The White Room Gallery presents POETRY IN MOTION featuring Stuart Yankell with Taylor Smith in the Black Room on view September 10 through October 13.
September 6, 2024: The White Room Gallery, 3 Railroad Avenue in East Hampton, will present POETRY IN MOTON featuring Stuart Yaknell with Taylor Smith in the black room from September 14 through October13, 2024. There will be on opening reception on Saturday, September 14 from 5-7pm. The exhibition will be on view
CURATORS QUOTE
Something that moves in a way that is very graceful and beautiful is the definition of the phrase poetry in motion and the ideal way to describe featured artist Stuart Yankell who combines abstraction with a kinetic approach rooted in classical lighting and form. With a masters in fine arts and an immersion in the world of sculpture, Yankell brings dancers, musicians, surfers and cafes to life with sensuous brush strokes and color palettes that embody the fluidity and movement style fist championed by French impressionist painters Manet and Cortes. The art critic Burton Wasserman said “Seeing Yankell’s paintings with your eyes is to soon feel them refreshing your heart and mind as they produce visions of joy at the center of your being.” Yankell’s work has been displayed in museums and galleries throughout the world. Collectors include Dave Matthews, Carlos Santana, M. Night Shyamalan and The Gypsy Kings and Soledad Barrio among others.
Featured in The Black Room is Taylor Smith who achieves poetry in motion with the use of floppy disks. The perfect placement of the disks creates famed figures like James Bond, John Wayne, David Bowie and Mohammed Ali in larger-than-life pieces. Champagne, skulls and a boombox round out the collection. Taylor is a multimedia artist whose work examines discarded technology, popular culture and consumerism. She has exhibited in North America and Europe. High profile collections include the Eli Lilly permanent collection, the Madeleine Albright collection and the Cleve Carney Museum of Art among others.
Poetry In Motion exhibit is proof that two very different artists can achieve the same effect.
Stuart Yankell’s work celebrates life and the common fabric of humanity. Combining abstraction with a kinetic approach rooted in classical lighting and form, he embraces historical convention while seeking to expand the language of art. For nearly four decades, Yankell has painted a multitude of musical and dance forms, as well as figurative themes based on a broad range of universal settings. He has traveled to nearly twenty countries, and his works are developed through a combination of on-site painting, studio work with live models, and the forces of instinct and imagination.
“The goal of Stuart Yankell’s work,” author William Abrams writes, “is to convey something essential about our existence that is at once both truthful and affirming.” Using large brushes attached to bamboo poles, his strokes are broad and visceral, yet at the same time precise. He has long been a student of Asian culture and the Martial and Healing Arts, and has sought to bring something ceremonial to his artisitc process, analogous to a dance or fencing ritual. Moving between realism and abstraction, Yankell’s painting is about seeing, depicting both the focus and periphery of natural vision. Seen up close, the works are entirely abstract, undulating with textural variations. At a distance however, the images crystallize and come to life in the mind of the viewer. The art critic Burton Wasserman said “seeing Yankell’s paintings with your eyes is to soon feel them refreshing your heart and mind as they produce visions of joy at the center of your being.”
Yankell was trained in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the University of Pennsylvania and the Frudakis Sculpture Academy. He also studied in Italy at Temple University, and has taught painting and art history at the university level over the course of his career. Yankell is also known for his portraiture, and has been commissioned to paint a variety of business, political and academic figures for public and corporate collections, as well as children and families. Recent collectors in the entertainment industry include Dave Matthews, Carlos Santana, Ravi Coltrane, Natalie Merchant and both Wynton and Branford Marsalis. Stuart Yankell’s work has earned place in the vanguard of contemporary figurative painting and has been displayed in museums and galleries throughout the world.
Taylor Smith is a multimedia artist whose work examines discarded technology, popular culture and consumerism.
Smith uses a wide variety of materials and mediums, including reclaimed silk screen frames, luxury brands and commercial packaging, 8mm film, street advertisements, reappropriated paintings, and, more recently, floppy diskettes.
Throughout her many bodies of work, Smith re-contextualizes evocative and recognizable imagery to explore social awareness through abstraction and figuration with elements of science and technology, traditional still life and portraiture.
Smith has exhibited in North America and Europe, and she has works in many high profile collections, including the Eli Lilly permanent collection, the Madeleine Albright collection, the Cleve Carney Museum of Art and many others.
The White Room Gallery
3 Railroad Avenue
East Hampton, NY 11937
www.thewhiteroom.gallery
OPEN 12-5pm
Wed to Sunday
