Las Gravitas

Yvette Cohen

Lester Rapaport

Margaret Roleke

Lydia Viscardi

The weight of our country’s political schism is brought into view, both symbolically, as well as literally, in this four-person exhibition at Odetta.

The overriding social concerns of this era prompts a preoccupation with our mortality, but, in some cases, also demands a persistent need for escape, a release into the imagination.

Yvette Cohen

Yvette Cohen’s oil paintings of geometric masses of color on shaped canvas become objects that fluctuate between two and three dimensions, bridging the divide between sculpture and painting. Often installed in groups of objects, the surrounding space is activated, thus rendering the entire wall as one work of art. Unconventional perspective, and color expand the viewer’s perception of space into one of infinite air and oxygen.

Inspired by vast open landscapes, Cohen workis beyond the boundaries of the familiar freeing the work to evolve naturally. Process is kept visible.

Yvette was born in Cairo, Egypt and raised in Paris and Montreal.

In 1976 she received a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal where she studied with Guido Molinari. After moving to New York she continued her education attending classes at the Art Student’s League, the School of Visual Arts and the Whitney seminars. For a year she worked in lithography at the Bob Blackburn Printmaking Workshop.

In 1983 she established Plum Graphics Inc., a greeting card company, recognized for its unique images and products. There she received several nominations and a Louie award for her work. Louie awards are the Oscars of the greeting card industry.

In 2004 she returned to the studio to pursue her fine art full time. She lives and works in New York City.

Margaret Roleke

Margaret Roleke has created the sculpture “Pop,pop” specifically for the Las Gravitas exhibition at Odetta. The title refers both to the fun and colorful hues of the piece that pop and also to the “pop, pop “ noise produced by a gun. “Pop,pop” is a beautiful colorful lyrical work, but at the same time it is disturbing since it is created by stringing spent shotgun shells together.

From a distance the viewer is not always aware of what these colorful shells are. On closer examination one sees the branding of each shell and can also smell a faint aroma of gunpowder.

Roleke’s ntention is to create a free flowing engaging piece; but one that also questions the massive amount of plastic and lead waste in additions to commenting on our country’s need for gun control and our constant struggle with violence using guns.

For the past several years she has been committed to fighting for gun control and donates a percentage of all art sales to organizations that support this cause.

Margaret Roleke is a sculptor who also creates prints and “mail art”. She has lived and worked in New York and Connecticut for most of her life. Exhibitions include Concepto Hudson Gallery in Hudson, NY , Art Space New Haven, Governor’s Island, Odetta, among other venues.

Roleke’s work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Artnet News and additional publications.

Lydia Viscardi

In a court of law, relying solely on memory is highly unreliable. Lydia Viscardi was drawn to these discarded trial documentation photographs of wrecked cars with the same fascination and queasiness an actual accident elicits. She uses the car crashes to embody catastrophe or any painful past or present adversity imbedded in the psyche. By obscuring but never fully obliterating the image with mixed media, carved lines and collage, the layered altered images represent how we tackle unbearable memories to make them tolerable and find resolution.

Lydia Viscardi is a representational mixed media artist whose exhibition venues include Odetta, the Drawing Center, Walter Wickiser Gallery, Arcilesci Homberg Fine Arts, Sideshow Gallery, Active Space, Brooklyn Fireproof, Concepto Hudson and The Heckscher Museum of Art in New York; Center for Visual Arts and Victory Hall Drawing Rooms in New Jersey; Housatonic Museum of Art, The Barnum Museum, Ely Center for Contemporary Art, Hans Weiss Newspace Gallery of Manchester Community College, and Schelfhaudt Gallery of the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut.

Her mixed media work is represented by Odetta Gallery online and she is a Gallery Artist at Concepto Hudson, Hudson NY.

Viscardi teaches Studio Art at Quinnipiac University and Housatonic Community College and is a Museum Educator at the Housatonic Museum of Art and the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art.

Viscardi received a BFA from CW Post College of LI University, after studying for two years at the Toledo Museum of Art School of Design, OH, and she has an MFA in Visual Art from William Paterson University of NJ.

She maintains a studio in Newtown, CT.

Odetta’s Flat Files are curated to tie in with every exhibition.

Lester Rapaport’s monumental painting Robin’s Passing will be the featured work on the studio wall over the flat files.

In the cabinets, Lydia Viscardi’s works on paper and collages from her new series, Cover Up, continues the use of layered images, incorporating the same found car crash photographs, lace, and drawn elements, bringing viewers into a more intimate encounter with her work.

Margaret Roleke will present related silkscreen images and etchings.

Opening each drawer in the cabinet presents interactive site-specific installations on a micro-scale that offer an element of surprise with the breadth of dimensionality and innovation each artist brings to this curated space.