Tonight, Bushwick will be treated to an exhibition opening of Initial Deviations, curated by Kara Brooks, at Bushwick’s newest addition to the art scene—Palisades. Recently opened off the humming Myrtle-Broadway stop, Palisades is a multipurpose site that functions as a music venue, gallery space and full bar. While they have been throwing events in the space since late April, this will be the first time the venue will be transformed into a gallery. In selecting this inclusive venue, Brooks has designed this exhibition of works by local artists to be a celebration of community, framed by the rhythms of a summer night in Brooklyn.
Initial Deviations takes repetition as its main point of investigation, with the three participating artists—Solomon Alexander Chehebar, Claire Lachow and Brian Stremick— employing multiplication of images to different ends. As motifs are repeated, small aberrations are introduced and amplified through the repetition. The images transform and become distorted, inevitably evoking new associations in the process and suggesting that there is no fixed meaning in a form, only a mutability and relativity that is open to endless interpretation. As meanings shift, we might even be challenged to recall our initial impressions of the work, leading Brooks to declare that the exhibition “illustrate[s] the fragility and malleability of memory.”
Each artist’s work is uniquely personal. Chehebar’s paintings of figures on vibrant grounds of expressionist brushwork convey the artist’s internal thoughts and private experiences with color, texture and gesture. Lachow produces ink and water portraits of strangers she sees, depending on an imperfect memory that mimics the fluidity of her medium. Stremick draws from his imagination and past experience to fashion conté crayon drawings of landscapes he has never visited.
Memories are personal, too, and we each are the sole possessors of our own memories, though we cannot control them. Like the works in this exhibition, they are subject to processes of transformation and fluctuating meanings. But perhaps we are not completely at the mercy of our fallible minds. With its collaborative emphasis, Initial Deviations suggests that community and engagement with others can help to fill the holes left behind.
The opening reception for Initial Deviations is today, June 19, from 6–9 pm, and features music by DJ CALLMEYO and friends. The exhibition will be on view until July 14.