Frederick Law Olmsted is widely recognized as one of the most influential landscape architects in history. Together with his partner Calvert Vaux, Olmsted created iconic designs for New York City’s Central Park and Prospect Park, leaving an indelible mark on urban landscapes.
In 1858, Olmsted and Vaux’s design for Central Park was selected through a competition, chosen over 32 other entries. Their vision was a departure from the prevailing Victorian-era park designs characterized by geometric patterns and ornate features. Instead, Olmsted aimed to create a practical park that embraced the natural landscape, incorporating native plants and offering an escape from the bustling city. The design prioritized harmony with nature rather than asserting human dominance over it. The result was a revolutionary concept that introduced an idealized version of nature within an urban setting. Central Park’s winding paths, tranquil ponds, and wide green spaces provide respite for residents and visitors alike.
Olmsted’s influence extended beyond Central Park. Prospect Park in Brooklyn, also designed by Olmsted, was similarly intended to serve as a sanctuary for city-dwellers seeking solace in nature. Constructed in one of the most densely populated areas of the country, Prospect Park provided a much-needed escape and a source of inspiration for the local community.
Beyond the immediate impact on New York City’s landscape, Olmsted’s work elevated the profession of landscape architecture itself. He brought a visionary and artistic approach to his designs, recognizing the importance of creating spaces that not only served practical purposes but also resonated with people on a deeper level.
Frederick Law Olmsted’s legacy lives on in the enduring beauty of Central Park and Prospect Park, as well as in the countless parks and landscapes that have been inspired by his innovative designs. His commitment to blending nature with urban environments continues to shape the way we perceive and interact with public spaces, reminding us of the profound impact that thoughtful design can have on our quality of life.
Prospect Park, Photo by Avery Walker, 2023
Embrace the spirit of adventure with the Trops mobile app and unlock the hidden gems of your community, like the enchanting parks of New York City. The Trops mobile app is a guide to new art drops experiences. This fall, step outside, breathe in the fresh air, and let Trops be your ultimate companion. Download the app now and let the adventures begin.
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.
Featuring:
Ben Ruhe, Nick Farhi, Rene Saheb, Armando Nin, Rawnak Rahman, Vahakn Arslanian, Jerami Dean Goodwin, David Aaron Greenberg, Conrad de Kwiatkowski
Vahakn Arslanian (b. 1975, Antwerp, Belgium) Having 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, Arslansian 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 found objects such as vintage plane windows, often broken and cracked.
Vahakn Arslanian
Fat Bird
Oil on Canvas
27 ¾ in x 35 ½ in
2008
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.
Armando Nin
Coreana Chain No.
Unframed Butane Scorched Marine-grade Vinyl
24in x 36in
2022
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.
David Aaron Greenberg
NP
40in x 30in
Oil on Canvas
2023
Rawnak Rahman 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.
Rawnak Rahman
“বু” / “bu”
48” x 48”
Mixed media on wood
2023
Ben Ruhe translates interdimensional beings and textures into his distinct figurative language, integrating soulful whimsicality into his mixed media artworks,
Ben Ruhe
Untitled (captain)
Acrylic Polymer, Ink and Matte Acrylic Medium on Archival paper
14in x 11in
2023
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.
Jerami Dean Goodwin
Untitled #1 (White)
Acrylic on canvas
48 x 60 inches
Rene Saheb was born in Tehran, Iran and frequently engages allegory to comment on the social and philosophical phenomenons of life. Saheb received her Bachelor of Art in Professional Design at Limkokwing University of Creative Technology.
“No one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.”
