All posts by Mariwyn Curtin

150 Ebitenyefa “Ebi” Baralaye

Artists, ,

Born Port Harcourt, Nigeria, 1984 / BFA Rhode Island School of Design; MFA Cranbrook Academy of Art / Lives in Detroit

“Home is where the heart is,” as the old chestnut goes. But where is home when your life has had a multi-continent trajectory? Ceramicist, sculptor, and designer Ebitenyefa “Ebi” Baralaye explores this question through his work in clay and other materials. He draws on the spirituality and culture of Nigeria (his country of birth) and the Caribbean (where he grew up for a time) to document and mediate his experiences in living in the Midwest and on both coasts of the United States.

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142 Dalia Reyes

Artists,

Born Valle Hermoso, Tamaulipas, Mexico 1985 / BA, College for Creative Studies / Lives in Detroit

“Functional art” generally describes objects of everyday life, such as furniture or tableware, that are fashioned in a fine art or high-concept style. Dalia Reyes flips that definition—crafting paintings and mixed-media works that function as tools to open up a space within the viewer for contemplation and reflection.

Some of the most stunning of Reyes’ works, the ones that pour forth an energy felt even through a computer screen, have a deceptively simple geometry. On square or rounded supports, multicolored circles and rings interspersed with glowing gold leaf hover, as in Rainbow Body Portal (2018) or Sound Portal (2019). These works are often reminiscent of targets, but the goal is within; classified by the artist as portals, they are purposely constructed as doorways to a meditative state. 

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142 Dalia Reyes (en Español)

Artists,

Nacida en Valle Hermoso, Tamaulipas, México 1985 / BA, College for Creative Studies / Vive en Detroit

El “arte funcional” generalmente describe objetos de la vida cotidiana, como muebles o vajillas, que están diseñados en un estilo de bellas artes o de alto concepto. Dalia Reyes cambia esa definición: elabora pinturas y obras de técnica mixtas que funcionan como herramientas para abrir un espacio dentro del espectador para la contemplación y la reflexión.

Algunas de las obras más impresionantes de Reyes, las que derraman una energía que se siente incluso a través de la pantalla de una computadora, tienen una geometría engañosamente simple. Sobre soportes cuadrados o redondos, círculos y anillos multicolores intercalados con hojas de oro resplandecientes, como en Portal del Cuerpo Arcoíris (2018) o Portal de Sonido (2019). Estos trabajos a menudo recuerdan a los objetivos, pero el objetivo está dentro; clasificados por el artista como portales, se construyen a propósito como puertas de entrada a un estado meditativo.

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139 Dorota and Steve Coy

Artists,

Dorota Coy, Born Lubin, Poland, 1978 / BA University of Vermont / Lives in Detroit

Steve Coy, Born Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1978 / BFA, University of Michigan, MFA University of Hawaii / Lives in Detroit

Like many outside of Detroit, I first encountered the work of Dorota and Steve Coy through the film Detropia in 2012. Looking up at the glowing, gold-gas-masked Executives of the Hygienic Dress League Corporation (HDL) I never imagined that in 2020 I’d be emailing with Dorota to reschedule an interview when the opening of their exhibition The Five Realms at Wasserman Projects  – along with all other social events in the city and across the world – was postponed due to a global pandemic.

As I clear my calendar, I wonder how many respirators are currently among HDL’s holdings, and whether that number affects the corporation’s value. There’s plenty of time for a deep dive on the internet to find out while I’m waiting for public life to resume.

What I discover is that Steve and Dorota Coy are not the Hygienic Dress League.

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133 Armageddon Beachparty

Artists, ,

Elena Smyth, Born Detroit, Michigan, 1990 / BFA, College for Creative Studies / Lives in Detroit

Aubrey Smyth, Born Detroit, Michigan, 1990 / Lives in Detroit

Artists Elena and Aubrey Smyth, working together as Armageddon Beachparty, have created a universe, an epic narrative of deities and powerful beings in vivid images across a wide range of media. A shared, life-long love of comics, street art, and mythology permeates their paintings and sculptures while their canny sense of branding propagates their vision via prints, clothing, watches, and other objects. The artists paint contemporary pop surrealism scenes while surrounded by their considerable output and the energy from a steady stream of admirers and buyers in what Elena calls a “perpetual motion machine” of creativity.

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New writer – Mariwyn Curtin

Writers

Mariwyn Curtin explores cities extensively on bike or on foot and documents the experiences in artists’ books or abstractly as “industrial embroidery” assembled from ephemera found along the way. An author and editor primarily in educational publishing and testing, she is happiest writing about art. She previously interviewed ten award-winning photographers about their craft to write the copy for Hasselblad Masters. Vol. 2 Emotion.