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A man embarks on a journey – from Colombia, through Mexico, New York and Providence – collecting scraps of material, photographs and mental images along the way. A psychiatrist studies the faces of people sitting on the subway. A woman re-imagines New York City on a small scale.
All are artists. All are immigrants. All have transformed their experience of being an immigrant into art.
Nineteen artists from Washington Heights and Inwood are currently displaying their artwork in an exhibit entitled “Immigrant,” located at the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA) Gallery.
According to Sandra Garcia-Betancourt, NoMAA’s executive director, the choice of the title “Immigrant,” as opposed to “Immigration,” was intentional.
“We’re talking about the artists, the individual, the experience,” said Garcia-Betancourt. “We’re taking this work and dealing with it on a personal level.”
Garcia-Betancourt said the idea of an exhibit focusing on the immigrant arose because immigration has recently become a very hot topic politically and the neighborhood is steeped in a history of immigration.
“We just wanted to see what the artist’s perspective on that [being an immigrant] was,” said Garcia-Betancourt.
“You can collect the people you meet, the places you go. That’s life, that’s collage,” said Pablo Alvarez.
Alvarez has four works of collage displayed in the exhibit. One of his pieces, “Perdida en la distancia,” (Lost in a distance) was chosen for the cover of the exhibition program.
“When I saw [“Perdida en la distancia”], I kept looking at the image,” said Garcia-Betancourt. “I thought it was a woman waiting in the subway station. He [Alvarez] said ‘no, it’s a woman in Mexico waiting for the bus.’”
“When we move, we bring with us a lot of stuff,” said Garcia-Betancourt. “I saw that in all of the artists.”
Many of Alvarez’ pieces focus on his experiences in Mexico, which he described as one of the hardest periods of his life. Without that time, however, he said he never would have learned the art of collage.
Alvarez’s work “Entre Allende y Providence” combines the town of Allende, Mexico with Providence, Rhode Island into one seamless picture. “Paz,” peace, is scrawled on a wall somewhere between Providence and Allende. The work, painted on a piece of ripped cardboard, has at its center a photograph Alvarez took in Mexico in 1999.
“I tried to extend the life of the photo,” said Alvarez.
Acrylic, markers, oil pastel, electric tape, paint swatches, wax, eggshells, images from magazines and White-Out expand and deepen the image.
While some artists focused on the juxtaposition of the immigrant in time and place, others took the immigrant out of context.
Anyone who has ridden the subway in the past three years may have potentially been a subject of Peter Bulow’s sculptures. Bulow, who was born in Indiana but grew up in Berlin, sculpts people sitting on the subway.
It works like this: Bulow gets on the train and watches the other passengers, looking for someone he thinks is particularly beautiful or has an interesting expression, even those who are asleep. He takes out his bag of clay and begins sculpting.
In total, Bulow has made about 400 sculptures, usually focusing on the head from the neck up.
Bulow said he was nervous when he first began, afraid someone would punch him or say something confrontational.
“I don’t think anyone’s been offended,” said Bulow. “I’m a psychiatrist, so I’m interested in people’s inner world.”
Most of the time those who are awake eventually notice what he is doing, said Bulow.
The expressions that he preserves in clay might be more natural than what other sculptors depict because his studio – the subway – is public, yet also intimate. On the subway, people feel at liberty to talk to anybody in a way that they may not in other public places.
Bulow said he is interested in this moment in history, and how people present themselves in public. He compared his work to Roman portraits. In that time and place, there was a proper way for people to present themselves in public. Similarly, there is a certain way people today present themselves in public.
Natasha Beshenkovsky, who makes detailed miniatures out of wood and paint, shrinks life in a large city down to a small scale in her work “Sir William Dog Run,” inspired by the dog run in Fort Tryon Park. It’s part of her collection called “Small Scale, Big City.”
The piece depicts a dog walker who is bundled up against the cold with matching scarf and ear muffs, but in a nod to style, she wears jeans that have been fashionably distressed. One of her pooches is also decked out in a fetching jacket.
Beshenkovsky moved to Washington Heights 32 years ago from Moscow and says that immigrant artists often see their surroundings with a keener eye.
“You look at life around you and your eyes are a little bit fresher. You notice things people may not notice cause they’ve lived here all their life,” said Beshenkovsky.
“Immigrant” is open weekdays through Nov. 19 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the third floor of the Cornerstone Center, 178 Bennett Avenue at W. 189th Street. Many of the pieces are for sale.
An Artist Talk will be held Wed., Oct. 13 from 7 to 9 p.m.
For more information, visit www.nomaanyc.org.
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