Four extraordinary artists with roots around the world will create large-scale calligraphic paintings on the windows of the Winter Garden around the poetic theme of love. Artists from Iran, Japan, India and the United States will use words, letters, shapes and symbols from their respective languages and alphabets to explore the linguistic and artistic connections to calligraphy. Over two weeks the artists will produce a magnificent temporary art installation which the public can watch as it’s being crafted.
Calligraphy is intrinsically linked to other art practices like poetry and music. As part of this immersive installation, there will be performances and workshops for the public to experience along with the visual installation.
The art of connecting letters to meaning, feeling and expression, calligraphy has been an important characteristic of many cultures for eons. Modern calligraphy ranges from lettering to fine art where the artist uses personal interpretation, sometimes rendering the letters unreadable creating abstract shapes or gestural marks.
As one artist finishes, the next artist will begin. At the end of the second week, the finished installation will show windows transformed into works of art and will be on view as an ecstatic display of the beauty of love through words, letters, art and symbols.
ON LOVE: The Art of Lines, Shapes & Symbols is curated by Isabel Soffer/Live Sounds and presented by Arts Brookfield‘
Arts Brookfield
The Winter Garden at Brookfield Place
230 Vesey Street, NYC
ARTISTS
Open artist hours run 11AM – 4PM on the following dates:
4/17 – 18: Mehdi Saeedi, Iran
4/19 – 20: Masako Inkyo, Japan
4/24 – 25: Rupy C. Tut, India
4/26 – 27: ROSTARR, USA
Mehdi Saeedi, Iran
Masako Inkyo, Japan
Rupy C. Tut, India
ROSTARR, USA
PERFORMANCE & WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
Tuesday 4/17
12:30PM: Music with Navid Kandelousi
Wednesday 4/18
12:30PM: Henna Artist
Thursday 4/19
12:30PM: Music with Kana Uemura
Friday 4/20
12:30PM: Calligraphy performance with Masako Inkyo
Tuesday 4/24
12:30PM: Bharatanatyam & Odissi Dance: Nadhi Thekkek & Sri Thina Subramaniam (Nava Dance Theater)
Wednesday 4/25
12:30PM: Calligraphy Workshop with artist Rupy C. Tut
Thursday 4/26
12:30PM: DJ set with Stefan Ruiz
Friday 4/27
12:30PM: Henna Artist
Rupy C. Tut. Love in Gurmukhi script
Love by Masako
LOVE in Farsi – a type of Persian by Mehdi Saeedi
PERFORMANCE & WORKSHOP INFORMATION
4/17 Music with Navid Kandelousi
12:30pm
Iranian-born Navid Kandelousi started his musical journey at the age of six by studying violin under Iranian and Russian teachers. In 1999 Navid was invited to join The Iranian National Orchestra as a violin soloist, a position he held until 2006 when he left Iran for Italy where he studied western classical music at the Verdi Conservatory in Milano and later at the Moscow Violin Academy in Russia. In 2009 he was invited to join the Gateway Symphony in New York City and the International American YPHIL Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. In addition to the violin, Navid plays the Persian classical lutes setar and tar, the spiked fiddle, kamancheh, as well as piano, tonbak (drum), santour (dulcimer) and gheychak (folk fiddle). He has collaborated with Persian and Western ensembles; has taught at the Yamaha School of Music, Suzuki Violin School, and has given master classes in kamancheh, tar and setar at the Julliard School. In 2012-2015 Navid received a scholarship from Maestro Daniel Phillips at Queens College of Music, and recently attended the Silk Road Global Music Workshop with Maestro Yo-Yo Ma in Indianapolis.
4/18 Henna Artist, Mehdi by Nira
12:30pm
Henna (also called mehdi, mehndi or mehendi) is a form of body art from Ancient India, in which decorative designs are created on a person’s body using a paste created from the powdered dry leaves of the henna plant (Lawsonia inermis). Ancient in origin, henna is still a popular form of body art in the Indian Subcontinent, Africa and the Middle East. Queens-based henna artist Nira Kemal treats the skin as a canvas. Using natural henna paste, she creates a huge array of elaborate designs freehand for weddings, parties, festivals, ceremonies and just for fun. After the henna has dried on the skin over several hours, it leaves a beautiful reddish-brown stain or tattoo that gradually darkens through oxidation, and if cared for, can last anywhere from one to three weeks.
