donna rae kessinger
CURATORIAL + VIDEO PRODUCTIONS
May 27, 2014
May 15, 2014
Creative Highlands and Highlands Arts Council
Creative New Jersey gratefully acknowledges the support of The New Jersey Recovery Fund. We also remain grateful for the leadership support of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation for making possible all of Creative New Jersey’s statewide programming.
May 5, 2013
Feb 14, 2013
Oct 23, 2011
Christian Mitchell will present Mental Circus, his first solo show of photograph, prints and installation pieces at The Hole in NYC, 312 Bowery. While this is Christian's first show he is not new to the art scene or its creative world. His work is an exploration in transformation and self-discovery. His current body of work calls upon technical skill and imagination pushed to the extreme.
Meghan Coleman (previously with Deitch Project) has been providing regular feedback on the project. She and others like Kathy Grayson, Kembra Pfahler, and Hagen Linss have encouraged him to refine the body of work by focusing on the transformation of himself only. “I met Kembra of Voluptuous Horror of karen Black while working on a collaborative event at M⋅A⋅C Cosmetics. I had admired her work since the early 90s. She has become a really good friend and mentor.” Christian was recently introduced to curator Donna Kessinger, who is now assisting with the project.
May 3, 2011
BXMA - Curatorial and Education Programming
Comprised of more than 60 works including paintings, sculpture, drawings, photographs, installations and videos, all created in the past two decades, the exhibit suggests that the frenetic, graffiti style of painting of artists like Basquiat and Haring evoke the "cutting" and "scratching" techniques of early hip-hop DJs.The exhibition's title plays off a similarly titled classic 1978 song by Funkadelic whose music has been widely sampled by hip-hop acts.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Advanstar Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
Parkies, the Bronx Museum of Art, VIP Community Services, and community members celebrated the unveiling of two 8’x 16’ murals by artist Brett Cook-Dizney on Monday, January 28, 2002. The murals were installed in Tremont Park in the Bronx as a collaboration between Parks Temporary Public Art Program and the Bronx Museum of Art. The graffiti-style portraits are two of five murals from the public artwork entitled "Information for Peace and Democracy." Cook-Disney worked with the Collaborative Arts Program (CAP)2002: Artists in Community Residencies, a museum-sponsored public art education program, to produce portraits in response to the tragic events of September 11th. Two women, Thelma and Lisa, are the subjects of the two murals installed at the northeast entrance to Tremont Park. The colorful and
thought-provoking murals will bring vibrancy and life to the community during the winter months and are on display through June. The three other portraits are currently being installed throughout the South Bronx, including one adjacent to the Museum. William (Zorro) Castro, acting on behalf of Commissioner Henry J.(StarQuest)
Stern, welcomed honored guests and attendees. In attendance were Dorothy (Polka) Lewandowski, Bronx Chief of Operations; Adrian (Sassafras) Sas, Public Art Curator; Jenny (Wren)Dixon, Executive Director of The Bronx Museum of Art’s; Eathon Hall, Curator of Education and Public Programs of The Bronx Museum of Art’s; Donna Kessinger, CAP Facilitator; Sandra Ruiz Butter, Executive Director of VIP Community Services, and Elenore Penziner, Manager of External Affairs of VIP Community Services.
BXMA Collaborative Art Project 2002
one time PS1 Avant Guard and resident of the South Bronx
Apr 5, 2011
Mar 29, 2011
Feb 23, 2011
Feb 17, 2011
Dec 4, 2010
Oct 26, 2009
Oct 15, 2009
A Micro/Macroscopic look at the world of Rodolfo Rojas-Rocha
by Donna Rae Kessinger
P.O. Box 30325 NY, NY 10011
Rodolfo Rojas-Rocha and I met at an art opening at the Miami Art Center (800 Lincoln Road Gallery) during Art Basel-Miami Beach 2007. He is a prolific painter, professor and community educator. Rojas-Rocha (1968) was raised in Costa Rica and he has had 20 solo shows and more than 90 national and international exhibitions (New York, Mississippi, Cartagena, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador among other countries), is a member of Costarrican Visual Artists Association (ACAV), and serves on the Ministry of Education and PROCESOS as an artistic education Consultant. Remarkably, seven months from Art-Basel, I found myself exploring the Arts and Culture of San Jose, Costa Rica. I spent ten days meeting with contemporary Costarrican Artists in local galleries and in their studios. I quickly found myself in a world that appears quite different from mine on the surface, but when it comes to being Artists, we are of the same heart.
