“When someone blamed Hecataeus the sophist because that, being invited to the public table, he had not spoken one word all supper-time, Archidamidas answered in his vindication ‘He who knows how to speak, knows also when’.” -Plutarch
Know when. That is, as you move through your life, listen to the vibrations around you and know when to speak, when to act, when to move and indeed, when not to. We must, all of us, take in to account the complex workings of the world around us and never presume to know what others are thinking and feeling at any given moment. Our words and actions may feel blameless and neutral to ourselves, but to those around us they could harbor layers we never predicted.
Leslie Wayne is an artist living and working in New York. She spoke to us from her studio in Hell’s Kitchen. She has a show opening on February 22 for which she is working on one last painting. The series for this exhibition represent a change for Wayne, typically an abstract painter, in that it
reflects this particular moment, speaking to the current political discourse. The series reflects her anxiety for the current state of affairs.
One series depicts windows with things seeping in or with damage. The other shows closets, often at unusual angles, indicating perhaps secrets that are kept among other metaphors. For the closet series, the shape of the painting is the shape of the object making them sculptural. Inside the closets Wayne paints things that are not orderly, a reflection perhaps of how she feels about the time we are living in now. With this show, Wayne explores trompe l’oeil.
Reyna spoke to us from the South of France where she lives and works. Her studio is in the country near Toulouse. Reyna works on multiple projects at the same time. She paints as well as working in video and other media.
Some of Reyna’s work depicts very large scale representations of animals. She also explores gender in her work, examining how man and woman were created and looks into the mythology surrounding gender. She investigates the three genders, that is the male, female and male/female combined. She draws on myth as well as her own imagination for the work.
She creates video art that corresponds with her paintings. The video art focuses on the words that inspire and reflect her work. Within the bounds of her work, gender and sexuality are very fluid constructs.
Another theme in her work is sand on the beach. She creates large drawings and makes corresponding videos. She dances and then makes big drawings to capture this.
