October 15 - November 11, 2020
Moments in Time...: Carol Massa and Robert Braczyk
Beneath the Surface: Cari Rosmarin
On the Wall: Headdresses for Peace: Sue Dean
Carter Burden Gallery presents three new online exclusive exhibitions: Moments in Time... featuring Carol Massa and Robert Braczyk; Beneath the Surface featuring Cari Rosmarin; and On the Wall: Headdresses for Peace featuring Sue Dean. The exhibitions run online from October 15 - November 11, 2020 on Carter Burden Gallery’s website and Artsy.net.
Robert Braczyk
In his first exhibition with Carter Burden Gallery, Robert Braczyk presents open form, wooden sculptures from his series A Vocabulary of Trees in the exhibition Moments in Time…. As an environmentalist Braczyk calls attention to climate change through carved, dynamic sculptures that are inspired by the origin of the material they are created from, the tree. The branches that are used in the pieces provide a variety of long gently tapering rods, sweeping curves, jogs and forked joints. Though selection, recombining, and mutability are the artist’s strategy, these characteristic growth patterns assert themselves making sculpture from such components a direct dialogue with nature. Braczyk states, “The material itself is a subject.”
Robert Braczyk is a sculptor who lives and works in New York City. He grew up in central Massachusetts, where a branch of the family ran a casket factory. At sixteen he began work at a furniture factory with two of his uncles. Following high school he studied cabinetmaking at Worcester Industrial Technical Institute for two years. From 1966 to1969 he served in the US Army Exhibit Unit in Washington DC where he ran their fabrication department. In 1974 he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts cum laude in sculpture from Boston University. Braczyk exhibited his work at the Prince Street Gallery in New York City, has taught sculpture, drawing and artist’s anatomy at the New York Academy of Art and the 92nd Street Y. He won the Daniel Chester French Medal and the Greer Prize at the National Academy of Design. For many years he worked at the Saidenberg Gallery in New York City. In 1999 when the gallery closed, he started a business repairing antique furniture. At various times Robert Braczyk has worked in antique building restoration, as a boat builder, a finish and rough carpenter, art handler, toy designer, framer, and in the Awards and Recognition Industry.
Carol Massa
Moments in Time... features recent oil paintings from the series Dots = Moments in Time... by Carol Massa. Since the early 1980’s the artist explored the use of dots as a metaphysical representation of their energy. Massa explains, “I began feeling every dot as a heartbeat…”. This new series was inspired by a trip to Mexico the artist took at the beginning of the year. She was deeply influenced by the culture, the colors, and the freedom in their art making. Upon returning to New York City she was filled with joy and life, which she poured into her process. As this is an ongoing series, the work was also influenced by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and current events. As you view the paintings a balance between joy and sorrow, darkness and light become evident.
Carol Massa, b. 1945 in Brooklyn, studied art at Miami Dade College, receiving scholarships for drawing and printmaking, later transitioning to painting. Her integration of movement and stillness, color and texture reflect her personal journey and a focus on joining opposing forces. In both her paintings and sculptures, the work draws inspiration from nature, dance and music, vibrating with freedom and spontaneity at the rhythmic hand of the artist. Massa has exhibited widely, including at the Bergen Museum of Art and Science in New Jersey, and the Metropolitan Art Center in Florida. Her work is held in numerous public collections in New York and California been the recipient of awards and fellowships, including one from the Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation. Massa currently lives in New York City where she continues to create work.
Sue Dean
Sue Dean presents Headdresses for Peace, integrating eastern, western, and tribal influences, for On the Wall. Her exuberant colors and embellishments reflect the vitality of different cultures she has experienced while traveling and living abroad. Small imbedded totems relate to ceremonies of the world’s people. Dean deconstructs, rips, knots, stitches and glues textiles and found objects. Their coming together fuses the tension between action and pacifism, conflict and peace. Her invented headdresses are imbued with the strength of children’s joy in a world of uncertainty.
Between global journeys, Dean wrote, illustrated, designed, and published The Traveler books. She wrote a Special Native American Section on pottery for Callaloo literary journal. Dean has participated in juried group exhibitions, a Creative Capital Summer Intensive Program, and Poetry Slams in New York. In a juried competition in 2017, her work, Totem Neighbors, was selected by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and Artists Unite as a poster contest winner for the NYC subway system. She has shown at the Carter Burden gallery, the Maggie Peyton gallery, and the Women’s Caucus for Art and A.I.R.’s juried competition. Her totems have been centerpiece for two interfaith exhibits. In 2020, Dean was awarded a residency at the Millay Colony for the Arts and appeared in three online gallery shows. Her second solo installation in NYC is at the Carter Burden Gallery. Sue Dean’s work is a visible form of her commitment to world peace.
Cari Rosmarin
Cari Rosmarin presents recent mixed media paintings in the exhibition Beneath the Surface. Her work offers a unique and idiosyncratic vision; they are a fusion of varying textures, lines, colors, and forms. These current works utilize a highly diverse surface area, pattern, and abstract forms integrated with detailed images of plants, animals, and architectural elements. The paintings, though abstract, are reminiscent of nature from geological to celestial.
Cari Rosmarin, b. 1954 in Brooklyn, New York, is a painter, printmaker, mixed media and collage artist. She earned a B.F.A. in Art from SUNY Buffalo, and an MFA in from Hunter college in NYC. Her pieces have been featured in solo and group exhibitions in New York, including The One Twenty-Eight Gallery, The Drawing Center, Westbeth gallery, White Columns, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, among others. She has participated in exhibitions throughout the United States including the Albright-Knox gallery in Buffalo, NY; the Provincetown Museum in Provincetown, MA; Nassau County Museum and Islip Museum in Long Island, NY; the Virginia Miller Gallery in Coral Gables, FL; the Waterworks Visual Art Center in Salisbury, NC; and the Woodstock Art Association in Woodstock, NY. In addition, her work is in numerous private and public collections, including those of Pfizer Chemical, Reader's Digest Corporation, A.T.&T., Prudential Life Insurance Company, and the New York City Health & Hospitals Corporation, and CBS art collections (featured in "The Good Wife").
Installation Views
