4 Elements Studio ART EXPO 2023
An all local artists' holiday art sale & market
Black Friday, November 24, 2023 & Sat. November 25, 2023
Buy local, buy original, and support your community artists!
Painter Victor Lenuzza & LIVE Acrylic Painting Demonstrations!
Solo exhibition with a collection of oil and acrylic paintings
Utica, NY— The public is invited to view the solo exhibition of painter Victor Lenuzza at 4 Elements Studio satellite windows gallery located at 131 Genesee St. Utica. The exhibition can be viewed any time day or night from the Bleeker St. sidewalk or street view. This solo exhibition is a collection of oil and acrylic paintings.
The exhibition will be available for viewing Thursday, September 7, until November 9, 2023. Lenuzza will be doing a LIVE acrylic painting demonstration in the window of the RCIL building Bleeker St. sidewalk and street view on September 14, 2023 12:30-3:30pm and September 21, 2023, 12:30-3:30pm.
FRAGMENTS by Valentine Louafi
VALENTINE LOUAFI
I CUT PAPER. I CUT THE WORLD. MY BLADE IS MY BRUSH.
BIO
Valentine Louafi is a French paper cut artist based on Long Island, NY. She studied visual arts and 2D animated movies. Her Master's thesis encompassed the representation of silhouettes in animation movies and shadow theaters, highlighting the work of the German artist Lotte Reiniger, a pioneer in the animation industry, known as the Queen of the scissors. She started cutting silhouette portraits and puppets afterwards. She started her professional art career as a
paper cut artist in 2016, with her first exhibition in London. This was the jump start of everything. That same year she won her first group exhibition in NYC by being finalist of ReArtiste art competition. She has been exhibiting internationally ever since, been invited to artist residencies and to perform live cutting notably at Ozora Festival in Hungary. She is currently permanently represented by the French art galleries Carré d'Artistes.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I am fascinated by the human form and am driven by a will to highlight and magnify the Human beauty in all its diversity. I am documenting human connections and raw emotions. I cut on paper the universal and visceral emotions captured in furtive moments. Faces. Expressions. Fragments of paper like many fragments of soul, fragments of life, fragments of body. I transcript life on paper in a sharp, direct and abrupt way, playing with empty space and giving space to emotional intensities. My work has always been drawn to the representation of the silhouette. Its delicate sharpness, complex simplicity and strong contrasted nature evoke endless depth and meaning, triggering imagination and tricking the eye. My art is one of balance and emptiness, an ode to minimalism made of pure lines, light and shadow, drawn to the essential. The driving force behind my portraits is an enduring interest in people and cultural heritage, in the human spirit, its emotional resonance and the way over time it manifests in our relationships with others.
My work examines the personal and universal exchange found in contemporary portraiture, dialogues and relationships.
Stevia Ndoe Solo Exhibition at 4 Elements Studio
The Story of Melpomene • February 10 - March 17, 2023
Opening Reception Friday, February 10, 6:00 pm. • Free and Open to the Public.
Opening reception for solo exhibition of photographer, Stevia Ndoe. Drinks and light refreshments will be served.
Artist Statement
My art answers the questions my younger self was too scared to ask. Growing up in an immigrant’s household, I felt as though there were certain topics I was not allowed to ask, let alone think about. I grew up with the idea that I was lucky to be growing up in the “land of the free” and questioning anything about my position in society was basically forbidden. Now as a creative, I use my artistic tools and skills to investigate issues I am passionate about. Whether it be about black liberation, ableism, or the dynamic within my immigrant household, I use my art as a means for exploration and my artwork is a visualization of the questions I have been exploring since childhood. I am traditionally a fine arts photographer and I draw inspiration from artists Dawoud Bey, La Toya Ruby Fraiser, and Gordon Parks. Parks’s usage of photography as a means to expose the realities of life resonates deeply with me and I try to practice that through my art. I draw a lot of inspiration from Fraiser’s composition style, especially from her series “The Notion of Family.” Bey’s composition and the connection he makes with his subjects is the root of much of my work and encourages me to get more familiar to the people I take photos of. I aim for the viewers of my work to feel a part of my pieces, not just spectators. Much of my work is very personal and all-encompassing--it is meant to be immersive, not just seen. In a key minimalist approach with my photos, therefore they are not abstract at first glance, but are conceptually intriguing and philosophical. My goal for my work is to make my viewer ask more questions about themselves and their position in society. I want my artwork to not only be a statement of self-reflection but a call to action for those engaging with it. I started my trajectory into the arts as a film photographer and the skills I've learned from the medium (and continue to learn from it) are practices I use in my work every day. Because of the cost of film and film development, there is little room for error with the pictures I take. I only have so many frames to get the image I want and because of that, I am very meticulous when it comes to planning my personal projects. I create a scene in my mind, plan it out, and in one shot, I capture it the best I can. As I expand my artwork into other mediums and forms of photography, such as digital photography, I keep that same work ethic with me. Additionally, I love film because of how personal the film developing process is. I shoot, develop, scan, and print my own work and through this process, I feel a special sort of connection between mean the photos I take. I see them from the point they are an idea/sketch to their physical conception and because of that, it makes the process of creating all the more special and unique.
