Bellmore-Merrick Artists Featured in NYC Gallery

A new show titled Duality, paintings and mixed-media works by students of Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts’ Portfolio Preparation Track program is being exhibited until March 8 at New York City’s Lobby Gallery, on the ground floor of 430 Park Avenue in Manhattan.

Previous pieces by students from the renowned Long Island summer arts day camp have been presented at major public venues in New York City and on Long Island. The exhibit is free and open daily to the public 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The artists are:

• Denise Losee, 12th grade,  North Bellmore
• Chaz Scala, 11th grade,  Merrick
• Lauren Bertocci, 12th grade, Wantagh
• Noelle Velez,  11th grade, Riverdale
• Joshua Toor, 12th grade, Huntington

The theme of Duality stems from the concept of human existence as a struggle between good and evil, emotion and intellect, and how the tension of balancing these forces has affected each artist.

“My artwork is currently exploring the Seven Deadly Sins and Heavenly Virtues,” Losee said. “For this assignment I have focused on the struggle between Chastity and Lust. In the painting Corruption of Purity, Lust is trying to corrupt Chastity in order to get her out of the way so that she can taint the world with sexual desire and banish innocence as well. The Narrative culminates in the piece Breaking Free, where Chastity overpowers Lust with Purity.”

“I used mixed media (acrylics, oil paint, sharpie, mosaic tiles and natural elements) to create these pieces,” Losee added. “Chastity has hues of yellow to represent purity and to portray a holy figure.  Lust has hues of purple to create a visual contrast emphasizing how she uses her appearance to seduce others into her grasp.”

“The subconscious — it serves as a dwelling for dreams, where phobias rest by day and strike by night,” Scala said. “They can alternately become a refuge for fleeting fantasies, where ashes combust into a resurrected glorious blaze. Locked in a stark bare prison of reality, shackled and bound by iron, tethered to a wall, the most afflicted can be liberated merely by closing her eyes.”

“My art illustrates the journey of a girl who had lost someone close to her, but still sees that person whenever she dreams,” she added. “She will often see the same tree, leafless and gnarled with age, a symbol of time’s passage and the conclusion of life.  My pieces use vivid colors that rarely grace the skies of the real world and feature a nondescript, faceless figure, conveying the temporary structure of human memory, and the painful necessity of accepting loss.”

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