The Passionate Shepherd
Chashama at SPRING/BREAK Art Show
Chashama will present the work of three artists connected to the organization—Brigitta Varadi, Colby Cannon Welsh, and Elizabeth Tisdale—for the 2019 instantiation of the curator-driven art fair SPRING/BREAK.
As a genre in art and literature, the pastoral is an idealized depiction of man’s relationship to nature, offered as an antithesis to urban life. Carefree shepherds watch over their flocks in abundant countrysides; rarely is any trace of civilization to be seen. Man is shown small, cradled and provided for by nature.
The work included in The Passionate Shepherd illustrates the pastoral and upends it. Flock and landscape have been dissected to their most evocative parts, and reconstructed so that the human influence is an inseparable piece of the whole. Brigitta Varadi’s Bart and Niko pieces, human-sized squares of dense black sheep’s wool, shares the scene with sculptures by Colby Cannon Welsh and Elizabeth Tisdale, that take the shapes of a donkey and ducks respectively.
Rolling, verdant land and glassy lakes are replaced by sheets of black plastic. The rippled texture resembles hills or water, but with the precision of soil tilled for agriculture; a first step towards taming the earth. Tisdale’s ducks and Cannon Welsh’s donkey float and stand on the surface with equally sure footing. Clear skies are painted walls, with a literal window onto reality facing only the city streets of New York.
About Brigitta Varadi
Brigitta Varadi is currently artist-in residence at the MAD Museum of Arts and Design, NYC. At MAD, Varadi focusing on a community-based research project commissioned by Burlington City Arts (BCA), VT in collaboration with Shelburne Farms, culminating in a solo exhibit at the BCA Center, VT, in February 2020. Brigitta has participated in notable group exhibitions in New York including Spring Break Art Show (2017), and Currently 80, curated by John Yau (2017); her latest solo shows were held at the Westbeth Gallery, NY (2018), Budapest Gallery, Hungary (2017) and Leitrim Sculpture Centre (2015) Ireland. She is a recipient of awards from the Arts Council of Ireland, Leitrim County Council and Culture Ireland, selected for NYFA, IAP Program (2017) and awarded Residency and Fellowship programs at several art organisations including Civitella Ranieri Foundation, USA-Italy, and NARS Foundation, NY and many more. She is currently the director of chaNorth, Chashama’s residency program in upstate NY.
For further information, visit Brigitta online at www.brigittavaradi.net
About Colby Cannon Welsh
Colby Cannon Welsh is a multidisciplinary visual artist working in a combination of performance, video, object, color and installation. Colby has installed, exhibited and curated gallery and public displays of art extensively in Australia; his work has shown in the USA, Germany, Hong Kong and Poland. He is currently based in NYC, USA.
For further information, visit Colby online at http://www.colbycannon.com/
About Elizabeth Tisdale
Elizabeth Tisdale received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts. She has shown her work extensively in New York City, including solos exhibits in the East Village, a mural on 14th St., a multimedia restroom installation. Elizabeth has been a Chashama Space to Create resident artist since 2012.
For further information, visit Elizabeth online at https://mpathlight.squarespace.com/
About SPRING/BREAK
SPRING/BREAK Art Show is an internationally recognized exhibition platform using underused, atypical and historic New York City exhibition spaces to activate and challenge the traditional cultural landscape of the art market, typically but not exclusively during Armory Arts Week. The eighth annual exhibition will be held from March 5th – March 11th, 2019.
In keeping with the 2019 theme, ‘FACT AND FICTION’, SPRING/BREAK Art Show NYC will move to new quarters, inhabiting an entire floor of 866 UN Plaza at 48th Street and 1st Avenue. The show will be comprised of two sections, emblematic of the theme’s dual components, and feature 85+ projects.