Richard was prepared for the big time the second time around. After a few false starts, bringing major galleries to visit when he nonchalantly had nothing to show, or inviting high profile collectors when Richard did not deign to answer the doorbell. But eventually my father engineered some connections and even I assisted in bringing his painting to the world stage, where it belonged, once again. Andy Valmorbida, Vladamir Roitfeld and Giorgio Armani stepped in, both barrels blazing. In short order the Shadow Man would have international exhibits, TV and magazine appearances, beautiful and famous fans and collectors, and a great documentary based on his life story. Bright blossoms springing up after a harsh winter. My visits with Richard grew more scarce. No more phone calls to invite my model or pot dealer friends to admire his new works. But we remained dear friends. Occasionally I would visit him in his Orchard Street compound, and there, just like the famous lovers from the Triumph Of Death, I’d find Richard lazing on the daybed in front of the TV with his loyal Gigi, Puerto Rican aristocrat and partner in crime, an elegant Surrealist assistant answering the ever-ringing telephone with her mulberry velvet opera gloves, fielding inquiries from abroad in her lilting Eastern bloc accent. I’d move some paint-stained newspapers and debauched take-out containers to sit and chat. Richard opened to a fashion spread from the Sunday Times supplement, and blacked out the bodies with a magic marker. Nebulous resin landscapes from the Beautiful Series dried on the walls, Island of the Dead as viewed through the blood surging into the cloudy liquids of a junkie’s syringe.
Richard Hambleton
Horse and Rider
A “Shadow Man” by Richard Hambleton
Photo by Martha Cooper
The ravages of good times were catching up with Richard. He would show up at society functions on his squeaky folding bike, still handsome but bandaged like a fighter pilot shot down, hobbling like a man twice his age. A collector made a joke in bad taste that soon Richard would be gone, and our collections would shoot up in price. I admonished him not to be so sure; Richard had been dangling over this abyss for ages and was liable to bury us all. Alas the small bandage on his nose would be swapped for a face mask as the condition spread, and soon large portions of his face went missing like the Sphinx. It was terrible to see, especially when you cared for him, and yet his courage and joie de vivre never wavered. He took the degeneration of his physical form as a matter of course; he was evolving into the fearsome Shadow of his fantasies. Collectors began to clamor for his Eighties catalogue, but he was still churning out work to his last moments on earth, every bit as vital, in spite of mounting adversity.
Just when I thought he must be sitting pretty once again, he called to report he was being evicted from his apartment. Surely it was some ploy to hustle another five hundred bucks from me, but this time he was in earnest. All was lost. He and Gigi crashed on my couch for three days, smoking, laughing at cartoons, concocting funky delicacies with cans of tuna, Campbells soup and cartons of vitamin D milk, their every belonging spilling out of suitcases on my living room floor. Thank God pops arranged a long term hotel for the lovers in Soho and it was there he mounted his brave last stand. But before leaving me on that intolerable sojourn, so sweet in retrospect, he left a shadow man on the inside of my front door, a sentinel with the built-in peephole standing in for a single cyclops eye.
Richard Hambleton
Horse and Rider
Richard grew more and more frail, and like Philippe Petit now seemed to be averting a cataclysm with every sure step, while we all watched on helplessly. I think it was my last meeting with him that taught me most about the core character of his being, showing me how to be a man in the truest sense of the word. I was opening a café and wanted him to paint something on the wall. He told me to pick him up at the hotel, and to bring three hundred dollars so he could get “right” first. He made me wait in the stuffy bathroom while his shadowy acquaintance was summoned, and I could hear Richard fixing in the other room. After what felt like hours, he was ready, surgeon’s mask barely covering the facial anatomy lost to decay, we walked the immeasurably long block from the hotel to my café together. His powerful Rodin hand clung to my shoulder to keep him from tumbling over, each step he would stop to wheeze and catch his breath. He was dying. And by asking him this favor, I was killing him. As badly as I wanted him to paint at my café, I told him we should turn back, that I would deposit him back in bed beside his loyal Gigi, and we could paint some other day. In the throes of what must have been unspeakable agony, he refused to surrender. “No, I am going to paint!” And paint he did, as powerfully as he ever had. I enlisted two lovely girls to assist him, a docile Rastafarian sister, and a Jazz drummer’s sage daughter. They refilled his iced coca colas and urged him on as he brought the monumental head and shoulders into existence with turbulent flourishes of liquid black paint, one last Shadow Man.
