle ear, is obliquely stretched. As Jacques Derrida describes in his 1972 essay, “Tympan,” the tympanum also “squints,” separating the inner and outer world and determining the limits and truth of either side in direct proportion to its obliqueness. Through their works, these artists offer us the opportunity to squint, unlocking the double understanding of the membrane and unbalancing the pressures that correspond to either side. 

ARTWALK 2017, Kingston, NY

Saturday and Sunday
September 23rd and 24th, 2017

Lindsey Wolkowicz will open her newly constructed home studio to the public as a participant in the annual ARTWALK event in her new hometown of Kingston, NY.

Please visit artsmidhudson.org/artwalkkingston/ 
for information about participating artists and a map of all of the studios involved.

Language Orthodox @ Lewis Art Gallery, Millsaps College, Jackson, MS

August 21st to September 20th, 2017

Language Orthodox examines the personal commentaries artists evoke in their work. These works, stories emerged from historicity, manifested in a series of images both collective and individual. Each narration displayed in a variety of mediums focused as literal and non-literal expressions to communicate with the viewer.

The artists share nothing in particular between their works other than a statement of artistic practice itself. Artistic practice noted as a distinction from science or proof of real or unreal; Rather a form of language itself that allows communication to be interpretive between the viewer and artifact. Permitting the space for recurring opinions and succeeding dialogues in the wake of one’s view.

These works request and provide an open door for the viewer to retreat from the daily despotism of life’s routine and participate in an ongoing non-representational dialogue of communication that foreseeably has no need for an end to occur. Language Orthodox focuses not on the journeys close but a beginning expressed in works that can be continually reconsidered throughout time.

Like Smoke @ Equity Gallery, NYC

November 4 - December 4, 2016
Curated by Osman Can Yerebakan

Equity Gallery, 245 Broome Street, NY, NY 10002
Opening Reception: Friday, November 4, 6-8pm 
Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 12-6pm, and by appointment

Equity Gallery is pleased to present Like Smoke, a group exhibition curated by Osman Can Yerebakan and featuring works by Dan Fairbanks, Carl Ferrero, Daniel Greenfield-Campoverde, Hermes Payrhuber, Eric Rhein, Gwen Shockey, Pacifico Silano, Quay Quinn Wolf, Lindsey Wolkowicz, and Jade Yumang.

Adopting its title from an important component of Jean Genet’s only directorial effort, Un Chant d’Amour, the exhibition examines corporeality under the circumstance of physical absence. In Genet’s 1950 black and white silent film, two prisoners, also lovers, are confined to adjacent cells under the watch of an abusive guard who scrutinizes and suppresses their relationship and their struggles for physical contact. Eventually, the two prisoners embark on a dream-like hallucinatory encounter in which the smoke one blows to the other through the hole dividing them substitutes for their missing bodies.

The ten artists in this exhibition depict ways tactile surfaces and abstract imagery stand out to manifest carnality and figurative representation when the physical body is detached. Employing various mediums, each artist conveys earnest and intimate human feelings of longing beyond the body and its representative radiance, exceeding the limits of tangible presence toward meditative states. Furthermore, commenting on constant restraint and preconceptions queer identity face, the exhibition studies the portrayal of queer experience as a marginalized matter in society. Rendered into testimonies that are visually placid yet assertive in conveyance, the exhibition problematizes mainstream representations of queer aesthetics, challenging fixed notions and representations on mutual contact and solidarity.

Raising questions on body politics and the systematic oppression of the body as an objectified entity, the artists in the exhibition dismantle and redefine patterns for self-expression. On the other hand, analyzing the paradox of absent body, works selected approach the subject matter as a psychological argument in which the artists delve into depths of their subconsciouses to ponder self-discovery while facing a physical and mental void.

About Artists Equity

New York Artists Equity Association, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 1947 by artists and art patrons with the mission to promote opportunities for artists. It operates Equity Gallery, an art space located on the Lower East Side of New York City. For more information, please visit www.nyartistsequity.org

Dis-sec-tion @ Downtown Artery, Fort Collins, CO

Curated by Anna Hultin

Downtown Artery, 254 Linden St, Fort Collins, Colorado 80524
Exhibition Dates: Sept. 1 - Sept. 13, 2016
Opening Reception: Sept. 1, 6pm - 10pm
Gallery Hours: Tues. - Sat., 12pm - 6pm

"Dis·sec·tion" 
noun: dissection; plural noun: dissections
1. the action of dissecting a body or plant to study its internal parts. 
○ synonyms: cutting up/open, dismemberment; 
2. very detailed analysis of a text or idea.

To create a successful work of art an artist must constantly be dissecting ideas and aesthetics. What works well in one piece or situation may not in the next so they must cut, edit and begin anew with the remnants of what was once created. Dissection features work by Joan Harmon, Kristen Tordella-Williams and Lindsey Wolkowicz. Each piece investigates either the dissection of an idea or an aesthetic element, and the artists themselves exhibit the ability to delve into their concepts to create a detailed analysis of their ideas through their art practice.

