GHOST on Manhattan’s Lower East Side with Matt Siren, Kenji Nakayama and much more

Kenji Nakayama

Last weekend, as I was walking down Eldridge Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, I was lured into GHOST, a café/bar that recently surfaced on the block. It wasn’t the food and drink — though certainly enticing — that lured me in, but the art that I glimpsed from outside. Among the works on display are a series of signs designed by Matt Siren — all featuring his signature ghost — in collaboration with some of NYC’s most prolific street artists including Dark Clouds, Celso and Royce Bannon. Particular standouts include huge pieces by Richard Hambleton and by Japanese-born Boston-based Kenji Nakayama. It soon became apparent that GHOST is an extension of one of my favorite galleries, Woodward Gallery, that will be presenting Kenji’s first NYC exhibition. (More on that in a later post!) Meanwhile, if you are anywhere in the vicinity of of 132A Eldridge Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, GHOST is certainly worth a visit.

Matt Siren

Images courtesy Woodward Gallery

Aiko, Ron English, Faile, Logan Hicks, Judith Supine, London Police & more @ Opera Gallery’s “Making Faces”

We like the way NYC’s Opera Gallery  integrated some of the more established street artists with the likes of Chagall, Picasso and Matisse in their current exhibit featuring a remarkably diverse range of portraits. The exhibit continues through February 19 at 115 Spring Street.  Here are a few faces we captured when we stopped by this past week:

Aiko
Ron English
Faile
Logan Hicks
Judith Supine
The London Police

Photos by Lois Stavsky & Tara Murray

David Ellis @ Chelsea’s Joshua Liner Gallery

I’m a huge fan of David Ellis’s intensely rhythmic artwork. I’m especially mesmerized by his motion paintings, which I discovered almost two years ago at a brilliant street art exhibit at the Montserrat House in Washington, D.C.  Ellis’s current exhibit, True Value, at Joshua Liner brings all his amazing work together, as it features his motion paintings, his sculptures and his recent pieces on panel and tobacco-stained paper.

Here are some stills from his motion paintings:

And a small sampling of his paintings:

If you are anywhere in the NYC vicinity, this exhibit is definitely worth checking out before it ends this Friday, the 14th.  The Joshua Liner Gallery is at 548 W. 28th Street in Chelsea.

Photos by Lois Stavsky & Lenny Collado