Installation view, COSMIC GEOMETRIES. From left to right: Marilyn Lerner, Queen Bee, Oil on panel, 36x48 inches, 2020. Rico Gatson, Untitled (Double Sun/Sonhouse), Acrylic on panel, 36x48 inches. 2021, Courtesy of Miles McEnery Gallery, NYC. Natessa Amin, variable small works, materials and dimensions variable, 2018-2021. Stephen Mueller, Passeggiata, acrylic on canvas, 72x66 inches, 2005, Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, NYC. Anoka Faruqee and David Driscoll, 2017P-07, Acrylic and linen on panel, 33.75x 33.75 inches, 2017. Dorothea Rockburne, Lamenting Angels #2, Aquacryl and gouache on paper, framed, 22.5x30 inches, 2021, Courtesy of David Nolan Gallery.
Art & Magic: Artists and the Occult
A Zoom Workshop
Tuesday, February 8 - 6:00 - 7:30 PM via Zoom
In conjunction with Cosmic Geometries, please join Hilma's Ghost on Tuesday, February 8th, 6:00-7:30PM EST for a free virtual program with four artists who have divinatory practices that are deeply entwined with their studio practice. Melissa Brown will talk about her use of Tarot to adapt complex visual mythologies in her paintings; Isa Carillo will discuss how she uses numerology to construct portraits; Maria Molteni will focus on her use of altars and astrology; and Laurel Sparks will illuminate on her use of sigils to make abstract paintings. Hilma’s Ghost will also expound with a brief talk on the history of art and magic.
This session is free and open to all.
If you would like to buy one of our decks, EFA Project Space has a limited supply of ABSTRACT FUTURES TAROT decks in New York that you can pick up in person. First purchase the decks on our Hilma’s Ghost website here and use the code “EFA.” Then, please contact Judy Giera at judy@efanyc.org to pick up the deck once you have paid on our site.
Hilma's Ghost's ABSTRACT FUTURES TAROT deck holds itself in conversation with the Rider-Waite-Smith, which is not only the most popular deck in worldly distribution today but was illustrated by a womxn, Pamela Colman Smith. More than a century later, Brooklyn-based artists, Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray apply an abstract lens to the cards’ rich symbolism to access their semiotic potential and surface divinatory meanings. The artists worked together for more than 300 hours to construct the 78 original drawings for their tarot deck, an amalgamation of their unique and distinct visual languages. The original drawings are on Fabriano Murillo paper with a combination of gouache, ink, and colored pencils, their size directly proportional to the Tarot card dimensions. Both artists hold extensive knowledge regarding western and non-western abstraction, with Tegeder pulling from Bauhausian and Minimalist traditions, and Ray from spiritual and esoteric forms from South Asia, as well as the patterning and craft traditions of Asian textiles. Within these drawings lies a rich sensibility for color, shape, and compositional elements, expressing hybrid traditions of abstraction that is intrinsically experimental and daring. The project in its entirety was presented by Carrie Secrist Gallery at The Armory Show in September 2021 and was included in this as one of the exhibitions to see in a review for The New York Times by Will Heinrich.
Hilma’s Ghost, a feminist artist collective, was co-founded by Brooklyn-based artists Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray in 2020. The collective seeks to address existing art historical gaps by cultivating a global network of women, nonbinary, and trans practitioners whose work addresses spirituality. Hilma af Klint’s groundbreaking exhibition at the Guggenheim in 2018 served as a reckoning for art history’s blindspots, especially for women artists considered too ‘mystical’ for the conservative art world.
Named after af Klint, Hilma’s Ghost believes that western heteropatriarchal societies maintain a false binary between spirituality and science. This bias serves to overlook womxn artists whose explorations of ancient and pre-modern knowledge systems is a source of personal strength and aesthetic innovation. Following a year of lockdowns and social distancing, Hilma’s Ghost acts as a restorative project that uplifts these voices and makes them visible. Since its inception, Hilma’s Ghost has run online workshops that have been attended by over 700 people, from all over the world. The Instagram archive also documents the stories of womxn artists. To learn more about Hilma's Ghost, check out our website or follow us on Instagram. We regularly post about our programs and profile living womxn artists working with aspects of the occult and/or spirituality.
This program is being held in conjunction with Cosmic Geometries, a group exhibition curated by Hilma’s Ghost, at EFA Project Space until February 26, 2022. This program is made possible with the kind support of Carrie Secrist Gallery. To view the curatorial walkthrough and meet some of the artists, link to our first program from January 13, here. View our second program, Going Beyond Basics: Tarot for Artists and Creatives, here.