John Newsom, Dense Armor, 2008-09. Credit: Oklahoma Contemporary Museum
Combining realistic representations of animals and vegetation, Abstract Expressionism, and hard-edge geometry, John Newsom’s paintings explore our intricate and complicated relationship with nature. I spoke with John about his origins, his practice, and his upcoming exhibitions – a mid-career retrospective at the Oklahoma Contemporary Museum and a two-person show with Raymond Pettibon in Palm Beach.
Nathalie Martin: So I was talking to my friend, a young painter who’s in the studio all day and has an incredible work ethic. But he’s always so hung up about originality or making the most original thing. And I always tell him that maybe originality isn’t the goal. Maybe you’re working towards a certain goal or idea and then your voice or that originality just comes, almost like a symptom or byproduct of whatever you’re working towards. Just not being so fixated with making the most “original” thing. You mentioned Morandi – people have painted cups before. But he makes it totally his own.
John Newsom: Well I would say your friend is looking outside of themselves. What they have to do is turn that vision inward and it’ll be new. It’ll be new because they’ll be discovering themselves for the first time. Everybody, honestly, has a unique spark within them. This is what I’m saying, Nathalie. You got to bring it all in, in, in, but then you’ve got to let it go, go, go. You have to get rid of it all. That’s why you have to learn everything to unlearn everything. If that makes sense. I really mean that. You have to go out there and just learn and take in as much as possible, and then edit it down to get rid of it all. Then you’re going to be at a place that is totally new. You’re going to have an option if you’re a painter in the painting context, because your friend may discover that they can do what they need to do, but they have to do it training dolphins or something. But anyway, I do think that is something that particularly young artists struggle with. I think it’s a healthy thing. You have to be diligent about it. The cream always rises to the top, it always does. So then you go with that, whatever that is, whatever that means. I actually just finished a nine by eighteen-foot canvas that’s going to debut in the museum show in March.
John Newsom, Nature’s Course, 2021-22. Credit: Oklahoma Contemporary Museum
NM: Your retrospective? Tell me about that.
JN: Yeah, I have a mid-career retrospective, and I’ve been struggling with even saying that phrase because it’s so freaky to say out loud. But I do have a mid-career retrospective opening on March 24th at the new Oklahoma Contemporary Museum, which obviously is very meaningful because that’s the region I’m from, but it also happens to be an extraordinary building and staff. The programming is exceptional. Ed Ruscha just had a full-scale retrospective at the museum, and I’m very honored to be following him. The programming that’s coming up is very, very dynamic and international. This exhibition has been a few years in the planning. We started it
before the pandemic. Fortunately, my dates landed a little bit afterwards. It’s going to be comprised of 31 large-scale paintings from the past 20 years. The majority of works are coming in from private collections all over the United States. We decided to keep the show within national borders at the time because of COVID restrictions and shipping. There were some works abroad I would ideally liked to have brought in, but it’s okay. We were able to get the show to a hundred percent with what we have and it’s going to be outstanding. I’m excited about it. They chose the paintings and I felt like I needed to make one to debut at the show.
I jumped into this painting. I was sitting with a friend of mine, watching a horse race on television. I was talking with my friend about the race because he’s into it, I’m not into it, but it just happened to be on the screen. He said that it was the races at Longchamp. I was like, oh yeah, like the Manet painting, because that was the first time a painter had painted a painting like that, from the perspective of seeing the racers and the horses directly coming right at you. Until then the scene was always presented from the side. So that sparked an idea in my mind. Now I’ve got the title. The title of the exhibition at the museum is Nature’s Course, which I feel I just
walked the entirety of in the last hour talking to you, which is amazing. It’s a herd of five charging bison with a flock of eagles soaring above this open sky. It’s the great Mid-western Plains.
NM: I was just going to say, there’s the Kansas and Oklahoma coming back right back in.
JN: Yeah, exactly. But Nathalie, there’s no way I would have thought I would be painting this painting five years ago, ten years ago, twenty, thirty years ago. How insane? But it might be my strongest painting to date. We’ll see. I mean, a few people that have seen previews of it, I’ve been really pleased with the reaction. So I’m very excited about this. It’s going to open on March 24th and run through August 15th.
