naTURE:gesTURE
Genesis Belanger, Hisham Bharoocha, Amy Lincoln
May 19th – June 18th, 2016

naTURE:gesTURE presents three exciting positions in contemporary art that create compelling images inspired by nature. Their diverse approaches to the subject and unique visual languages include acrylic painting, mixed media sculpture, such as porcelain and concrete, as well as multi-layered installation based collage. With vivid imaginations Belanger, Bharcoocha, and Lincoln mine the colors, textures and forms found in the environments around them. Their explorations with the rich metaphoric properties inherent in the natural world are transformed into gripping images that remind us of our precarious place in nature.

In her most recent and comprehensive body of work, Genesis Belanger has cast and built her strange objects referencing organic sources. The concrete totems are casts of different kinds of cacti; some installations include actual rocks she located in her travels throughout the United States. Inspired by the freedom of her summer studio in Vermont, these sculptures were created in and with the outside elements in mind. Her fascination with combining disparate materials such as metal, silicone and porcelain create strange and hauntingly beautiful images. Although Belanger chooses to work with heavy, masculine materials, her color choices and nuanced handling of the material demonstrate a more delicate sensibility. Because of their unnatural promotions and distributions of weight, her objects embody movement even when stationary.

Hisham Bharoocha’s practice incorporates psychology, meditation, stream of consciousness, vibrant colors, and musical experience. The techniques Hisham employs include photography, painting, music, collage, installations, and drawings. Coming from a background in the experimental underground music scene, as well as his examination of international geographies, cultures and artistic styles, Bharoocha’s work has a feeling of both harmony and complexity. There is a lushness to his colorful compositions that read like thought patterns and are reminiscent of Hindu illustrations; however he blurs this affiliation by including environmental themes that have a closer relationship to Japanese wood cuts.

Amy Lincoln’s subjects are tropical foliage, still life, and portraits painted in a surreal color palette. Based in Brooklyn, her color choices are made from google searches, drawings, and photography sources. This method establishes many layers to the reading of her work and affords her the freedom to choose a different paint treatments for each subject. Her flowers, zebras or cactuses appear to exist in a separate spaces, allowing for unique contemplation within the dynamic compositions. Amy creates her own imagined picture planes that heighten our sense of wonder and her stylistic elements are reminiscent of artists like Gauguin, and makes them distinctly beautiful.