Downtown Manhattan in March. Photo by Alëna Adamson
Blood Moon Total Lunar Eclipse was happening in the first hours of 3.14 Pi Day. New York City residents dreamt of weird stuff. The ones who pulled an all-nighter acted violent towards themselves. Anxiety and paranoia.
Sin city pays for its shady life choices.
NASA image shows the phases of the lunar eclipse
“It was a cold February evening on the Lower East Side, and I walked through empty streets with a canvas I put together back in October. I felt dizzy, but confident: it belongs to them streets. I made it with headlines from the oldest NYC newspaper”.
A couple weeks ago I had my Art Presentation at Equity Gallery in Manhattan. All thanks to Transcender Art Collective initiative, I had a chance to talk about my game of characters and words.
It all started back in May when I lost my job. Read more about it here, if interested.
Months went by. And then It was this crazy day outside. Election Day. And so I had an urge to make this Trump Painting.
I took it to Washington Square Park on inauguration day. I danced with it. Placed it in the snow. I filmed it. I wasn’t really trying to sell it - it was more like a public showing. And that’s how I entered a zone of Performance.
Selling my paintings on NYC street took some nerve. I really questioned my intentions. What am I trying to say with my art? Does it have to be politically influenced just because it’s inspired by the news?
Who needs politicians if there are celebs, after all?
My collage-cutting discoveries took me to a magic place where words started to become city buildings. My characters turned into female divas, surrounded by random words. Is it a treat or power? You decide for yourself.
Shapes are uncertain, palette is bright. Abstract human figures in unexpected patterns and color mismatch forms. Ready to teleport?
I’m talking about Paris of the early 20th-century and Orphism avant-garde art-movement. Creations of the most interesting cultural time period currently on view at The Guggenheim.
L-R: Marcel Duchamp’ painting, Guggenheim library museum entrance + a frame from “library scene” in Interstellar movie. Digital Collage by Alëna Adamson.
It all started with "Sad Young Man on a Train" for me. They hanged this Marcel’s Duchamp painting next to the library entrance. The deconstructed art phenomena and its warm colors reminded me of rustling yellow book pages. Looking at the canvas from afar, I clearly imagined my favorite “Landing in the Tesseract” scene from C. Nolan’s “Interstellar”. In my mind, it was located in the round Guggenheim wall hole aka library entrance.
Orphism as an “enhanced cubism” art-movement was created by a poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire. It first appeared in 1913 - very important year in the historical sense. “The Year Before the Storm”. There’s a whole book by Florian Illies about it. Magic of everything happening at once in Europe on the threshold of the first world wars. Paintings are hypnotizing and alive. The style is associated, mainly, with Robert Delaunay and his wife Sonia, whose grandiose canvas above invites you to spy on Parisian party goers. And for her husband Robert Delaunay - I just love how he deconstructs Eiffel Tower.
Robert Delaunay - “L'Equipe de Cardiff” 1913 and “Eiffel Tower”, 1911.
Since I got fired from New York Post photo department back in May I’ve been making acrylic paintings combined with the newspaper's headlines. I cut them from my personal 2023/24 archive of papers I took home on my "office days" at News Corp building on 6th Ave.
As a result, I currently have six 16x20 canvases reflecting on our bloody news reality. I love combining catchy words and phrases in unexpected ways: it brings me sense of peace and… mind control?
Reconstructing my reality and personality with the help of Jungian analysis I realized that there’s so much darkness in my unconsciousness - apparently, it might be a karmic curse or generational trauma history. It comes in my dreams trying to teach me lessons and giving out weird hints. If only I could decode them quickly.
I’ve been drawing, but it gives no answers, really. All I know that there’s so much fear in me, wild, unexplained, raw and animalistic. It’s bad. Fear evokes anger and takes away power.
“You are just so, so angry, - he told me. - Relax”. This statement made me furious. My left arm was pulled in the air by some invisible force. My face crooked in a grin of hate. An almost uncontrollable part of myself was trying to reach the nasty MF’ neck. I woke up and remembered:
"Namah Saptanam Samyak Sambuddha Kotinam TADYATHA: Om! Cale Cule Cundi Svaha" - I sang.
Harlem Art Sale, Oct. 3rd 2024
My whole life I worked in newspapers. There was a dark storage room in Tambov Courier editorial office with piles and piles of weekly issues. Floor-to-ceiling rows of A3 trash. Typography excess - two years archive. Headlines and news columns rotting unattended, unopened. I was a 17 years old reporter with an ambition of a photographer, even artist perhaps, and I sneaked into that room once. I had a camera on a tripod with me. I’ve heard a mouse rustling some pages. It smelled like dry bread and instant coffee. I had a vision of myself positioned comfortably upfront, with the Archive Paper Giant in the background, in all its glory.
