by Patrick Ogle

Tania Khoury's interactive performance pieces--Gardens Speak and As Far As My Fingertips Take Me were traumatizing and moving during Miami Art Week 2017.

Describing these does not do them justice.

Gardens Speak, in particular, is far more than the sum of its parts. Participants are given a card, with a name in Arabic and then brought into a room with gravestones in dirt. You then climb into the dirt and have to dig down until you can hear talking. The voice, the name on the card and on the grave marker, is an actual person killed in Syria at various points in the nation's recent history. They tell you their story.

The piece is much more than the description above. It was a profound experience of the sort you rarely get from any art of any sort. It brings you, as much as is possible, into the life and death of a real human being. You walk away feeling for them.

As Far As My Fingertips Take Me brings you the experience of a recent Syrian refugee. You listen while a tattoo artist draws the story on your arm. Less disturbing and not traumatizing though this is , the tactile part of it is moving. Your arm is placed through a hole in a wall. While you can feel, you cannot see. This mirrors how we empathize with refugees; we can see what they go through, we can empathize but we really cannot experience their lives in a meaningful way.

Find out more about the artist at taniaelkhoury.com.

I asked Khoury one question--what does she want US to take away from her pieces. It is a nuanced response. She doesn't feel she important in her work, ergo she did not want the video to be of her.

photos by Boyd Ogle II

Galerie Rother Winter (Wiesbaden) showed work by Rainer Gross at Art Miami 2017.

Find out more at the gallery website,  www.rother-winter.de/de.

photos by Boyd Ogle II

Arthur Roger Gallery (New Orleans) showed work by David Bates, Lesley Dill, Holton Rower and Luis Cruz Azaceta at Art Miami 2017.

There is a fairly solid chance this gallery was one of the first you saw when attending Art Miami. This is unfortunate for the galleries to follow since the quality of the diverse work they showed is remarkable.

The Unicorn Gallery (Milan) showed work by  Previtali Paolo and Asbel G. Dumpierre at Aqua Miami 2017.

The gallery is directed by Anna Gnocchi, a Milan native. They operate not only in Milan but in Miami and Buenos Aires. Find out more my clicking on the gallery name above.

AC Contemporary (Buenos Aires) showed work by Yuki Yamamoto at Aqua Miami 2018.

Yamamoto was born in Argentina, spent her youth in Japan and now lives in Chile. She majored in art restoration at the Catholic University in Santiago. It is a fascinating major for an artist in that it implies a long term commitment to art--and art beyond her own. She was employed restoring art for a period. She worked for ten years in restoration.

It is difficult to imagine a more intensive and extensive career foundation for any fine artist. Imagine the attention to detail required to do the work and how much you learn about composition in the process. And, of course, restoration is done on work in a variety of styles and media.

For the past decade Yamamoto has devoted herself to painting. Her work reminds of some art of the Caribbean. Much of her work resembles these pieces but is on canvas.

You can see more on the artist at www.yukiyamamoto.cl.

Aureus Contemporary (Rhode Island) showed work by Erik Ritter at Aqua Art Miami 2017.

Ritter refers to his art as Dejunked. He creates using the plastic flotsam of our throw-away society. Each piece is a collection of odds and ends that might have easily wound up in a landfill but instead become intricate, beautiful pieces of art.

Find out more about the artist HERE.

Exhibit A (Corning, NY) showed work by Robin Whiteman at Aqua Art Miami 2017.

The artist has worked with clay since she was a pre-teen. She has a bachelors from Rochester Institute of Technology's School of Crafts (in Ceramics). The pieces here are porcelain but without the "shine" we usually expect. She does other sorts of ceramics as well. You can see more of her work at  www.robinwhiteman.com.

Such delicate and lovely works sold for (generally) just a bit over $2000 each. Which seems like something of a deal.

The pieces are heavy with symbolism and mythological portents and beings. Some you can perhaps suss out for yourself but for others it would probably require crawling into the artist's brain.
 
Whiteman's work has been shown since the mid-90s. She lives and works in the Finger Lakes area of New York State, which means she lives near some good wineries as well.

Irina Koukhanova showed work via Boxheart Gallery (Pittsburgh) at Aqua Art Miami 2017. We have posted about the artist before but we got to hear about her work out of her own mouth this year (check out the video below).

More important check out her alternately intricate and simple birds in the photos here.

Koukhanova, originally from Russia, works  in more than bronze. The multi-faceted artist  creates prints, draws and also works in installation. She studied at Moscow Institute of Art and Industrial Design (Stroganovskoe) and University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.

Find out more about the artist at  www.irinakoukhanova.com.

More interviews with Boxheart artists soon.

Flying Horse Editions (Orlando) showed work by Lavar Munroe and Damian Stamer at Ink Miami 2017. Flying Horse is part of the University of Central Florida.

The Munroe pieces are mixed media on a three color lithograph. The Stamer piece is a watercolor monotype on Hahnemuhle coperplate ( a high quality paper for drawing, embossing etching and various types of printing).

Rabley Gallery (Marlborough, England) showed work by Eileen Cooper  and Naomi Frears at Ink Miami 2017.

Ra's piece is ink, pencil and gouache. Her work usually features female figures and her style is unmistakable--you would imagine a member of the Royal Academy would be this distinct, this remarkable. You can always recognize her art. Some pieces I've seen had a mythical quality to them. Find out more about her at the Royal Academy website.

The piece by Frears wasn't hung but was in a stack of unframed pieces. This is one of the great things about Ink Miami--there are often unframed pieces selling for a bit less than what you see on the wall and they are often gems. This one reminds me of things I've seen by the late, great Louise Bourgeois. Find out more about the artist at www.naomifrears.com.