When the thoughts come instantaneous, like the speed of light, sharp, like a scream, heavy, like a tractor trailer, there’s only one thing the artist can do: unload. it might happen slowly, with measured brooding, equal parts pleasure and pain. it might be a gold medal. or a losing lottery ticket. it doesn’t matter. the simple expression of the compulsion is the high. * he knows his art will not go inviolate. but he doesn’t care. he knows it could be his canon. but he doesn’t care. he might even know it will be great. but he’s sure it doesn’t matter. * the hungry voyeur watches from the corner, the gallery or the mall, and judges, sweaty and anxious. raining the artist with his words. pumping his fists in misunderstanding. * along comes a writer. a nurse. a roadie. a slice of dry toast. reckoning. * art will not save the world. it will not improve quantum physics. it will not remedy injustice. but it does remind us of our humanity. it makes us witness. * there are a multitude of ways to be an artist. these pages celebrate ten of long island’s brightest modern artists. because they have done all of these things. they have sometimes failed. or so we say. but they advance in their pursuits. and they will continue to invent, bolstering the infinitely expanding spirit of man. they interpret. message. reflect us into ourselves. they translate. and they restore a little of what is lost everyday. * they must have shows. somewhere, somehow, at least once per year. they must have history. they must be nominated by curators, art hounds, journalists and other artists. they must live by art, their own, and others’. they must be doing something different. and they are. all of it.
5th Annual Artist VIP List: Scott McIntire
The trick of iconography is to portray the marvelous in the immediate to make it accessible.
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5th Annual Artist VIP List: Almond Zigmund
Almond Zigmund wants you to laugh at her artwork—or laugh with them, that is. She mingles a unique collection of patterns and shocking palettes on flat planes that appear multi-dimensional and leave you wondering, “What’s in front? What’s in back… How did I get here?”
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5th Annual Artist VIP List: Lillian Dodson
After painting bright, expressionistic works for years, Lillian Dodson suddenly, somewhat accidentally, “fell in love with clay and my life changed when I touched it…but I don’t think I can explain what that was.”
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5th Annual Artist VIP List: Roseline Koener
When you think of African tribal art, delicate papers in pinks and blues are probably not the first things you think of. But to look at this artist’s totem-like creations of assemblage is to hear the drums and agree that her “work is about making music through colors.”
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5th Annual Artist VIP List: Rachelle Krieger
It takes a pretty bold person to attempt to capture the sky. And a pretty humble artist to catch it. It’s a gentle balance and it is the aim of this painter who uses sumi-e ink and watercolors, drawing, scraping and scratching at the boards that host her exploration of surrealism: “I’m trying to get a little lyrical.”
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5th Annual Artist VIP List: Paul Pavia
Typically, when a sculptor works on a piece, s/he will bring it along through conception and design, but send the mold off to a foundry for the final, actual sculpting. This sculptor’s process differs in almost every way—he cuts up pieces of bronze and welds them together and then, usually, adds a patina in brown, black or green.
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5th Annual Artist VIP List: Ben Owens
Owens is an artist’s artist—all exploration, no apologies. He uses any means possible to move forward in his pursuits (wood carving, illustration, classical painting), and maintains his personal “country sensibility” by leaning on purposeful idioms and bending the pillars of machismo rather than succumbing to the art world’s latest gimmicks.
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5th Annual Artist VIP List: Felicitas Wetter
Manual pursuits can be the most intensive, physical and, therefore, solitary of all. Viscosity Etching is just such a process, requiring as much patience as skill.
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5th Annual Artist VIP List: Dalton Portella
There are some paintings you stare and stare at, but no matter how much you see, you can’t figure them out. So you go back and stare some more. Still nothing. And then it hits you—it’s because the painting is looking back at you, and in its reflection of you, it’s as if you’re looking through yourself.
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5th Annual Artist VIP List: Vicki Ragan
Despite the thousands of miniature objects she has collected to stage her art, Vicki Ragan is attached to a gauzy, gossamer dress. This “muse” is a constant in her work, appearing in a multitude of settings as a depiction of the “human spirit, the presence of a person without the person.”
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to be considered for next year’s list, please mail or email your
attention to li pulse headquarters attn: artist list.