Surrounded by printed words doomed for an infinite storage incarceration.
These days I have my own newspapers archive. New York Post daily issues, from January to May 2024. Each one of them traveled from a News Corp building on MTA train with me while I was working there in a photo department. I went through hundreds of articles, creepy news and crime reports, selecting juicy meanings, very special to me. I checked out mugshots and celebrity galleries, I remembered Andy Warhol - he loved tabloids and copied front pages obsessively, with a pencil.
I’m not here for the pencils. I like cut-outs and neon paints. I see these headlines as a part of my identity now. They are reminders of those days. They are memories of loud newsroom talks. They are my emotions experienced on a day of the paper release. And it’s all saved in print and released to the public.
I glue them onto canvases and tell my own tales. I feel so seen.
Creating an art piece is not enough. Just like a newspaper, it has to find its reader. And so my performance has been taken to the streets.
It was a lively Friday night in Harlem, I put my collages and paintings on display, I worried. A fat rat ran by, I thought of luck. I kept working on canvases adding headlines - ignoring rodents and thinking of 2023 Rat Czar story - where is she now? Yesterday’s news. The headlines are still here though. People stopped by and asked questions. Mostly about rats. But they also just wanted to know my story. The truth is, such experiences cannot be kept in a dark room with the dreadful future. They look much better on brick walls, exposed.
A Men’s Shirt. Amen. My personal style struggles seem to fade away now with this perfect piece of clothing. What makes it even better is the unique embroidery detail created by my golden-hands Katrina Fashion Fairy. I styled it with crocheted pajama shorts, put on nude ballet flats and walked out of my fashion depression. Next thing I saw was this INSANE million-beads-decorated car casually parked on NYC sidewalk. Must be some kind of a hint from the Universe? Dress-up spell in every stitch indeed.
Photo of me wearing Art & Shock LA shirt, by Lisa I. Embroidery details by Katrina Dress Up
These Art & Shock shirts are truly magical: my friend finds them in local thrift stores in LA and then embroiders flowers, flies, kisses and other cute details. Cool right? Not too much with a stylish touch.
Order yours: https://www.instagram.com/katrinadressup/
Fashion Fairy Katrina Dress Up in her habitat
Check it out here: https://www.depop.com/katrinadressup/
A TANK explodes in East Europe on a MINE - digital collage
Crumbling pastel colored chalk on random rocks waterfront Brooklyn - “phantom of the opera” is playing in my head - that’s how excited I am. A little too much. Of course I’m drawing an infinity symbol.
it gives me a feeling of control and purpose. It’s hope, visualized. Vandalized?
I filmed in a trash room. I filmed in a messy house. I took a walk to a giant stair case and I climbed all the way up, counting steps and heart rhythms. Music -♮A - Nisennenmondai ♮
«TVs and rockets»
They launch these rockets almost daily, you know. Big machines and space missions. Videos from space, data visualizations, illustrated calculations, star constellations and galaxies; white dwarfs and black holes - they calm my brain. I filmed in my future. I filmed in my past.
A L L Y O U N E E D I S S P A C E
Smoke, Sun, Bridge - snapped last year on the road
06.30.23
Hot and smoky day affirmation via road sign, 06.30.23
After meditation, 06.30.24
I am just an unknown galaxy in uncertain times, today
Boats approaching Manhattan island via Hudson River
From Proto-Indo-European *mer- (to die, disappear) and Ancient Greek -μός (-mós, action noun suffix) // Related to μᾰραίνω (maraínō, “to quench; to waste, wither”
Sweet Deal! 2.50 for a Black Hole experience.
Last week I went to a park with a Soviet Cheburashka toy in my “New York Keith Haring” canvas bag. This stuffed animal “unknown to science” became a visual symbol of my past. I put all my rebel-child upsetting experiences into that stupid looking male doll. Too long to explain, but I had to destroy Cheburashka by orders of my Gestalt therapist.
I wanted to burn him first, but that would be hard to carry out in the NYC Parks space. Burning ritual of that woolen creature made out of highly-flammable russian plastic materials might even cause Great Inwood Hill fires which will smoke up the entire Manhattan island. Too much of the risk. And so I decided that I want my trauma toy animal to be eaten by dogs.
The problem I faced once I brought Cheburashka to the park was ridiculous: dogs around here are way too friendly. They are not interested in tearing psychological ritual totems apart. I left it under a tree for 20 minutes, sat in the distance and watched retrievers, bulldogs, poodles, terriers and huskies passing by. I then got scared that my ugly cutie pie might attract creeps or drug addicts. I had to return under the tree and pick Cheburashka up. Across, there was the river.