NM: So the show is called Nature’s Course. Obviously, your work deals with our complex relationship with nature. And I think you have this visual language or this mark-making style that kind of exists between abstraction and figuration, or soft and fierce, or the beautiful and the terrifying or menacing. Are these binaries representations of how you view this relationship?
JN: Yeah, there’s definitely a duality in the work. But I just feel like it needs to be there because it’s got to be there. The language is such that it incorporates a wide variety of applique and thought, but there are parameters on that. Meaning there are specifications to it. You know, there are rules, for lack of a better word. That’s not to say that you can’t break the rules. It’s just to acknowledge that there are rules and those are for the most part of my own making at this point,
because it goes back to early on. You try to learn and get on something more organic, you just got to figure out what’s working and what’s not working. Where the energy is right. You go in the direction of the good energy. Even if it’s a painting that is made during a challenging period of one’s life. The tableau of the canvas can absorb the hit of any energy that you bring to it. That’s the magic of it. It’s just kind of a tremendous thing. And then it exists in the painting, it
becomes manifested. So whatever it is, if it’s a Goya painting of a certain theme, you can see
where his energy was. It’s now transferred into the canvas – it’s in the picture. When I say you get good energy, I mean that you worked through whatever energy it is and then you hopefully will feel better. This is about healing. I think ultimately great painting is about healing. Whether it’s yourself or the viewer – and it’s really important to note that a painting doesn’t exist unless it’s got eyes in front of it.
John Newsom, Harvest, 2011-16. Credit: Oklahoma Contemporary Museum
NM: I always say this!
JN: This is really interesting because I don’t paint the human figure, I paint an allegorical representation of the human figure. The physical reality of a human figure doesn’t appear in my work. It appears through the observer of the work. I’m very conscious of that. The viewer completes the picture. Because if they’re not there, the painting doesn’t exist. It’s like if the tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? It’s a little existential, but it makes sense. So when people say, “Oh, why don’t you paint the figure?” I’m like, “You’re the figure, you’re right there!”
But to get back to the questions, I paint in allegorical terms. There are kind of two ways to read one of my paintings. One is in the literal sense, of whatever flora and fauna or expression of manner you may find within the painting, and then the other is what’s its meaning, what’s its allegory, what’s its allusion. What is it alluding to? Then that gets interesting. It gets complex. Sometimes I make that definition a little bit more reachable, but sometimes I put it out of reach because I want to give people a mystery. That’s something that I think is really important and I think is missing in a lot of today’s art. Everybody is so engaged in meaning, or getting this or that point across. It’s like, I don’t need to know! And so what I want to do is give you both. You can get this or that, or you can leave it there. It doesn’t matter. You know what I mean?
So Nature’s Course is the idea that it’s going to be what it’s going to be. And that’s what it is. You take your time with the paintings because you have to sit with paintings. People are scrolling through Instagram and their attention spans are like goldfish, just like boom, boom,
gone. Painting is the opposite of Instagram. You have to sit with a painting and you have to read it like a book, but it’s visual, you know.
NM: I think learning how to see a painting is really like learning how to read again.
JN: You just said it, learning how to see again. It’s just a different process. Myself and others have had the potential to fall in love with that process, you know, and I’m certainly in love with that process.
NM: So you have a two-person exhibition with Raymond Pettibon coming up as well, opening March 15th at County Gallery in Palm Beach. How does that differ from the retrospective or the idea of Nature’s Course? Does it differ?
JN: I’m very excited about that. Yeah, well, the title of, and the theme of that exhibition, is the five classical elements: fire, air, water, earth, and aether. So Raymond and I each made five new works for the show. There will be 10 pieces in all – my five versions of the classical elements and Raymond’s five versions of the classical elements. I’m really excited about it because just thematically speaking, it’s such a tried and true iconography of art. It goes back to the beginning of it all and everything in between. It was a fascinating project to work on. Having it open simultaneously with the museum show is just perfect. Raymond and I formed a friendship over the bond between our two sons. Our sons are good friends, so it was through them that we started our friendship and discussions and I really just admire Raymond. But you know what? It was through nature’s course itself – through the boys playing around, swimming, making little films, and going on excursions like Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Those two are just like dynamite. It’s just great.
