And Your Very Flesh Shall Be A Great Poem Walt Whitman

NY Studio Gallery is pleased to host “And Your Very Flesh Shall Be A Great Poem” an installation created by Barrie Cline, Richard Alvarez, and Cousin Frank.

The artists have crafted an installation that embodies themselves and their deep roots in New York’s 1980s underground culture –while creating an especially relevant and radical practice for the present age. Born of an era where the squalor created by the economic crisis of the 70s and the dark forbidding spaces in the city spelled possibility and a gritty kind of equal opportunity, this DIY sensibility facilitated their unique, unsanctioned versions of identity and beauty as well as adaptive and sensual life. While their individual styles vary, each of these artists has adopted their own unorthodox approach to their genres, materials and the place for art itself. This show seeks to create a more inclusive environment for art, redefining the art-going public.

Poised as we are at the brink of another potential period of hard times for NYC, this installation suggests an adaptive and humanistic opportunity for bottom-up growth. A lush and cacophonous soundscape created by Jacob Cox of MO$FO shall accompany the exhibit.

About the artists Cousin Frank’s painting reflects his lived history in the New York City Subway Graffiti Movement and now this work derived from his street tag has extended much further into an unlocatable urban category that stretches the definition of graffiti. Born in the Bronx in the mid 1960s, Cousin Frank emerged as an important figure in the NYC Subway Graffiti Movement and in the past decade has developed his improvised style, deformed letters, bursts of color, and the satiric biting wit of his characters for works on canvass and installations for numerous exhibitions here and abroad.

Richard Alvarez’s many layered, iconic paintings on glass explore female myths and archetypes. Richard Alvarez was raised in the Bronx, and became part of New York’s Downtown scene as a teenager. For over a decade, he worked as a fashion stylist, and became sought after as a designer of sets for nightclubs as well. He has exhibited his paintings widely in both traditional and non-traditional venues in NYC.

Barrie Cline’s sculptures and installation work insert a profoundly organic and ultimately human presence into bottom-line driven systems and structures of all kinds. Barrie Cline grew up between New York, Boston and LA, before settling back in NYC in 1980. Her early involvement in housing activism and the squatting/ homesteading community in the LES has evolved into her interest in creating dialogue and exhibitions in the public realm, both as an artist and an Adjunct Professor of Art and Communications.art