Muriel Guepin
47 Bergen Street
On View Through July 31st
A small sunken brick room is littered with metallic domical forms that rise intermittently to meet our gaze. This hollow ziggurat hive seems to pulse in threatening silence as a large, serpent-like shape descends on it’s nest from above. This charged installation by Japanese born artist Tamiko Kawata is composed entirely out of re-purposed safety pins and is part of the engaging new exhibition, “Based on a True Story : the artwork of Tamiko Kawata and Supakitch” at Muriel Guepin Gallery (47 Bergen St.)The serpentine shapes of Kawata’s sculptures are echoed in French born artist Supakitch’s paintings, which pull inspiration from hip-hop, graffiti and Japanese Manga. In the large violet “Nite Life”, a glittering chrysalis dragon weaves in and through a roiling wave of foxtails while rainbows and letterforms dance overhead. Adjacent hangs “Amplitude” wherein a bass-line tumult of twisting plumage and fur-tails pulses below a dazzling cacophony of cursive treble pinstriping. These motifs, rendered in acrylic, are re-mixed continuously by the artist as he creates a vocabulary of gesture and character that both fuses his influences and transcends them, approaching the operatic.
Supakitch refers to some of his works as “graphic melodies” and takes this idea to its consummation in a suite of gorgeous compositions on circuit board that incorporate vinyl record labels as well.
The artist occasionally portrays himself pictorially as a sort of Mr. Fox character, dapper and composed of eagle feathers and ingenuity; a DJ who knows full well how to mix his own tracks. (through July 31st)
—Enrico Gomez
