The collaborative works of Dan Barry and Jana Brike:

Dan Barry and Jana Brike initially met as many creative people do these days - via social media. Their chance online meeting quickly evolved, however, into a true friendship and collaborative working relationship, the great distance between Austin, Texas and Riga, Latvia notwithstanding. For several years, Dan and Jana have been co-creating artworks, each adding touches in their own studios and then periodically sending the works-in-progress back and forth via the postal service. The result is a collection of emotionally charged, texturally beautiful pieces that intriguingly blend both artists’ idiosyncratic styles. As solo artists, Barry and Brike have each exhibited extensively in the United States and Europe. They will be showing their artworks along side of one another in June 2013 in Bangkok, Thailand.

	collaborative works by Dan Barry (Austin, TX) and Jana Brike (Riga, Latvia) pencil and collage on paper 2011 - 2012.

Digital Paintings by Sonya Fu

Sonya Fu (Chinese name 傅敏兒 Fu Man Yi) is a self-taught artist based in Hong Kong. In 2011, she was endorsed by the international creative conference"Semi-Permanent" as a new and notable artist of Hong Kong and awarded by "Perspective Magazine" as one of the ‘40 creative talent under the age of 40’ in Asia. Fu has participated in many national and international art exhibitions. Her chosen medium is digital painting which encompasses an intricate and unique process. Fu’s work is inspired by dreams, music and the human condition filling her work with subtle messages leaving the viewer to develop their own interpretation. Sonya quotes “My art can be disturbing to the audience, but this is my interpretation of life and the perspective of the many aspects of my everyday encounters. If my work manages to scare, sadden, excite or inspire people, then I am doing the right thing as an artist – creating and conveying emotion.”

	digital paintings by Sonya Fu (Hong Kong) limited edition giclee prints 2010 - 2012.

The etchings and drawings of Darcilio Lima (1944 - 1991)

a catalog of the works of Darcilio Lima will be available at The Metro Show with foreword by Barbara Safarova and essay by Guilherme Gutman

"The divinatory power of this androgynous being is more than just anticipating the future. It is as if to “say” could provoke the destiny, produce the event itself. This may be one of the essential qualities that the monstrous fairy shares with the artist himself. For Lima to draw is to trace a sacred space — to avoid being devoured? —, to ward off the invisible. His gesture of disseminating hermetic symbols by association becomes an operative phenomenon similar to geomancy, his way of accomplishing a process the aim of which is the transmutation of his own self." excepted from "Darcílio Lima’s Opus Magnum" by Barbara Safarova

		Darcilio Lima (1944 - 1991)

Paintings by Steven Baines

Steven Baines paintings aim to be metaphors for the passage of time, the brevity of human life. They often continue the traditions of Vanitas and Momento Mori paintings. However they are not heavy or morbid. They are optimistic and humorous, like sad, dark lyrics in a catchy lighthearted melody. Sometimes within romantic settings and other times within bright bold abstractions, figurative images have been chosen for their symbolic value to represent the fragile and transitory nature of life: luxuriantly plumed birds, moths, bubbles, skulls, UFOs..Steven Baines lives and works in New York City and has exhibited extensively..

	Paintings by Steven Baines (New York City) oil on canvas 2010 - 2012

 

The manipulated photographs of William Mortensen.

The works of William Mortensen can be seen at the Metropolitian Museum of Art NYC in the first major exhibtion devoted to the history of manipulated photography before the digital age  "Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop " October 11 - January 27 2013.

William Mortensen (1897–1965) was an American Photographer, primarily known for his Hollywood portraits in the 1920s-1940s in the pictorialist style. Mortensen began his photographic career taking portraits of Hollywood actors and film stills. In 1931, Mortensen moved to the artist community of Laguna Beach, CA where he opened a studio and the William Mortensen School of Photography. He preferred the pictorialism style of manipulating photographs to produce romanticist painting-like effects. The style brought him criticism from straight phtographers of the modern realist movement and, in particular, he carried on a prolonged written debate with Ansel Adams.

His arguments defending romanticism photography led him to be "ostracized from most authoritative canons of photographic history.In an essay, Larry Lytle wrote "Due to his approach—both technically and philosophically in opposition to straight or purist adherents — he is amongst the most problematic figures in photography in the twentieth-century... historians and critics have described his images as "...anecdotal, highly sentimental, mildly erotic hand-colored prints...", "...bowdlerized versions of garage calendar pin-ups and sadomasochist entertainments...", "...contrived set-ups and sappy facial expressions...", and finally he was described by Ansel Adams as alternately the "Devil", and "the anti-Christ".

		photographs of WIlliam Mortensen.

