Eroica Variations
The Trops takes pride in standing behind emerging artists, whom you may not have heard of– yet– but you should, and likely soon will. By naming this survey after the Beethoven compositions we are putting forth a bold claim that these voices are heroically breaking through as a force to be reckoned with on the world stage.
Eroica Variations was located at Villa Lina in the Lower East Side, NYC, summer and fall 2023.
Featured Artists
Armando Nin
Born and raised in New York, Armando Nin is a painter, photographer, and mixed media artist. His photography work captures the gritty extremities of his surroundings in the City starting in the mid 2000s into present day, and he often uses unconventional materials in his paintings and prefabrications.
Ben Ruhe
Ben Ruhe is a visual artist who grew up in Brooklyn, New York. His visual work was sold into private collections, he works on something a bit out of the ordinary. Now Ruhe is fascinated with building a quirky and extensive list of historical music on a radio station website called Magic Transistor with his colleagues. He began this musical endeavor by curating music at galleries, as well as listening to authentic music as he created his own work. He also has a blog in which he curates Google images which have been found by listening to these dazzling inspiring songs. Being underground as he is, Ben Ruhe has little to no information regarding his visual work.
Conrad de Kwiatkowski
Conrad De Kwiatkowski is a Bridgehampton, New York and Jacksonville-based artist. Kwiatkowski is focused on the placebo effect in art. “I create singular orbs that look self-illuminating. I am interested in creating a unified field of singularity to help me remain meditative in my work. Most spiritual teachings highlight the dichotomies of the mind as the primary source of all our problems. Recently I try and communicate directly with my heart as I work. I have started to believe the heart is the most unifying chakra we have, and therefore my work is about listening to it more than my mind. The sculptures are essentially about gratitude for all the blessings in my life."
David Aaron Greenberg
David Aaron Greenberg is an artist who uses multiple modes of expression.His work has been exhibited in various New York City galleries and is in the permanent collection at Stanford University. His critical writing has appeared in Parkett, The Fader, Art in America and Whitehot Magazine. Along with producer David Sisko, he co-founded Disco Pusher, a New York City songwriting and recording duo. Greenberg graduated from Rutgers University, Phi Beta Kappa. He lives in New Jersey and sometimes New York City.
Jerami Dean Goodwin
Jerami Dean Goodwin moved to New York City in 2008. Also known as “STAINO”, his graffiti moniker, Jerami attained global notoriety for his outdoor works, recently painting murals in New York City, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Peekskill. Putting Out Fires is a series of paintings representing an exploration of new application processes, such as the use of a fire extinguisher.
Nick Farhi
Nick Farhi utilizes installation and still life painting to connect people, places, and things. Through research, histories and relationships to one another are addressed and given a meeting place. Desperate, lush, and seismic shapes are made from confabulated memory and happenstance in the artist’s practice, arriving to a number of cross figural dialogues and polemics reflecting current events.
Rawnak Rahman
Her Kantha Collection embodies her personal journey of navigating the delicate balance between upholding and challenging traditional Bangladeshi culture. She aims to disrupt and spark discussions around Bangladeshi traditions.
Rene Saheb
Rene Saheb was born in Tehran, Iran. Her ceramics series “Valley of Knowledge” references fallen birds from a 1000-year old Persian poem, The Conference of the Birds by Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar. An allegory for the journey to enlightenment, these birds debate throughout a journey to the mountaintop in search of a mystical being. Along the way, many lose their lives or motivations. These sculptures made from discarded ceramic pieces share the story of the birds that did not or could not complete their search for Self.
Vahakn Arslanian
Born in Antwerp, Belgium and relocated with his family to New York City as an infant, Vahakn Arslanian is fascinated and inspired by roaring jet engine planes, explosives, luminous light bulbs and flickering candlelight. He has been nearly deaf since birth, his only sense of noise is from that which is thundering to the ears, for him, a glimpse at the vibrational frequency of sound. Along with his fascination with planes comes birds, where this biomimetic pair have in common, he mends the two, such as his rough paintings and drawings of plane wings with bird feathers. He takes much of his work and frames them in vintage plane windows, often broken and cracked.
Featured Performers
Improvisational Jazz by Daniel Carter
Daniel Carter was born in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania in 1945. Carter is an improvisational “free jazz” musician, combining saxophone, flute, clarinet, and trumpet in his performances.
Dance & Sumi Ink Painting Performance by Kanami Kusajima
Kanami Kusajima is a dancer or Gigi ally from Japan who now lives and works in New York City. Kanami Kusajima combines dancing and painting in a unique way, using Sumi ink, a traditional mixture made from soot. She drenches her bare hands and feet and dances over a white canvas, regularly performing for the public at Washington Square Park.
Vocals & Guitar by David Aaron Greenberg
David Aaron Greenberg is an artist who uses multiple modes of expression.His work has been exhibited in various New York City galleries and is in the permanent collection at Stanford University. His critical writing has appeared in Parkett, The Fader, Art in America and Whitehot Magazine.Along with producer David Sisko, he co-founded Disco Pusher, a New York City songwriting and recording duo. Greenberg graduated from Rutgers University, Phi Beta Kappa. He lives in New Jersey and sometimes New York City.
A puppet show by Natalia Diaz Jackson
Diaz-Jackson’s Family Weaver is a sculptural exploration of family, femininity, culture and humanity presented in the faces, forms and fashions of her nearly life-sized doll creations.
A Sound Bath by Judith Fleishman
Judith Fleishman, born in the middle of the 20th century, has lived in Europe, the Middle East and more recently in the city where she was born, NYC.
Djembe (Senegalese Drums)by Khadim Sene
Khadim Sene is a Senegalese vocalist and drummer based in NYC.
Kora by Salieu Suso
Born into a family of traditional African jalis (musician-historians), Salieu Suso began training on the 21-stringed kora at the age of 8, and began his professional career by the age of fifteen. He has performed widely throughout the U.S., Africa and Europe, and is known for his diverse range of musical collaborations.