"Cheba Pixel Blyat" photo video collage
He’s been thrown into the dark muddy waters returning back to the shore, to me, in the matter of minutes. I picked him back up with a stick, turned upside down (scratched round eyes facing the sky) and pushed far away. Fast river flow coming down from Hudson pushed the toy back to the rocky shore of Spuyten Duyvil Creek where I were standing. I had to leave him stuck in the mud. Next day, the waters will rise up, and he’ll be picked up and washed away. Poor, poor Cheburashka.
Selfie with a stranger
Today I went to check on him. Walking through NYC Park felt like some kind of an endless festival of Dominican Summer: Latina beats, baseball, folding chairs and grandmas with golden hoops earrings sitting next to speakers blasting music. I saw people chilling, having dates, kissing, picking strawberries at picnics, playing sports, taking pictures and dancing. I’ve heard some tunes and couldn’t help it but started moving my hips a bit. Cheburashka was nowhere to be seen. A sharp emotion of weird sadness hit my solar plexus. It is what it is for now //
Cheburashka, «animal unknown to science», with large monkey-like ears and a body resembling that of a cub, comes from a tropical forest. He accidentally falls asleep next to a banana peel, but later finds out it was not the accident.
It was Matrëshka
06.23
No, but why is it so much harder to exist in the extreme heat conditions? I wake up 5th day in the row feeling like a huge melting rock of New York City life comfortably landed on me and hugged with its burning-hot buildings. Hundreds degrees outside, and it’s not helping with stress levels.
Vision’s blurry and blinking red, but what can you do? We’re used to it.
Screenshots from videos by K. Ross
“Summer on the East side”
“Fred cut the grass and walked in all itchy: that was a lot of work, and he’s finished. “Did you know that long jucy stems secrete this liquid which has a specific smell of the freshly-cut grass for a reason?”
I didn’t know the reason, and I was just enjoying the smell. Reminds me of a late summer evening in the countryside back home.
“To keep predators away” - he continued.
Freshly Cut Grass by D.S.
A vegetarian hater already told me about this once. “You feel sad killing and eating a cow? Then have compassion for plants, too. Do you know that energizing smell of freshly-cut grass?”
“Buddha through pink glasses” 06.16.2024
I inhaled the air with traces of the smell. Dust specks flying around in the sunlit room shuddered. I made an attempt to imagine how harmful Fred’s actions were for the grass over there. I pictured wildly growing weeds on the side of a staircase. Sharp blades and chilling sounds, bright green sprouts flying around… It is sad, indeed.
If I want it to be.
Scenario by D.S.
07.03.2023 photo by K. Ross
06.16.2024
“Assimetry” - view of The Cloisters, June 13th 2024
What would you do finding yourselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who manipulate lost humans with the power of their minds? While you’re desperately trying to figure out what’s going on they are engaged in their own domestic intrigue and won’t rest your brain. You are just very confused and want to leave, but it seems impossible - it’s just this scary dream you were chosen to watch. But you are also curious AF (and easily manipulated by fairies). Would you run away? Take deep breaths?
“Beatrice, 26 foor” 2016 - Self-portrait
You see, in the Fairyland nightmare dimension everyone is just so terrible at playing their roles that you start to laugh hysterically as if it meant to be a comedy. But it is not. And so your new master friends don’t like it and get really mad.
“Zoom-in Error” - The Cloisters, 2024 / View from Beatrice Apartments, 2016
You can sense that there’s some danger in the air, but also doubting your own fear as you start to think it’s just a dream in an unfortunate afternoon nap.
It is June Thirteen 2024 in New York City, and it got really hot today. Siesta!
I’ve been around for some time: from Brooklyn to Manhattan - Midtown, Harlem, all the way into the woods of uptown now - very beautiful place. Sometimes I have to remind myself how prosperous that sounds and listen to my own voice: «New York City (-y-eah)»
I am currently sitting in my living room, a bit uplifted from the street and reality.
I’m in a psychotherapy.
Fort Tryon Park - 04.18.2024
The promising process of fixing my head started on Tuesday, several weeks ago. That was a day in May when I realized that all my life problems, struggles, worries, anxieties, fears, tears and depressions are unnatural. Mind-made, if you say. And so I’m trying to retrieve some answers out of subconscious parts of my brain with the help of a strict doctor who speaks my language. He’s using different techniques on me. One is art.
«Paint your pain» - 06.11.2024
In order to recharge and stay focused on daily tasks I step outside.
Trees, leaves, flowers, shadows, butterfly wings. Nature sounds. It turns my mood from blue to popping pink. Today I’ve heard some conversations:
“How old is she, you said?” - asked one grandpa another. They sat together on a bench, and the sunbeam was going through both of their hands’ fingers.
“She has a heavy foot” - was the answer, his voice a bit apologetic and shy.