Joan Harmon, Kristen Tordella-Williams and Lindsey Wolkowicz are members of Art Shape Mammoth; a non-profit organization cultivating arts research, education, and dialogue by supporting the development of artists and by connecting them with new communities.

Into The Woods @ Morris-Warren Gallery NYC

Morris-Warren Gallery presents
an Evening with the Artists of "Into The Woods" 
Saturday, December 12 at 7pm

You're invited to mix and mingle with the artists among their works before the show soon comes to a close.

Featuring: Aimee Burg, Nicholas Cueva, Adam Frezza & Terri Chiao, Jytte Hoy, Jon Legere, Gregory MacAvoy, Esperanza Mayobre, Abraham McNally, Jason Middlebrook, Jim Osman, Kardash Onnig, Cordy Ryman, Darragh Rooney, Jill Satterfield, Frank Shattuck, Steve Silver, Peter Thorne, Lindsey Wolkowicz

Evening with the Artists: December 12 at 7pm
On view November 14 – December 20, 2015
Morris-Warren Gallery
171 Chrystie Street
New York, NY 10002

"Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life." –Herman Hesse, excerpt 'On Trees'

Morris-Warren Gallery is pleased to present “Into The Woods”, a group show featuring Aimee Burg, Nicholas Cueva, Adam Frezza & Terri Chiao, Jytte Hoy, Jon Legere, Gregory MacAvoy, Esperanza Mayobre, Abraham McNally, Jason Middlebrook, Jim Osman, Kardash Onnig, Cordy Ryman, Darragh Rooney, Jill Satterfield, Frank Shattuck, Steve Silver, Peter Thorne, and Lindsey Wolkowicz. The artists in this show are all using wood in one form or another as the medium for their work.

Complicated Labors

Dillon Paul and I have had our piece "In Place" included in an incredible exhibition which is taking place in conjunction with the symposium Complicated Labors: feminism, maternity and creative practice.

More info can be found on the symposium website here:

artstream.ucsc.edu/complicatedlabors/

GALLERY SHOW: 
February 5 - March 15, 2014, Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery
Curated by Irene Lusztig

Artists: Lenka Clayton, Mary Kelly, Natalie Loveless, Irene Lusztig, Jill Miller, Mother Art Collective, Alejandra Herrera Silva, Mierle Laderman Ukeles

Also featuring a screening series of work by: Myrel Chernick, Mark Cooley, Celia Cooley, and Beth Hall, Masha Godovannaya, Courtney Kessel, Ellina Kevorkian, Dillon Paul and Lindsey Wolkowicz

Opening Reception: February 5, 5:00-7:00pm

COMPLICATED LABORS SYMPOSIUM: 
February 5, 2014, 10 AM - 5 PM, Digital Arts Research Center, Room 306 (DARC Light Lab)

Organized by Micah Perks and Irene Lusztig
Keynote talk by Mary Kelly

Symposium participants: Amra Brooks, Jennifer González, Mary Kelly, Natalie Loveless, Irene Lusztig, Jill Miller, Megan Moodie, Kate Moses, Micah Perks, Carmen Giménez Smith, Michelle Tea and Mother Art Collective (members Deborah Krall, Suzanne Siegel, Laura Silagi).

Dashboard Co-Op 2014 Artists Announced

This week it was officially announced that I have been selected as one of twelve Dashboard Co-Op Artists for 2014. My work will be exhibited in Atlanta next February with these other incredible artists. More info on the exhibition to come but, in the meantime, check out the website for the Co-Op and the work of the artists included in this exciting year of art and ideas.

http://www.dashboard.us/cosms

THE GALLERY AT BAG PRESENTS THE FIGURE NOW

Two drawings have been included in a group show, The Figure Now, at Brooklyn Artists Gym. You can see the press release below or visit BAG's website here: www.brooklynartistsgym.com

THE GALLERY AT BAG PRESENTS THE FIGURE NOW

The Figure Now 
On view Saturday, February 11th through Monday, February 27th
Brooklyn Artists Gym

(Brooklyn, NY — February 3, 2012) The Gallery at BAG is proud to present The Figure Now, an exhibition showcasing figurative works by ten local and international artists.

The Figure Now offers viewers an array of figurative paintings and drawings with imagery ranging from representational to abstract in a variety of media. The extensive scope of style is also shown through the distinct scales, themes, narratives, and techniques that each
of the artists employ. The artwork’s contemporary settings distinguish these pieces from historical precedents concerning figurative work.

Please join The Gallery at BAG for the opening reception of The Figure Now on Saturday, February 11th from 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Participating artists: 
Rhia Hurt, Allison Maletz, Daina Mattis, Ann Marie Napoli, David Pettibone, Alexa de los Reyes, Rachel Sharp, Jane Westrick, Lindsey Wolkowicz, and Debra Zechowski