My “GO Brooklyn Art” Experience

This past Sunday, September 9th I participated in the GO Brooklyn Art project. I mainly chose the studios around Brooklyn College (mainly Flatbush) because they were closer to me than the other studios.

The first studio I visited belonged to a artist named David Fry located in Flatbush, Brooklyn. He specialized in mainly “Surreal Art” which is art that is a mix of both fact and fantasy. One of his paintings that stuck out the most was entitled, Hecho Por USA.

The painting was a photo negative and if you shined a certain lamp across the painting, the real colors would show. I found the especially interesting because I haven’t seen a photo negative picture before that an artist made.

The second studio I visited belonged to a artist named Brian Fernandes-Halloran located in Prospect Lefferts Garden. I enjoyed viewing his paintings rather than the sculptures he made. What distinguished Halloran from the other artists I’ve seen is that he froze certain events in life and painted them. An example of this can be seen through his painting, Showing off the Dog.

 I found myself picturing what the man in the red was thinking of when he saw a ginormous beast pounce at him from the shadows. As if the dog was attacking him, rather than showing off. 

The third studio I visited belonged to a artist named Gregory Hayes. Hayes had a very similar style as Jackson Pollock. However, Hayes’ artwork was more structured than of Pollock. Hayes used numerous squeeze-bottles filled with paint and stood over a giant canvas consisting of small squares. Allowing gravity to do his work, Hayes dropped a drop of paint into each of the squares starting from the middle and continuing to the outside. The finished project looked something like this

Once I saw the painting, I didn’t see the colors or the structure of the painting. I saw an artist standing over this piece of work for countless hours on end, dropping each drop with precision and accuracy with the final product in mind.

The last two studios were in the same location. Chieko & Ernesto Pavone were a couple with their own studio. Ernesto Pavone dabbled in sculptures, paintings and various portraits of people. Ernesto mainly drew abstract faces with obscure meanings behind them. He did this with various brushes that he used ever since he was in Italy. Chieko had a very unique type of art. She used fabric and then drewon top of it. Each piece of fabric she used set a certain background for the picture. One piece of her art consisted of camouflage from a solider’s uniform and then drew animals on top of it, as if to have a jungle setting.  I unfortunately don’t have any pictures of either person’s work.

All in all, GO Brooklyn Art was very interesting. It allowed me to see different perspectives of people from all across the world right here in Brooklyn. It was a great experience that made me look forward to learning about various types of Art in the world.