CULTURE SHARE: The Grenchus Foundation @ Kate Oh Gallery - Nancy Prager Exhibit
The Grenchus Foundation @ Kate Oh Gallery - Nancy Prager Exhibit
with Reception
One immediately feels at home with Nancy Kamel, this very gracious, graceful and spirited lady. Our three hours flew with as we spoke mostly about things philosophical and metaphysical, sharing experiences broad in range. The World Trade Center attack was gone and over again, this being the month of November, with the memories still very fresh. Nancy had been below the Towers during the devastation, trapped in the subway for two hours during their collapse. The passengers, could smell the smoke but knew nothing of the events going on above them. I could see this has had a profound effect upon Nancy, changing direction, as evident in the newer material done after Sept. 11.
Nothing I had been told about the works of art prepared me for the wealth of creative energy I saw at Nancy’s Southhampton home/studio that afternoon during the Christmas Holiday week. A tour of the house, room to room, brought to life over thirty years of Nancy’s paintings. Large and small statements bright with color, contrast and movement. Three-dimensional works, watercolors, oils and multi-media pieces all took their rightful positions on the walls of the artist’s home.
During the course of my stay, I learned that Nancy had been painting since childhood. After graduating Syracuse University, she attended Cooper Union. She has shown extensively in Manhattan and won the prestigious Le Prix de Paris award early in her career during her first major exhibition in Europe in 1975. Many important museum and collections own her works. Each work communicated clearly it’s visual story, individually competing for my attention. Complete sentences of visual thought. Rich in symbolism, metaphor and personal iconography, all combining a balance and definition of line that delivered classical and well-developed personal statement.
By the use of softly muted forms Nancy finds light from an unknown source — a technique used by other accomplished Impressionists. Working toward an abstracted field, Nancy’s work stated a rich personal atmosphere — a statement about life that profiles her lifetime journey as an artist. Punctuating each segment in a her own distinct abstract impressionism, Nancy embraces her internal movement and reactions. They are released on canvas, resulting in a poignant and fresh picture of the moment she is sharing. Landscapes, portraits, and scenes all side-stepping and superficial. The hue of colors, pattern and form allow the emotion and movement in the artists’ eye to be absorbed by the viewer, never insisting that the viewer see as Nancy has seen, but opening the door artistically for the osmosis to occur between viewer and artist. There is an alchemy of thought, a chemistry that occurs in her paintings. The form, color, light and subject are given animation in a non-obtrusive way. Great sophistication is achieved in a very simple and classic approach to subject and medium.
With a sensuality that is not blatant, Nancy sculpts the icon — the anima — of the feminine body in paint. Gentle vibrant color is sometimes employed and somber shadows are invoked for the purpose of creating mood. When warm pastels, such as peach, rose, light sapphire and a slate gray are applied to the works, subtle emotion is conveyed in the depiction of this nude trilogy (Life and Death). Possibly the self is seen catching a glimpse of its own existence? The nude reclining torso in bright yellow with bright flowers, red, whit and blue becomes one with an earthy background of burnished color. No special emphasis is placed here other than the statement of how good this feels. In Tarot, the man with his crown on is a king in repose. Drifting into the reflection of his thoughts, one notes here the space between reality of the reflection and the haunting undercurrent he is experiencing.
Moonlight Escapade features two women in a doorway. One standing, one sitting turned away from the other. All around them turns toward the darkness, although it appears to be waiting for a turbulence needing to be brought on by action. This painting is particularly calms and set in the moment. Time, space and conditions of life have not yet been set into action. Possibly they are recovering from some former event — both parties taking this time to see a perspective and share an experience in whatever light is available. Nothing is spoken, so that this piece of life stands on it’s own outside of time.
In Erudite, A woman is reading a book. Her back drop is a fabric of white with bright red flowers. The black of her outfit is emphasized by the color. Once again there is a tranquility in this repose. But the accent of yellow at the bottom of her pant leg and the dancing flowers tell of the mental state of the reader. Active vibrant and happy. It seems to be good to read one’s book on a warmish day while sitting on your front porch.
By Jamie Ellin Forbes, Fine Art magazine
This specific exhibit focuses on engaging in social justice through the creation of artwork. The artwork in this exhibit focus’ on the issue of sex trafficking and stopping violence against women.
Nancy Prager (Kamel) is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Association of Foreign Correspondents and Foreign Press Club She is an active painter with a focus on human rights issues and has had one-man exhibitions throughout the US, Europe, and the Middle East.
She served as a US National Commissioner for UNESCO, Vital Voices Global Partnership Board of Directors, and its Main UN Representative. Recently she organized and led a series of UN Panels sponsored by Governments and Agencies on strategic human rights and development issues. Mrs Prager-Kamel was BOD UNICEF-USA and Co-director of the United Nations’ “World’s Children’s Day”; she began the first program for disabled children at the Metropolitan Museum.
She was:
- A founding member of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, bringing Arts to the men in the New York prison system.
