Woodward Gallery Project Space

May 15, 2023

Jose Aurelio Baez
Opening Spring 2023
at 132A Eldridge Street, NYC – Project Space

The Eldridge Garden mural is a welcome sign for the arrival of Spring and Summer, as well as an homage to New York City’s magnificence. The arrangement of flowers transforms the urban, concrete corner of Broome and Eldridge into a colorful garden. On bright days, the painted flowers reflect upon every surface, bouncing off storefront windows and parked cars in the street. The Eldridge Garden holds a personal significance to the artist, Jose Aurelio Baez, as he recalls his own memories of the warm months in New York. Jose Aurelio Baez (b.1986, Bronx, NY) is a mixed-media painter, collage, and mural artist. His approach to creating art combines his traditional training, as an undergrad at Carnegie Mellon, with a self-taught process that he has refined since graduating, in 2009. Inspired by a bouquet from a local flower shop, Baez’s arrangement of roses, peonies, red cosmos, and star-gazers embody the diversity of urban culture. The imagery in Baez’s art is often based on original photography by the artist (or someone close to him), as well as carefully-sourced photographs that he digitally edits and collages. Heavily influenced by his identity as a New Yorker, his mixed media paintings utilize found and repurposed materials to create an archive of the people, culture, and environments that the artist surrounds himself with. 

As the weather warms, families emerge from their homes, just as fresh plants photosynthesize. Joy and excitement fill the air through the smells and sounds of street fairs and block parties. “The Eldridge Garden (Revival)” is a visual symphony that celebrates the unique beauty of New York City. The layered details in Jose Aurelio Baez’s paintings also serve as a reminder of the physical presence of the work to the viewer. When painting, the artist uses various tools that pull from his experiences, including graffiti inks, spray paint and adhesives, and traditional drawing and painting mediums. Jose builds an intimate conversation between the viewer and the subject of his work. His artwork is an honest contemplation of the fragility of life, creating a perspective that allows the viewer to see the world through his own visual perspective.

Jose Baez’s art has been shown nationally in galleries and in several online and print publications. His latest exhibitions include the “Group Seven” show at Woodward Gallery and a published feature in Post Road Magazine for his mural work in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Come visit Baez’s “The Eldridge Garden (Revival)” Mural, this Spring and Summer, at the Woodward Gallery Project Space. 

About the Space

Woodward Gallery’s new Project Space is the latest effort to continue its mission of enhancing culture within the Manhattan’s Lower East Side community. Accessible to all, please visit Woodward Gallery’s Project Space anytime at 132 Eldridge Street, NYC.

February 24, 2022

Happiness and Love

Michael Alan

Spring 2021 – Spring 2023
at 132 Eldridge Street, NYC

Artist Michael Alan is equally adept in several mediums. He draws, paints and creates performance art as a living, breathing canvas.  He uses color to push his positive message: art is a feeling that is tangible, audible, visual- an experience to engage in.

 

Michael Alan’s free hand, spray paint mural currently on view at 132 Eldridge Street (off Broome Street) is a joyful expression! His shapes and forms vibrate with a passionate spontaneity. Alan’s source of optimistic creativity is spawn from an intimate place that he expertly scales to the size of his projects.

 

Michael Alan’s drawings are detailed with a concentrated tangle of lines that compulsively change direction to reveal characters, shapes. The art is always a journey, an animated dance to entertain his viewers.  This artist is a compulsive, automatic action painter. He does not step back from the scale of the project to contemplate the image, but instead trusts his commitment to the freestyle vision. The work erupts with colorful imagery winding and bursting with movement.  Michael Alan is the real deal!  His public art is a gift for all to experience- an invigoration for the Lower East Side, NYC.

 

“Michael Alan is the kind of buoyant, visionary artist that comes around once in a generation. His constant innovation and creative interdisciplinary genius inspire(s) all who meet him.” – ART NERD, NY

 

“{Michael Alan’s work is} an escape from earth with a huge taste of a mutating NYC” -NY ART-NEWS

 

“[His art is] To recapture what has been lost and update it with a big splash of paint.” – Ruth La Ferla, THE NEW YORK TIMES

Michael Alan- Interview

About the Space

Woodward Gallery’s new Project Space is the latest effort to continue its mission of enhancing culture within the Manhattan’s Lower East Side community. Accessible to all, please visit Woodward Gallery’s Project Space anytime at 132 Eldridge Street, NYC

 

August 9, 2021

Woodward Gates Project

Woodward Gates Project

Eldridge and Broome Streets, NYC

 

Woodward Gallery has maintained Project Space at 132A Eldridge Street since 2008 for emerging and established street artists and muralists to publicly share their creativity. Over the years, Woodward Gallery’s outdoor art projects have expanded to additional areas.

 

Kehila Kedosha Jahina Synagogue and Museum at 280 Broome Street encouraged Woodward to extend their mural project to coincide with a celebration of the Synagogue’s heritage in the Summer of 2021 (Annual Greek Jewish Festival Website).