Paintings by Limor Gasko

Limor Gasko's paintings explore our learned and premediatated reactions and beliefs about the relationship between beauty and art, attempting to boil down it's essential nature by creating works void of cynicism that are pleasing to the senses in ways that painting can only be, eminating a seductive siren song of sublime intimacy. Limor's works can best be described as golems. Adam was initially created as a golem (גולם) when his dust was "kneaded into a shapeless husk." Like Adam, all golems are created from mud. They were a creation of those who were very holy and close to God, and held powers of creation.. One of these powers was the creation of life. However, no matter how holy a person became, a being created by that person would be but a shadow of one created by God. Limor Gasko's painting of fake animals next to nature are her golems. Limor Gasko lives and works in Brooklyn New York, and has shown her work in several prominent galleries.

	Paintings by Limor Gasko (Brooklyn NY) oil on canvas 2012.

Photographs by Morton Bartlett (Boston Mass)

The works of Morton Bartlett can be seen at the New Museum NYC in the exhibition "Rosemarie Trockel: A Cosmos" October 24 - January 20 2013.

Morton Bartlett (Boston 1909–1992) was an American freelance photographer and graphic designer who, from 1936 to 1963, devoted much of his spare time to creating and photographing a series of intricately carved lifelike plaster dolls. He never formally exhibited his work, though a small circle of friends and acquaintances was aware of its existence. Only upon his death in 1992, when the contents of his estate were sold off, did his artistic creations become more widely known to the general public.

	Photographs by Morton Bartlett (Boston Mass)

 

Charles A.A. Dellschau (1830 - 1923)

THE METRO SHOW WILL BE THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY TO PREVIEW THE FORTHCOMING MARQUAND / DAP ARTBOOK MONOGRAPH ON CHARLES DELLSCHAU

In the fall of 1899, Charles A.A. Dellschau (1830–1923), a retired butcher from Houston, embarked on a project that would occupy him for more than twenty years. What began as an illustrated manuscript recounting his experiences in the California Gold Rush became an obsessive project resulting in twelve large, hand-bound books with more than 2,500 drawings related to airships and the development of flight. Dellschau’s designs resemble traditional hot air balloons augmented with fantastic visual details, collage and text. The hand-drawn “Aeros” were interspersed with collaged pages called “Press Blooms,” featuring thousands of newspaper clippings related to the political events and technological advances of the period.

After the artist’s death in 1923, the books were stored in the attic of the family home in Houston. In the aftermath of a fire in the 1960s, they were dumped on the sidewalk and salvaged by a junk dealer, and later owned, studied and preserved by a local artist who for twenty years was preoccupied  with their  mysteries. Eight books made their way into the collections of the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Witte Museum and the Menil Collection; the remainder were sold to a private collector, and made their way into the art world.  Dellschau’s works have since been collected by numerous other museums including the American Folk Art Museum, the High Museum, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Museum of Everything in London, and ABCD Foundation Paris all have major holdings of this artists works.. Like the eccentric outpourings of Adolf Wölfli, Henry Darger and Achilles Rizzoli, these private works were not created for the art world, but to satisfy a driving internal creative force. Dreamer, optimist and visionary, Charles Dellschau is one of the earliest documented self taught visionary artists known in America.

		Charles A.A. Dellschau (1830 - 1923)

 

The Drawings of Ray Robinson .

Ray Robinson, born in the U.K. in 1931, and pursued a career as a mathemetician. He later gradutated from the Slade school of art. Reg Butler was his tutor and later his friend…….he lent him his studio at the Slade while he was studying there.

He spent the day with Henry Moore had tea and talk of his work. Auerbach and Hodgson were friends. Shared a show with David Hockney in his early days, shared a show of Drawing with Giacometti in the ‘Chairs’ Exhibition at the Modern Art Museum in Montreal. Took part in the first Pop Art Exhibition. Got drunk with Larry Rivers and Bridget Riley. Had a stand up fight with Ken Armitage. Was hated by Caro, Joe Tilson and the Cohens. Was insulted in public by Victor Pasmore. Sir William Coldstream wrote him a reference and bought one of his drawings. Had a painting stolen from a Gallery in Toronto. And has either been friends with…….enemies with…….worked with…..or taught most of the first rank Artist of the last 45 years! AND a great deal more!, his profound respect for the teaching of Lao Tsu and works of the British painter David Bomberg has led him on an artistic exploration that has seen him gain the attention and support of such luminaries as Willem De Kooning and Pierre Matisse. In 1984, the great collector Jake Moore comissioned Ray Robinson to create a chess set that remains to this day in the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Of his drawings, Robinson says "NO ONE CAN MAKE A JAPANESE TEA CEREMONY BOWL.......THEY GROW FROM THE HANDS OF THE MASTER AND THE NEEDS OF THE CLAY.......THE MASTER ALLOWS."

		Mixed media drawings by Ray Robinson (1932)

Other highlights will include works by Self Taught Masters James Castle, Martin Ramirez, Odd Fellow Lodge artifacts, Chinese Reverse Glass Painting, 18th Century American carvings, vintage space euphemera, and several other un_nanounced surprises.

For further information or visuals please contact Stephen Romano 646 709 4725 or romanostephen@gmail.com