- New York foundling home-Art as a voice for abused children. - Created and produced “ Art for Children Survival“-Sothebys auction for UNICEF fundraiser.
- American Ballet Theater2-art program for student dancers. - Co Created Metropolitan Museum of Art -Program for the disabled children.
Mrs. Kamel has been awarded “la Grande Prix Humanitaire de France” from the French Government.
To purchase one of the works from Kate Oh Gallery GO HERE
To make a donation to The Grenchus Foundation GO HERE
Nancy Prager is a strategic advisor at the UN and works with the US Government on international human rights issues. Specifically, Prager specializes in anti-trafficking work, serving on many humanitarian boards both in the US and internationally. She is also an artist who is having a solo exhibition at Kate Oh Gallery. Her expressionist works feature anatomical suggestions and an outcast array of figurative elements: a suggestion of a hand, a limb, or an outline of a head can faintly be made out in her works. Prager’s background and work in this specific sector of human rights is, in fact, continuous and homomorphic, insofar as the trauma wrapping human trafficking is made explicit in Prager’s work—which the artist notes is, indeed, related to her work on human trafficking.
This topic would be difficult for any artist to approach, particularly one who does not have the professional and empirical insights that Prager, given her background, wields. It would in fact, be arguably an inappropriate topic for many artists, whose knowledge about human trafficking may be circumscribed only to true crime documentaries and sparse articles about the better-known traffickers (e.g., Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein, Jean-Luc Brunel). Perhaps the sole two exceptions would be: 1) someone who has experienced trafficking/sexual/violent abuse, such as artist Maria Farmer; or 2) someone with direct insights, who has prudently studied the literature and involves themselves in this field, such as Prager.
For those of us non-specialists, when we read about human trafficking in the newspapers or hear stories of it on podcasts, this is indeed illuminating. Such media consumption often begins to unveil the structural elements bolstering this horrific endeavor— which all of us know is operational but few of us see or deal with directly—yet few of us know the names, faces, or make-up of the victims and the myriad trafficking operations across the world; Prager wields this background, sporting remarkable accolades such as the “la Grande Prix Humanitaire de France” medal, awarded by the French Government. Thus, it is only appropriate that she takes up this endeavor. The artist also received a BA from Cooper Union, and has been exhibiting her paintings since the 1970s in galleries and museums around the globe. Thus, she has a background in both the arts and in humanitarian policy, making her adept at approaching a subject that would be inappropriate—insofar as the result would be the product of intuitions rather than erudition—for most of us to confront.
There is, then, the question of Prager’s aesthetic style. The artist has a penchant for abstraction. Is this an ethically-informed choice? Indeed, to depict scenes of trafficking abuse, or even those of victims in stages of their recovery, with figurative vim would be disconcerting to many—albeit whether this ought to concern the artist or not is a distinct issue; indeed, I am not convinced that disconcerting art of this genre ought to be censored, provided there is an adequate argument as to the instrumental value of the displeasure of viewing such works. (Notably, such figurative realism on this subject would also be further disconcerting to those who may be victims of sexual abuse.) Separately, the world of veridical representation forgoes the emotional, phenomenological truth that primes this issue. Indeed, this is why artists ranging from Toulouse-Lautrec to Beauford Delaney have diverged from naturalist scenes and figurative studies. Prager’s penchant for abstraction is dually-armed.
The paintings, themselves, are enthralling. The background fields are distinct from a Hans Hoffman or any abstract artist working with geometrical patterns. Instead, there are willowing, soft wisps and tuffets of creamy-white and golden yellow that populate and pour. This pooling myriad of fragmented parts includes patched slivers of prismatic kind: verdant and frost-bitten blue, streaks of blood orange. Expressionistically executed, these paintings proffer hoary golden-white streak-bitten drips that flood over the canvas. In one notable piece, a pink calf muscle strikes out. Following it, we rise to the backside of a thigh and buttocks—the outline of feet flow in and disappear with the streak-struck background. In another, an anonymous, ageless, sexless skull outline and an upturned foot can be made out. Given the artist’s background and her noting that her art practice is, in fact, informed by this background, Prager’s figurative elements can readily be read as those of anonymous bodies that compose the cast of victims of trafficking.
That these are beautiful paintings belies her representational content, for what these paintings pick out and express in the world is a genuine horror. The descriptive content of it is difficult to even write about, let alone paint. Prager is likely less prone to such bewilderments, given the tenacity and firmness her position requires. Granted, we have no reason to think that these are scenes of occurrent trafficking—they may be abstractions of scenes from therapy sessions or just survivors navigating the annals of the world. Nevertheless, they are framed by the circuitous latticework of human trafficking, anchoring these works in a harrowing reality. This reality is one that ought to be expressed in art, but only by those who can do it, and the subject, justice. Prager is that artist.
(Text by Ekin Erkan)
You can also learn more about NANCY PRAGER HERE