I asked Rodolfo to describe his upcoming mural / drawing project scheduled at the Media Project Space, Gallery Aferro in Newark, New Jersey, Zoomitograhy Rhizome:
I am interested in doing a performance that challenge(s) the audience to think about the rhizome drawing and consider ‘what art is’…I would like to improvise and incorporate sounds while I am drawing. The performace might be a series of intimate gestures taken from action drawing.
The installation will be a combination of conceptual maps, handmade media combined with cognitive thinking, theory of art, performative elements, along with innovative lighting techniques.
When asked to describe his work he replied, (It is) the way to think about nature around me, related with the micro and macro world. Since the space between rain forest to the sky.
Rojas-Rocha incorporates non-linear and rhizomatic images in collage with relationships and patterns cultivated from nature. He works in oil, acrylic, mixed media and site-specific drawing layered with natural imagery found in the rain forest. A common theme in his art is the examination of a simultaneous microscopic and macroscopic reality that is based on human anatomy, muscles, fiber of animal, vegetable and mineral elements, along with ideological aspects of the Costa Rican mythological, including pre-Columbian symbols. His works on canvas bring to mind the early biomorphic paintings of Terry Winters, while crossing the territory between human anatomy, nature and Costa Rica mythologies. His paintings explore a deep exchange of color taken directly from the palette of the Costa Rican Landscape.
Rojas-Rocha is not afraid to use applied technology in his work, whether in the classroom or exhibiton space. He employs 3-D Google Maps teach Design History alongside his Janson, Art History Book, and the Metropolitan Museum’s Timeline of Art History; http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/
He pulls the combined media together to bring innovative methods of learning to his students. This reflects his approach to his own art. He uses conceptual maps to think forward about his creative process, in order to help better organize and visualize ideas, or topics. A conceptual map is a special form of a web diagram for exploring knowledge and gathering and sharing aesthetic information.
Rodolfo: In my work drawing a concept mapping is the strategy employed to develop Art. A concept map consists of nodes or cells as rhizomatic links, which contain an image, words and lines. The links are labeled and denote direction with an arrow symbol related with muscles and organization structure. The labeled links explain the relationship between the nodes. The arrow describes the direction of the relationship and reads like a visual sentence.
Rojas-Rocha adds, I am interested in hybridized culture… an approach to the contemporary artistic image. Culture means transform(ing) nature; I transform culture with a rhizomatic drawing. My drawings have fibers, nodes, buds, and tiny figures that will create a composition along the wall. The rhizome is a pattern of life…a fleshy stem that grows horizontally, as a food-storing organ, beneath the surface of the ground, and enables a plant to reproduce. The wall is the surface where I will draw the process as stem. Lines and forms will be visible and will grow as a plant in a forest
Rodolfo Rojas-Rocha’s solo Exhibiton in Gallery Aferro’s New Media Project Space will open the last weekend of October in 2009, and will correspond with, The Open Doors Artist's Studios and Available Space Tour, an annual event organized by the Newark Arts Council. The Tour features a number of curated and juried exhibitions featuring Art from Newark and surrounding areas while showcasing available artists' space; performance art. Check out http://www.aferro.org and www.newarkarts.org, for workshops and related events. Also see Rodolfo’s website http://www.rojasrocha.com for images of his work and updated exhibiton information. Gallery Aferro can be found at 73 Market Street, located in Downtown Newark. Newark has a rapidly growing art scene that is less than thirty minutes from Manhattan by train, and is within walking distance to the world famous Iberian culinary delights of the Portuguese / Spanish neighborhood known as the Iron Bound.
