Fresh Continues To Heat Up Summer Art Scene

On July 7, and Fresh presented the original, abstract art of local artists Brian Wasser and Lorena Salcedo-Watson.  

While some artists rely on multiple mediums to create their own abstract work, Brian Wasserman artistically arms himself with his trusted Canon Digital Rebel STI camera and a stack of filters.

Since graduating from Stony Brook University, Wasserman’s photography has evolved from taking pictures of abandoned buildings, to a devoted focus on macro sized images of plants and other "seemingly" insignificant organic subjects found in overlooked locations.

One of the most important aspects of Wasserman’s current work is how each photograph’s theme directly correlates to its unique frame. All of the original frames are hand made out of materials that Wasserman found in a barn along the edge of a large farm by his house in Brookhaven.

"It was a great space to play, be creative and do whatever you wanted," said Wasser.

Also on exhibit this month is the eerie, MRI and x-ray inspired large lithographs by Lorena Salcedo-Watson, an art teacher at Stony Brook University and St. Joseph’s College.

Glancing over her artwork, one cannot help but notice how the experienced print maker has been greatly influenced by the dream-like imagery of French lithographer Odilon Redon. Once the most popular illustrator of Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories, Redon’s dream type imagery featured creatures that were made from part plants, insects and human forms.

"There was a mysteriousness to his work," said Salcedo-Watson. "It’s creepy, romantic and irresistible to look at something that frightens you at the same time."

Most of the pieces currently on display draw from Lorena’s many physical experiences as well as her continuing study of insects. Her work primarily focuses on synapses, nerves, muscles and fibers of the human body.

"Every time I’m injured, I wonder what that injury looks like," she said. "I try to indicate what It feels like. When I’m drawing human anatomy related issues, it’s in reference to something that I am going through or went through. I try to give visual form to sensation."

Her large-scale piece Tingler, an engraving she created by using a sheet of copper and a needle, is named after the 1959 Vincent Price movie in which the main characters are infected by a worm like creature that inhabits their spines.

Lorena also works in the "Reductive" style of drawing, a method in which an entire sheet is covered with black charcoal and the artist pulls out the subjects’ highlights by using erasers.

"In printmaking you can go back and forth," said Salcedo-Watson. "You can always add or erase."

In order to create the piece entitled Synaptic Cleft, she covered limestone with black grease and sketched out the etching using acid.

Over the years, her work has even puzzled and intrigued members of the medical profession working and studying on the college campus.

"It’s really just about experience," she said.

Both artists’ work will be on display at throughout the month of July.