You like espousing ethics and break
promises in the same breath,
you say you value communication, but here’s the silence I
got instead.
You wanted trust, but pulled away before we’d even built a foundation
you said you like to give, but push came to shove and all I got was the taking.
Victoria: animations and posture/figure speed drawings
Susan: Watercolor and first drafting for a long term painting project
Enter a caption
Two of the greatest fruits of my first job.
Examining intellectual men.
I implore my girlfriends for the memory stocked #selfie
This too for memories.
Enter a caption
A joyful trick of the eye. This is cast bronze, not clay.
A close view at the faces and you’ll see they are all the same. A simple view of self-potraiture
Lips
A body, un-indentified. The pen/pencil, a door of entry to the mind.
The floor itself acts as a canvas, like a painting as it’s been stretched and staples onto a wooden board acting as perimeter to the room. Thoughtful! Process oriented.
Mark Manders: Writing Yellow on view at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, 521 W. 21st St. On view until May 24, 2019
René Magritte
A rather tempered work of Hieronymus Bosch:
Hieronymus Bosch
Siren-like beauties– very much like the Valentino SS 2015 Campaign. I’d say almost identical in interpretation. I’m not sure about the strength of Leonor Fini’s other works, but my goodness, to have this in my home:
Leonor Fini
Things that make my childlike soul go hop!:
Amazing mastery of painting, and the chemistry between the movement of the waves vs. the wood like whorls of the levitating mass:
Max Ernst
The power of women:
The detailing and lifework on this was superior:
Richard Humphry
Birds and wood:
Herri met de Bles
This is my wonderful CG. It’s crazy to think that I’ve only known my friends here for a little over 3 months.
As a CG, we convene every week as a means to deepen our relationship with God and engage in fellowship. Here, I find myself being fed not just spiritually, but intellectually, physically, and emotionally. It’s almost indescribable to explain the encompassing and enormous nature of the benefits and joy I’ve received from these gatherings. I’ve also noticed that I’ve become more alert and acquired a heightened sensitivity to the going-ons in the world around me… to the conflicts and celebrations arising day by day in the personal lives of those I care about and also of those I was previously indifferent to.
Every week, we challenge each other with our questions regarding issues present in our world and current events, and around scripture; we ask each other about our careers, our job searches, our physical well-being – whether that leg is feeling better and how much exercise it’s taking, whether x project/x presentation last week went well; we rapidly learn intensely personal things about each other (exhibiting an unbelievable level of vulnerability and trust) I’m not sure I’ve ever learned this quickly in my other relationships.
We build one another up, and the effects of this is enduring and lasting throughout the week. Together, we actively seek and discuss ways to address and alleviate the hurt rampant in the broken world around us and to better each other as young citizens and humans bonded by a common belief.
Sometimes I wonder if without this CG, I’d have ever befriended them or have even crossed paths with them. We all come from very different backgrounds and paths in life, and our personalities range across the entire color spectrum; it really would be hard to explain our deep friendships in relation to our compatibilities in the traditional sense of the word here.
Yet, these people have quickly become a home to me unlike any other I’ve found, and I can’t imagine a world not knowing them and not loving them.
I only wish I could explain to you better just how good this feels. How good he is to me.
Bises,
Soo
Some weekends ago, I met up for lunch with Jee, a dear friend of mine and talented retail analyst and curator.  Having stuffed ourselves with the scrumptious food to be had over at Moma’s Cafe, we decided to partake in a much needed stroll over at MoMA’s permanent collections. Our promenade around MoMA’s floors was backed by the soft, intermittent patterings of female chatter– a soundtrack characteristic of a robust friendship such as ours. The program for the day revolved around the kinds of art we each liked and didn’t like.
Got to see our favorite art together, Jee’s Chagall to my Magritte. Jee brought me to see this painting by Chagall. Marc Chagall was a French-Russian artist who was well regarded for masterfully synthesizing multiple art forms. This painting, I and the Village, boasts and imaginative and buoyant spirit though its bright color schemes and dream-like qualities. It’s said that the painting was meant to be a visual home for his memory of and relationship with the homeland he grew up in. I go back to my own memories of my childhood, and am content and grateful to feel things kindred to the ones here.
I decided I wanted to emulate the painting’s spirit fully and be the horse– quickly remembered this is a public space and venerable museum– so I stopped.
I’ve always been fascinated by the individualities of seeing, how two people can regard the same object and come out with very different perceptions. So often do I come across a situation where one person finds something to be profoundly beautiful/good, while another comes to the polar opposite, yet equally certain conclusion for it (take this entire US election debacle, like how is that possible??! but the fact of the matter is, it is).
This conundrum is something I desire to understand on a deeper level: Â What are the makeups that have constructed the way you and I presently see and react to the realities and the stimuli around us?
What are the recurring laws or patterns if any, that can help me to understand? Maybe a knowledge in perceptual psychology, neuroscience (Read this fascinating article on how political orientations are correlated with brain structure in young adults), and an aptitude for emotional intelligence would help, mais quoi d’autre?
I know that for me at least, art helps to explore this question further. In this practice of seeing, I am able to dig a little deeper into myself – my memories, my feelings, my hopes, my disappointments, & the thoughts and the hearts of the people in my circle. And in doing so, I find I understand life a little bit better.
I wonder what devices you rely on to see.
Happy Election Eve..
Bises,
Soo
Osamu Yokonami is a Japanese artist and photographer based in Tokyo who devotes his lenses to the development of photographs contemplating homogeneity. His group portraitures are regarded for invoking notions about identity, the collective, naturality, and youth.
Could be wrong, but pretty sure this is the photo that first pulled me to Yokanami.
I first became acquainted with Yokonami’s works at De Soto Gallery’s exhibition at the 2015 PULSE Art Fair in New York. His “Assembly” series was on display that day, and it most piqued my interest out of the swarms of art set out for many an art viewer’s purveyance. I ended up finding myself walking back to that booth section multiple times that Saturday afternoon, and since then, I’ve been  following Yokonami’s activities for nearly two years now (that’s what good art does to you peeps).
I find pleasure  in the idyllic qualities and the strange calm surrounding the odd  symmetries of his photographs- unsettling, a little disconcerting, and also very beautiful.
I don’t really know what exactly I feel when I see his photographs, it doesn’t remove me and it doesn’t forcefully push me to a place where I’m aggressively thinking about an issue, a topic, or a stance.
Yokonami invites us to dwell on the journey for truth rather than the desination, I think. Or that’s what I feel.
The closest description I could put in regards to Yokonami’s effect on me is that his works put me in a deliberate state of an “in between” (As I see it, my mind occupies at this moment of seeing a super charged space with elements ie. high stimulation + calm + little sparkly little things firing everywhere in harmonious and  purposeful direction, but I can’t really determine the end of where they’re going (not sure there’s supposed to be one, or if that’s the even the point/goal)). I feel curiosity seeing his works and pondering on them is an experience beatific.
Scroll through his series of 100×2 photos of female children posed with fruits (apples and oranges) on their shoulders– and you’ll feel something too I bet.
D
Personalities and energies of the children I found myself gravitating towards –felt increasingly in this descending order.
Bises,
Soo
Letters by Soo 