*Donna Rae Kessinger is a working Artist and Curator, based in the New York Metro Area, whose focus is mainly on projects that encourage collaboration between emerging artists and communities, resulting in a marriage of art and commerce in the form of a possible intervention / performative work, public art project, or traditional gallery exhibition.*
Oct 2, 2009
Sep 15, 2009
Una Mirada al Mundo de
Rodolfo Rojas-Rocha
por Donna Rae Kessinger
Este mes, El Playero les presenta a Donna Rae Kessinger, quien escribe sobre el artista Rodolfo Rojas Rocha de Costa Rica. Donna Rae Kessinger es Artista y Curadora, con base en el Area Metro de New York y enfoca sus proyectos con el propósito de estimular la colaboración entre artistas recientes y las comunidades.
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Conocí a Rodolfo Rojas-Rocha en el Centro de Arte de Miami durante “Art Basel-Miami Beach 2007”. Pintor prolífico, Rojas-Rocha ha exhibido sus trabajos nacional e internacionalmente y es también profesor en la Universidad de Veritas y en la Universidad de Costa Rica. El es actualmente consultor en Educación de Arte en el Ministerio de Educación de Costa Rica. La exhibición “Zoometría del Rhizoma”, mural dibujado por Rodolfo Rojas-Rocha, empezará a ser exhibido el último fin de semanas de octubre en el “New Media Project Space” de la Galería Aferro, en Newark, New Jersey. Describiendo este proyecto, Rodolfo dice: “Estoy interesado en hacer una impresión que rete a la audiencia a pensar sobre el dibujo del rhizoma y que consideren ‘qué es arte…Me gustaría improvisar e incorporar sonidos mientras dibujo” La exhibición incluirá una combinación de diagramas de ideas generales, pinturas de murales “airbrushed”, la actuación de elementos y técnicas innovadoras de iluminación. El trabajo que él crea tiene su foco visual y emocional en “… el espacio entre el bosque lluvioso y el cielo.”
Rodolfo explica además, que su trabajo es una reflexión de la manera que él piensa sobre cosas pequeñas y grandes en naturaleza. El incorpora “dibujos rhizomáticos sin líneas, imágenes de plantas en colage con relaciones y patrones derivados de la naturaleza. Sus dibujos acodados con la imaginación natural que se encuentra en un bosque pluvial. Su trabajo lo hace al óleo, en acrílico y mezclando medios.
Un tema común en su arte es el examen de la simultánea realidad de lo micro y macroscópico percibida a través de la anatomía humana, de fibras de animales y de elementos tales como vegetales y minerales. Su trabajo también muestra imágenes de la mitología costarricense y de símbolos pre-colombianos. Los cuadros de Rojas Rocha son réplicas tomadas de los pinceles que pintan los paisajes costarricenses.
Para ver imágenes del trabajo de Rodolfo, visite su website: www.rojasrocha.com. La Galería Aferro está en 73 Market Street , Downtown Newark, New Jersey.†
Este artículo fue escrito en ingles por Donna Rae Kessinger video@donnakessinger.net P.O. Box 30325, NY 10011
Dec 31, 2008
interview in village voice 1999 - Eathon Hall ... Alanna Heiss
From: Public access by Gilman-Sevcik, Frantiska; Gilman-Sevcik, Tim
Source: The Village Voice, 8/10/1999.
Via: HighBeam™ Research
Copyright Village Voice Dec 10-Dec 16, 2008
Nov 29, 2008
Jul 9, 2008
NETWORKED link to Galllery Aferro in Newark
Studio Tour 2008 - artists from WACK! @ PS1
P.S.1 WACK! Open Studio Tour on Monday February 18, 2008 2 - 6 pm
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, the first comprehensive, historical exhibition to examine the international foundations and legacy of feminist art.
The presentation of WACK! at P.S.1 offers a timely opportunity to tour the studios of some of the featured artists. View 70s and current work while gaining a deeper understanding of the depth of production of these artists within their own environment. SoHo is where the feminist revolution in New York City began and flourished, and eventually became a magnet for feminists around the world.