25. Vadis Turner exhibiton at MFTA

Last week I was privileged to attend the opening of an exciting new exhibition by New York artist Vadis Turner at the Materials for the Arts Gallery in Long Island City. 

After a summer-long artist’s residency at Materials for the Arts, she has created an entirely new body of abstract work that reflects a decade’s worth of mixed media experimentation. 

 

the blogger with Artist Vadis

 

Vadis ‘paints’ with ribbon and fabric donated by NYC’s fashion industries to the MFTA warehouse.  She uses ribbons as lines, marks, and brushstrokes, large wads of fabric as stains of colour, and smaller pieces as drips of hues.

 

On ‘shopping days’, Vadis could be seen gliding through the 35,000 square-foot warehouse in one of the storm skirts, plucking inspiring discoveries from the shelves.  She even found a stereo to play music mixes from favourite CDs while she worked.

 

“ MFTA is magic,” says Vadis, “what’s available in the warehouse freed me up in a lot of ways and steered my creativity, because I responded to what colours and textures were out there and figured out compositions based on what’s been donated.”

 

About Materials for the Arts …

The MFTA collects unneeded items from businesses and individuals, and makes these donations available for free to non-profit organizations with arts programming, government agencies and public schools.

 

The MFTA warehouse is operated by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs with additional support from the City’s Departments of Sanitation and Education.

 

Executive Director Harriet Taub and Vadis Turner

Materials for the Arts 33-00 Northern Boulevard, 3rd Floor
Long Island City, NY 11101

http://www.materialsforthearts.org