 

Woodward Gallery accepted the challenge and refreshed the community awarding a group of selected artists designated space to paint along Broome and Eldridge Streets. Woodward Gallery curated the local roll down gates and supported the featured artists on this project.

 

Experienced in neighborhood improvement efforts, Woodward has helped clean up local graffiti and provide cultural opportunities in their LES neighborhood.

April 18, 2021

This image is decorative.


Michael Alan
Spring – Fall 2021
at 132 Eldridge Street, NYC
resume_biography

Artist Michael Alan is equally adept in several mediums. He draws, paints and creates performance art as a living, breathing canvas.  He uses color to push his positive message: art is a feeling that is tangible, audible, visual- an experience to engage in.

Michael Alan’s free hand, spray paint mural currently on view at 132 Eldridge Street (off Broome Street) is a joyful expression! His shapes and forms vibrate with a passionate spontaneity. Alan’s source of optimistic creativity is spawn from an intimate place that he expertly scales to the size of his projects.

Michael Alan’s drawings are detailed with a concentrated tangle of lines that compulsively change direction to reveal characters, shapes. The art is always a journey, an animated dance to entertain his viewers.  This artist is a compulsive, automatic action painter. He does not step back from the scale of the project to contemplate the image, but instead trusts his commitment to the freestyle vision. The work erupts with colorful imagery winding and bursting with movement.  Michael Alan is the real deal!  His public art is a gift for all to experience- an invigoration for the Lower East Side, NYC.

“Michael Alan is the kind of buoyant, visionary artist that comes around once in a generation. His constant innovation and creative interdisciplinary genius inspire(s) all who meet him.” ART NERD, NY

“{Michael Alan’s work is} an escape from earth with a huge taste of a mutating NYC” -NY ART-NEWS

“[His art is] To recapture what has been lost and update it with a big splash of paint.” – Ruth La Ferla, THE NEW YORK TIMES

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Selected Press
Meet the Artist Michael Alan Alien from Artiholics
This image is decorative.
About the Space: Woodward Gallery’s new Project Space is the latest effort to continue its mission of enhancing culture within the Manhattan’s Lower East Side community. Accessible to all, please visit Woodward Gallery’s Project Space anytime at 132 Eldridge Street, NYC

March 23, 2019

Down Town Association

DTA, Woodward Gallery, 60 Pine Street, NYC

 

The Down Town Association is a member owned social club dedicated to providing their members and guests with the finest hospitality. A New York City Landmark in Lower Manhattan, the Down Town Association’s Clubhouse is one of New York’s best examples of Romanesque Revival design as well as the second oldest purpose built club building in the United States.

 

Guests are welcome to view Woodward Gallery Art exhibitions by appointment. Please contact Woodward Gallery, or call the DTA directly at (212) 422-1982 to schedule your visit. Guests are encouraged to arrive in business casual attire while on premises.

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January 18, 2016

JM Rizzi
September – November, 2008
Woodward Gallery Project Space

January 18, 2016

LA2
January – February, 2009
Woodward Gallery Project Space

Excerpt from The Village Voice, “Haring’s Silent Partner,” by Colin Moynihan:
“…From 1980 until 1986, Haring and Angel Ortiz (LA2) met often in the Broome Street studio, painting and drawing for up to 15 hours at a stretch on both canvas and urban detritus like statues, urns, and pieces of metal. The partnership was recognized by both artists to be an equal one, Ortiz says, because their artistic styles complemented each other. Ortiz’s calligraphic, interlocking lines vitalized and filled out negative space between Haring’s cleanly drawn shapes. And while Haring was older and far cannier, the energy of Ortiz’s graffiti-like markings brought freshness and street credibility to his work.”


The association was important personally as well as artistically, particularly to Ortiz, who had never experienced life outside the Lower East Side before meeting Haring. He left school at the age of 16 to create art full-time and was thrilled to receive attention from artists and collectors around the world. The two formed a strong relationship, which Haring likened to that of an older and younger brother. Haring invited Ortiz to clubs like Roxy and the Pyramid, where the young artist met Andy Warhol and Boy George. Ortiz took Haring to a Brooklyn train yard where they spray-painted subway cars. Even after the collaboration ended, as Haring’s increasing renown led him to concentrate on solo work, the two remained friendly….”
Artist Resume

January 18, 2016

Sonne Hernandez
March – May, 2009
Woodward Gallery Project Space

Our relationship to screens – televisions, gaming units, mobile phones and computers – informs our understanding of the world. The blurred lines of the screen exist as visual metaphor for the gaps between sensationalized media and reality. The “truth of the moment” inherent in our understanding of the photographic medium (i.e. the camera doesn’t lie) is packaged with compressed bites of information, and our perception of reality is siphoned through this mediated system. The lines of the screen are a physical and visual typo that demarcate the sight of the eyes from the passive glow of the screen.


Immersed in media culture, the revolution will be televised and witnessed through the flattened plane of the screen.