Marks and Conversations
Maeve D’Arcy and Roberto Jamora (Two-Person Exhibition)

Topaz Arts (Queens, NY)
Co-curated by Todd B. Richmond & Paz Tanjuaquio
June 9, 2018 – July 28, 2018

TOPAZ ARTS presents
Marks and Conversations
a two-person exhibition of new work by Maeve D’Arcy  •  Roberto Jamora

co-curated by Todd B. Richmond & Paz Tanjuaquio

on view June 9 to July 28, 2018

opening reception: Saturday, June 9th, 3-6pm
closing reception and artist talk: Sat, July 28, 6-8pm
Admission is complimentary

TOPAZ ARTS, 55-03 39th Avenue, Woodside > directions
viewing hours: Saturdays 12-4pm and by appt visit@topazarts.org

TOPAZ ARTS is pleased to present  Marks and Conversations, curated by Todd B. Richmond and Paz Tanjuaquio, featuring new work by Maeve D’Arcy and Roberto Jamora – two local artists whose works investigate color, abstraction, and gestures in painting to convey memory, place and time.

In Maeve D’Arcy’s work, repetitive marks of dots, circles, lines exist in her paintings and works on paper as a manifestation of time – markings of an ephemeral concept of time as moments, and memories, rather than actual hours and minutes. For this exhibition, D’Arcy includes site-specific paintings, called “interruptions” as extensions of her work on view. Directly painting onto the gallery walls, allowing the viewer to contemplate the work as temporary and moveable – as a surprise, or a distraction – suggesting release or freedom. Enhancing the viewing experience, these art interruptions are part of an ongoing investigation by the artist within her current series of paintings and drawings.

In Roberto Jamora’s new series “An Inventory of Traces” – a title inspired by Edward Said’s foundational work “Orientalism”, Jamora conducted interviews with immigrant artists, translating conversations through colors and simulated gestures, tracing migrations through lines and layers within his paintings. Lines may refer to an actual coastline, river, or border. Colors may suggest specific landscapes and places. Using cold wax and oil paint, swiped across the canvas, Jamora creates color fields that fade into each other, treating each gradient as a vignette of an experience or place, where a thin trace of landscape may be revealed, or to conceal extraneous possibilities and limit sentimentality.