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Deedee Cheriel Natural Resource
Deedee Cheriel’s works are narratives based in identity and mythology. Drawing inspiration from punk rock, feminism, and temple imagery from her native India, Cheriel’s “Natural Resource” paintings explore figuration, color, and textures while capturing moments in time. Water, fire, stone, air, and lush gardens contextualize the mythologies that are presented by the artist.
Maternal bird-women clinging to their offspring are both contemporary and evocative of historical depictions of Madonna and child. Bright foregrounds leap out of ominously black and white skies, suggesting Cheriel’s migration into new artistic territory while maintaining a dialogue with the past. This body of work joins ancient legend with modern life, predator with prey, east with west, and man with beast – weaving an appropriately complex tapestry of the societal fusion that defines our contemporary world.
“Natural Resource” is a collection of vibrant, emotive, and otherworldly new pieces by the prestigious international painter whose work has garnered rave reviews and features in prominent art publications such as Taschen’s Illustration Now Vol 5., Juxtapoz, Hi-Fructose, Blackbook, Kult, and American Art Collector.
Todd Carpenter Carbon
By painting in grayscale I am attempting to interact with this part of our visual system, with the hope of imparting a degree of realism, and perhaps also conveying some of the emotional significance that light can imbue on places.
It is through light that we see the world, but light itself is also seen, with an impact independent of the objects that project it. Light is both the crisp contrast of a back-lit forest and the gray haze of an industrial landscape, its perceptual power being what transmits the distinct atmospheres of such scenes to the viewer. This ability of light to affect us is the connection between the diverse subjects depicted in my paintings.
The title of this exhibition refers to another commonality shared across its varied subject matter: the chemical element that is both the foundation for the ecosystems of this planet and an agent for our harm to those ecosystems, and which is also the essence of the black pigment used for these paintings. In keeping with this chemistry, the titles of the individual paintings are based on the names of organic molecules that naturally occur in certain plants. Being organic according to the technical use of the term, these molecules - not unlike the paintings they name - are built from a skeleton of carbon.