PARTICIPANT BIOS
Melissa Brown (she/her) is fascinated by patterns and drawing from sources high and low including lottery tickets, painted fingernails, landscape painting, and ukiyo-e prints. She explores form and perception in her lushly layered prints, paintings, and mixed-media works. Her training as a printmaker, working primarily with woodcuts (which she describes as “the most archaic form of printmaking”), informs her interest in repetition and its meaning. Brown is particularly focused on the repetitive patterns found in natural and urban environments. Skillfully combining abstraction and representation, she produces landscape scenes touched with surrealism, full of floating rocks, undulating waves, radiant skies, and trees covered with bark composed of expressive faces. Solo projects and exhibitions include Big Medium for PrintAustin, Austin, Texas, Essex Flowers, New York, New York, Roberto Paradise, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Kansas Gallery, New York, and Canada, New York. Group exhibitions include Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York, The Hole, New York, Musee International Des Arts Modestes, France, Novella Gallery, New York, Mass Gallery, Austin Texas, and Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, among others. https://www.melissabrown.tv
Isa Carillo (she/her, b.1982, Guadalajara) has been defined by a research of hidden and enigmatic aspects of the collective unconscious and a connection to a critical and empirical vision of pseudoscience applied to individuals. Her interest in hidden or invisible phenomena began to develop at the start of her career by combining themes referring to the subconscious present in everyday life. Through the collection of elements such as personal files, photographs and graphic material among others, the artist stores images and information that she later uses as catalysts to develop her projects. In this way, the point of departure becomes the place of union between memory and form thus proposing a bridge towards the invisible. She has exhibited individually and collectively in institutions such as Museo de Arte de Zapopan, Museo Taller Clemente Orozco, Museo de Arte Raúl Anguiano, Centro Cultural de Arte Moderno in Guadalajara, Museo Diego Rivera Anahuacalli, Mexico City and Museo de Pintores in Oaxaca, Mexico. http://isacarrillo.com/
Maria Molteni (They/She, b.1983, Nashville) is a queer transdisciplinary artist, educator, mystic and Siren. They are the grandchild of Tennessee square dancers, stunt motorcyclists, quilters, beekeepers and opera singers of various European backgrounds. Their practice has grown from formal studies in Painting, Printmaking and Dance to incorporate research, social engagement and play-based collaboration with the living and dead. Molteni pictures themself as an Atlantian Phys Ed coach for visionary communities like Shakers, Bauhaus or Black Mountain College. Molteni is an active member of the Golden Dome school as well as Lake Pleasant, the oldest Spiritualist community in the US (contemporary of Lily Dale). Check out Maria’s work at @strega_maria / www.mariamolteni.com or travel to the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, MA to see Unseen Hours: Space Clearing for Spirit Work, on view through March 13, 2021.
Laurel Sparks (she/her) uses tactile geometry to create alchemical paintings that propose an encoded world view, paying tribute to occult histories of abstraction, counter-culture legacies and ancient mystery traditions. Sigil magic systems are applied to encrypt esoteric glyphs, magic squares, or text, while woven patterns produce dazzle camouflage. As secrets hiding in plain sight, the compositions are not meant to be decoded, but experienced as talismanic resonances. Exhibitions include Rubedo at Kate Werble Gallery (New York City), Museum of Fine Arts Boston, CCS Bard Hessel Museum, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, and Berman Museum at Ursinus College; Fire Island artist-in-residence (2013) and fellow at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop at Elizabeth Foundation (New York City, 2014). https://laurelsparks.com.
VISITOR INFO
View Cosmic Geometries Wed–Sat 12 pm-6 pm, no appointment necessary, mask and proof of full vaccination required for entry. For more information and accessibility notes please visit: https://www.projectspace-efanyc.org/about.
EFA Project Space, launched in September 2008 as a program of The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, is a collaborative, cross-disciplinary arts venue founded on the belief that art is directly connected to the individuals who produce it, the communities that arise because of it, and to everyday life; and that by providing an arena for exploring these connections, we empower artists to forge new partnerships and encourage the expansion of ideas.
The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts is a 501(c)(3) public charity, dedicated to providing artists across all disciplines with space, tools and a cooperative forum for the development of individual practice. We are a catalyst for cultural growth, stimulating new interactions between artists, creative communities, and the public.