Sheila Schwid: Reflections On 14th Street

On exhibit from February 7 - March 9, 2016
Opening Reception:  Sunday, February 3 from 3:30pm

Reflections on 14th Street is a study of the abstractions found on New York's Fourteenth Street. People, objects, light, shadow and forms blend and play in Schwid's multi-layered canvases. Her compositions are brave renderings of the enmeshed cityscape. Fast, blurred and fragmented images, reflections of reflections fill the space and describe the frenzy of a busy urban scene. Yet her attention to the people, a gaze, a gesture, is felt and slowed. It is the moment we have all had when someone catches our attention in the midst of the chaos. Time seems to slow for just a moment and we become suspended. Sheila says "[the windows] represent the strong forces that are intruding on us in this world, but the people are so strong, they just keep going.

Sheila Schwid is a New York-based artist and curator. She has been painting for over sixty years. Her biography overlaps with that of the New York School and includes participation in Red Grooms' Happenings at the Delancey Street Museum, among others. She has lived in and participated in the artist's community of the Westbeth, on Bethune Street since 1970. She has taught art, painting, and animation in public schools and universities. Schwid is represented by the Carter Burden Gallery.