4/19 Music with Kana Uemura
12:30pm
Kana Uemura is a Gold record-selling singer, songwriter, and guitarist from Japan who credits Julie Andrews’ performance in The Sound of Music as her inspiration to write, sing, and play music. She has enjoyed considerable success over the years and her music has been featured on popular radio and TV stations across Japan. She is best known for her song “Goddess of the Bathroom”, an acoustic ballad about her grandmother, which became a number 1 hit in 2010. That year she also won two Japanese Record Awards for Best Song and Best Songwriter of the Year with her album “Pieces of Me”. Since signing with King Records in 2005, Kana has released nine studio albums, thirteen singles, an English cover album, and 16 music videos. She has also published an autobiography. Kana moved to New York in 2016 and has been performing in New York across the country and in Japan.
4/20 Calligraphy Performance with Masako Inkyo
12:30pm
Masako Inkyo began her Japanese calligraphy training at the age of three. After continuing her practice throughout middle school, high school and college, she received her Bachelor’s degree in Japanese Literature and Calligraphy at Yasuda University under Professor Masao Inoue. Ms. Inkyo is a member of the two largest professional Shodo associations in Japan. In both she holds the highest rank, based on work she has submitted. She has earned various teaching certificates issued by the Japanese Ministry of Education and received many awards in Shodo and pen calligraphy in local and national competitions in Japan. In June 2017 Ms. Inkyo participated in the “Peace Is…” series of events hosted by the United Nations in New York City, where she conducted a mixed-media performance in collaboration with opera singer Sahoko Sato Timpone.
For this calligraphy performance, she will paint a very large artwork on the floor in a vertical direction, with the characters reading from the top to the bottom of the paper.
In keeping with the theme “On Love” she has chosen eight related words she will create using Japanese characters:
真心 – Sincerity
勇気 – Courage
輝 – Sparkle
生命力 – Vitality
響 – Resonance
調和 – Harmony
情熱 – Passion
愛 – Love
4/24 Bharatanatyam and Odissi Dance with Nadhi Thekkek and Sri Thina Subramaniam of Nava Dance Theater
12:30pm
Nadhi Thekkek and Sri Thina Subramaniam use the classical Indian dance forms of bharatanatyam and odissi to further explore and connect to Rupy C. Tut’s artwork which is influenced by the Punjabi poet Amrita Preetam’s works on romantic love, divine love, and love for humanity. Nadhi Thekkek is a respected bharatanatyam dancer and the artistic director of Nava Dance Theatre. Sri Thina Subramaniam is a bharatanatyam and odissi dancer who has also studied kathak, Bollywood and folk traditions, as well as design, painting and drawing. Nava Dance Theatre is a bharatanatyam dance company, which uses classical south Indian dance as a medium for artistic reflection and discovery. Through their work, Nava aims to break down barriers between classicists and those new to classical Indian dance.
4/25 Workshop with Rupy C. Tut
12:30pm
Rupy C. Tut is an Indian-born, Oakland-based visual artist blending two traditional art forms calligraphy and Indian miniature painting. Rupy draws her artistic influences largely from her Punjabi Sikh heritage producing works that challenge the norms of identity and belonging and document the richness of her experiences as a first generation Punjabi Sikh immigrant. Her work has been presented through exhibits, talks and demonstrations at London City Hall, Stanford University, Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, and this month her first solo show at the Peel Art Gallery and Museum Archives in Toronto, Canada. Her workshop invites participants to write, draw and learn with her.
4/26 DJ Set with Stefan Ruiz
12:30pm
Stefan Ruiz studied painting and sculpture at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice, before turning to photography.
His work has appeared in magazines around the world, including the New York Times Magazine, Details, L’Uomo Vogue and Rolling Stone. His photographs have been exhibited at the Photographers’ Gallery, London; Photo España, Madrid; Les Rencontres d’Arles, France; New York Photo Festival; Havana Biennial; and the Contact Photography Festival, Toronto. In addition, Stefan has taught art at San Quentin State Prison and was the creative director for Colors magazine from 2003 to 2004. In 2012, Aperture published his monograph, The Factory of Dreams, a book on Mexican soap operas. He is also a DJ.
4/27 Henna Artist
12:30pm
Henna (also called mehdi, mehndi or mehendi) is a form of body art from Ancient India, in which decorative designs are created on a person’s body using a paste created from the powdered dry leaves of the henna plant (Lawsonia inermis). Ancient in origin, henna is still a popular form of body art in the Indian Subcontinent, Africa and the Middle East. Queens-based henna artist Nira Kemal treats the skin as a canvas. Using natural henna paste, she creates a huge array of elaborate designs freehand for weddings, parties, festivals, ceremonies and just for fun. After the henna has dried on the skin over several hours, it leaves a beautiful reddish-brown stain or tattoo that gradually darkens through oxidation, and if cared for, can last anywhere from one to three weeks.
