The Trenton Times published the following article on May 24, 2013. To read the full article, click here.
Artists express love of bicycling in Artworks exhibit
By Janet Purcell/For The Times of Trenton
on May 24, 2013 at 6:32 AM, updated May 24, 2013 at 6:34 AMOkay, so May is National Bike Month. What does that have to do with art? Go to Artworks, and you’ll get your answer.
You’ll see creativity and unchained imaginations at their best, and I guarantee you are in for the “Wow!” response that I had when Wills Kinsley, who curated the show, and Lauren Otis, who serves on the Artworks board, met me there.
There is a bicycle hanging from the ceiling, and others positioned here and there in various states of reconfiguration. There are sculptures created from bike parts, paintings, photographs, drawings and just about anything an artist can do relating to bicycles.
But more than anything, you will be assailed, as was I, with the ways these contributing artists have connected with each other through their love of bicycles, and how, through this medium, they have connected to members of the community at large and, in many instances, have drawn them in.
Otis calls Kinsley “Mr. Creativity” and “Mr. Bicycler,” and she says, “Artworks could not have found anyone more connected both the bicycling and to our city. He helped found and run Sage Coalition, an arts nonprofit focused on inner-city arts projects.”
In addition to putting the show together, Kinsley is a professional bicycle mechanic and teaches an after-school program for the Boys and Girls Club of Trenton at the Bike Exchange in Ewing.
Word of this upcoming themed exhibit went out through the Trenton artists’ community and beyond. Responses were strong and often far from this immediate region.
One entry in particular stands out. It is “The Pedicab Project,” founded and nurtured by Michelle Nugent. She calls the pedicab, which she built herself, “conservation-driven transportation.” That title is appropriate in that Nugent offers people rides through the community. They talk as they ride and tell her their stories that relate to all they are seeing.
The Pedicab, in all its gaudy glory, stands in the Artworks gallery along with five color photographs of its creator laughing and talking with people as she takes them for rides.
“We had it out on the street here, and people came over to see it,” Kinsley says. “It’s like a social tool creating bonds in the community.”
Another interactive display is photographer Andrew Wilkinson’s camera-mounted bike, along with time-lapse photographs he took to monitor the movement of the bike through the streets. The images are colorful captures of light and movement as well as the vibrations of the street.
For “My Ride From My House to Artworks,” Otis caught the sounds of his bike ride, and visitors can listen through a headset and hear the sounds of nature he heard as he rode along. “When you’re riding, you’re in the moment,” he says. And when you’re listening to his ride you’re in the moment with him.
The diversity of works in this exhibit is amazing. Along with photographs where bicycles hold center stage, there are wheels hanging from the ceiling on which Charles Katzenbach painted geometric shapes in bright colors where spokes had once been.
There are flower sculptures by Ryan Taylor made from painted bicycle parts that stand in tin buckets. There is a “Bike Skull” crafted by Ryan Taylor and Ashley Cook that is made from recycled bicycle parts, acrylic and watercolor paints. “Peddle Pusher” by Charlotte Froman, is a small needlework done in black and yellow with a tiny black and yellow bike perched on top.
Larry Chestnut is exhibiting his oil painting “Fixing the Flat,” showing a white-haired and bearded man in a bright yellow shirt doing the job. There’s David Jackson’s “Bike Lamp” standing on “Bike Interrupted,” a glass-top table made of a bike seat and other parts, and there’s Kinsley’s own “A Bicycle Divided Against Itself Can Not Stand,” which is a black bike frame affixed to an overturned white bike frame on the bottom.
And the diversity doesn’t end there. “Paper Cycles” by Robin Milne is an intricate composition of yellow, green and purple quilled papers that form a background around the negative space that is a bicycle.
Chase Brown is exhibiting his “Bicycle Shine,” a wall hanging made of bike parts, ceramic, quartz and crystal. You can’t miss Nirit Levav-Packer’s “Sluki,” “Lola” and “Choo-Choo” a trio of dogs composed of bicycle chains. Or Will Kasso’s “Wheels X Kasso,” an acrylic and spray painted portrait with an adhered bicycle frame. The colors in this are dazzling and the bike frame fixed in front of the face takes it to another realm.
Quieter works displayed nearby are Rob Barth’s black ink prints of bike tire tread marks and Jacob Muldowney’s pastel on paper titled “Off Season,” rendered completely in gray tones, showing a basement interior with a bicycle waiting for spring.
Believe it or not, this is just a sampling of what this show offers. Picture all I just mentioned interspersed with digital archival prints, paintings, enhanced ink drawings, a bicycle hanging from the ceiling and even “Bike Bling,” a wearable piece of jewelry made from bicycle parts.
“Bicycles become part of our lives,” Otis says. “They bring good memories of childhood, and when artists get bikes they make something with them.”
This exhibit, described on the Artworks website as an exploration into the intersection of art and bike culture, celebrates the Trenton Cycling Revolution’s 17th Annual Bike Tour, which was held May 18 and followed by a reception at Artworks. The tour focused on public art in Trenton. The show is up until June 13. Don’t miss it.
“Unchained: The Art of the Bicycle”
When: 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesdays, 2-7 p.m. Thursdays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays, through June 13
Where: Artworks, 19 Everett Alley, Trenton
Contact: (609) 394-9436 or info@artworkstrenton.org