mindful reflections - the power and mystery of light

Dec 17, 2015

Tired, but not out. Cold, but not bitter. I reached the Sonia Gechtoff gallery in Manhattan's Upper East Side for the opening night show titled as The Power and Mystery of Light by Julia Dubovyk.

Light forms everything we see. Its the primary source of every image. Its very common for painting tutorials to treat light as an addition to the picture, an atmosphere-maker. Painting by itself is an art of darkening, lightening, and coloring certain parts of the paper to create an illusion of looking at something real. I was naturally attracted to this exhibition as it appealed to my rationally inclined mind albeit I found more than rationality there.

When I reached the opening night event, there was Julia Dubovyk, in bright red dress beaming a smile for the photographer Salvatore Fabbri while meeting the art aficionados in Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Julia has elegantly portrayed a variety of moods in her paintings of the chandeliers. Her study in shadow and light is impressive. She is clearly knowledgeable about setting up the palette. One of her paintings had a sweet polychromatic shift in Chandelier #3 (oil on wood panel). A quick peek at her Abstract work at the online gallery reminds me of Jackson Pollock aka Jack the dripper.

I sneaked closer to Julia to get a better sense of the subject.

"Why chandeliers?" I ask curiously.
She explained, "...chandeliers, as a source of light, can be turned on or off."

This is akin mindfulness, which I practice. Bingo!

This is a fascinating symbolism for mindfulness. In painting, the audience can easily get the impression that the object has a universal form, and then with proper lighting change the mood of the picture. In life, one's mind is like the chandelier. Through mindfulness, one can evolve and regulate one's mind (the symbolic chandelier) to reflect and refract the emotions worth focusing on.

Buddha says -

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.

Just remind yourself that you, as the artist of your life, can emanate and harbor positive vibes from your minds (chandelier) through practice of mindfulness. May be Andy Puddicombe may like it for his headspace app :-).

I shared my mindfulness experiences and the drastic changes it had on my life with a few guests and it stirred up an interesting discussion.

Among my favorites from the other works were Chandelier #17. It reflects a certain innocence.

I look forward to Julia expressing chandeliers in some other medium as well.

adour

adour represents a fusion of the traditional elegance and modern sophistication.

Having dined at some of the finest NYC restaurants, we decided to check out adour; the experience was luxurious. I had been to the King Cole bar on a number of occasions but never tried the dining experience.

A taste of modern sophistication comes when you sit at their bar waiting for your reservation time to come; it emanates from the interactive wine bar. This helps patrons choose a wine by allowing them to browse Adour's complete wine list by wine type, country and varietal. Computer menus are projected from the ceiling onto the bar, and patrons make their choices by pressing on the bar's surface. Yes, the restaurant is fashionably wine-centric. The 4-seat wine bar is constructed from gold and bronze and covered in luxurious goat skin.

The amuse bouche of tomato gazpacho with basil foam was quite a palate pleasing. The chilled English pea velouté was creamy yet light.

The vegetarian course initially sounded very cliche. However, it ended up being an unbelievable taste. The slow cooking of various vegetables allowed concentrating of flavors.

The exotic contemporary vacherin topped it all; the air was perfumed with passionfruit and mango as the servers brought it to our table. Digging into the layers of passionfruit, mango and lime gelee, we loved every spoon we dug in. This was truly a “masterpiece” as Bruni mentioned in his article. The petit fours were served with the desserts. The macaron flavors were dark chocolate and coconut with a fruit filling.

All in all, they are a purveyor of palatal and visual delight.

in a new york minute

the genus of human spirit v/s the over-engineered malice.

The latter was triumphant until the game changed in a new york minute :)
Yay ! - The Giants won !

art lovers galore !

Check out the presentation of MoMA's online exhibits. I must tell you - they never stop to reach beyond expectations....

For instance, while making decision regarding whether I must visit MoMA for Puryear's exhibit, I checked out the online exhibit and the full-screen version was simply marvellous; and no, I am not talking about the linear exhibit but the clusters which are shown when you want to check out the work based on medium, chronology, etc.

Go MoMA Go !