Since last December, Landmark Art Space at 547 West 27th St. in Chelsea has hosted a weekly art show on Thursdays with a rotating roster of artists.
Thursday’s art show, titled ‘Clash of the Perfectionists,’ featured work by artists TOGO, Xerox, Don Perlis, Gabriel, Nick Savides, Sherri Cobb, Junyi Liu, RDoll, Maxine Hoover, and Reid Stowe.
Maxine Hoover, also the curator of Landmark Art Space, told amNewYork that the weekly art exhibits initially featured female artists because women lacked visibility in the Chelsea art scene.
“Then we realized how much of a crowd these shows were drawing, being in a gallery building and also having such a frequent turnover,” Hoover said. “It clearly created a buzz in the building and also just in the Chelsea scene. It’s kind of nice because you feel you’re going to get something unique every single time you come into our space on a Thursday night.”
The gallery works with emerging and established artists and focuses mainly on paintings, mixed media, and drawings.
“This show is called ‘Clash of the perfectionist.’ We noticed that we have so many artists that strive for that realistic painterly style,” Hoover said. ” I have three pieces in the show here, and my work is constantly evolving. My style is constantly evolving, but I have been a lifelong painter, and I’ve always strived for very fine details in my work and painting.”
One of her pieces is titled ‘Atomic Sphere,’ and it is about a floating orb in space.
“It sends a message of universal oneness that we are kind of floating through space and time, as human beings and as souls, and it’s an interpretation of that whole concept,” Hoover said.
Reid Stowe, Hoover’s business partner, showed multiple of his paintings in the show. His newest painting, “Liberty Ship WWII Signal Flags,” includes WWII signal flags.
“These flags came off of ships that carried soldiers to the war in World War Two and carried the soldiers back,” Stowe explained. “An object contains the energy of those that have looked at it and worshipped it. And that’s what my work is, and that’s what these pieces are in this painting.”
Don Perlis, the master of the show, is an oil painter based in Brooklyn. He featured three pieces titled “Trumpworld,” “Love,” and “Lust,” set in Times Square, reflecting the decadence and circus that take place at the crossroads of the world.
“Here [Trump] is campaigning in Times Square,” Don Perin explained about his work “Trumpworld,” which shows the head of the former president and current candidate for president in a bubble, hovering over Times Square. “It all kind of goes together because it’s like vulgarity to capitalism, corporations, and him.”
Junyi Liu introduced two pieces of her series ‘Scarlet Reckoning,’ titled ‘Victory of the Haunted’ and ‘Off the Stage.’
“The whole series is dark, romantic, feminine, [it has] a lot of violence in it,” Liu said. “It’s sort of the desire of women to have retribution, which is the thing they want instead of having a perfect prince and live happily ever after.”
Artist Xerox’s primary medium is colored pencils, and his drawings were portraits of people the Brooklyn-based artist admires, like LeBron James, Maya Angelou, and Kevin Hart.
“This was a series of portraits that I’ve done of people that I respected, and I wanted to kind of be like, or on the artist level, be great like they were in their respective fields,” Xerox said. “I was drawing their portraits just to give honor to them.”
It took six months for the Brooklyn-based artist to complete LeBron James’s portrait.
“I went through 700 color pencils with that,” Xerox explained.
Contemporary painter Nick Savides, whose paintings reflected New York City scenes, gets his inspiration from walking around the city.
“I’ll see something that is interesting, something visually that I think would make a great painting; that’s where it all starts,” Savides said.
Multidisciplinary artist Gabriel’s “St.Gregory” painting is a derivative of Caravaggio’s painting of St. Jerome translating the Bible.
“St. Gregory is my friend Greg, and he’s actually covered head to toe in tattoos. And, of course, he’s holding something other than a coil in his hand,” Gabriel told amNewYork. “I wanted to sort of reach back into the past and, at the same time, connect with who people are today and to sort of bridge that gap between those.”
Sherri Cobb is a NEO abstract expressionist, and her series of skull paintings is titled ‘Memento Mori & Vanitas.’ Cobbs started photographing skulls in 2018. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, she remembered the skull photos she took and thought, “This is so poignant now.” Cobbs wanted to find beauty and hope during COVID-19 when she painted the series, which is a celebration and an homage to the impermanence of life.
“Life is so precious, but to have people on a worldwide scale go through the same experience, which I don’t know if it’s ever happened quite to that magnitude,” Cobbs said. “So I thought this is a good time to explore that thought.”