John Newsom in his studio, 2022.
Photo Credit: Jonathan Mannion
COUNTY is a young gallery, a very good gallery in Palm Beach. They approached me and Raymond with the idea of doing the show and we had some really healthy discussions, landed on this and I couldn’t be more pleased with how the process has unfolded and the staff at COUNTY. I’m really looking forward to both exhibitions.
NM: That’s incredible, it sounds seamless. So what keeps you painting? What inspires you?
Is it your family? Is it this internal drive? Is it outside influences?
JN: Well, it’s all of the above and more, you know, at this point – you know what, it goes back to the beginning, it’s just the same, Nathalie. It’s just that life itself brings to it what it needs to be. You know, whether it’s something I feel, observe, or experience, I put it into the paintings. And this goes back again to the idea of generosity. I want to serve up a very full meal. I want to make it a big plentiful meal, and I’m just always cooking.
NM: Always in the kitchen.
JN: I’m always in the kitchen, yes, I’m always in the kitchen. You find me in the studio or with my kids, that’s it. That’s my world.
NM: And they’re the same, probably, as far as the return you’re getting.
JN: Yeah, but you know what, that brings us back to the very beginning of our conversation, even before we hopped on the recording. I used to be incredibly social when I was younger. I was out at a thousand openings. I never slept, I was working, I was going to parties. It was exhausting. Just exhausting. It was amazing. I’m glad I lived through it, to be honest, now I’m eight years sober, I’m a sober guy. And life is golden. I don’t regret anything. But I’m glad I lived through it to get to where I am now because it’s really good right now. It wasn’t always about this balance. It was like being tied to the mast heading out to rough seas, but I learned a lot and I have a lot to be thankful for.
NM: I think that directly relates to how you work and your practice. You’re gonna go where you go or shit’s going to come from you and happen to you, but you just got to work through it. You constantly have to work through it, whether it’s painting or life –
Combining realistic representations of animals and vegetation, Abstract Expressionism, and hard-edge geometry, John Newsom’s paintings explore our intricate and complicated relationship with nature. I spoke with John about his origins, his practice, and his upcoming exhibitions – a mid-career retrospective at the Oklahoma Contemporary Museum and a two-person show with Raymond Pettibon in Palm Beach.
Nathalie Martin: It’s also interesting that your first encounter with art was through Rauschenberg and Warhol and kind of all the guys that sought to “break the rules,” then going to school and studying the rules yourself, is a really unique way to get into it or to get into the history.
John Newsom: Yeah, definitely. Definitely, because there’s a generation in between. If you look at it really by decades and things, there was a generation in between there that was such an incredible, momentous time for painting in the eighties. So the Pop Art that I was really looking at, it came earlier, when we were moving out of Abstract Expressionism into Pop. Like real early Pop into middle Pop. That was a really interesting period, but it was also a very popular period. So that’s why I was able to get access to it in rural Oklahoma because I couldn’t get to some of the things that were happening in the European context, or even the Far East, which I eventually made it to. I studied abroad and lived in Kyoto. I was in Yokohama, Osaka, Tokyo, and then I was down in Mexico City for a while, around San Miguel and Palenque. So I traveled a lot. I was very interested in broadening my knowledge. I wanted to get the knowledge. And so it wasn’t exclusively linear like with the New York context. But for me, it’s always been about the journey.
John Newsom, The Bright Side, 2017. Credit: Oklahoma Contemporary Museum
I’ve done a lot of exhibitions in Los Angeles. I’ve had good experiences in LA. I’ve always been based in New York and coming up I never had the dream of going to Los Angeles. I always knew I wanted to get to New York and it’s a different place to paint here. It’s just a little different than it is in LA. And it’s not to make a value judgment. It’s just to say that it’s a different type of context to be painting in. I think that’s benefited my particular type of work again because of the tactility of the surface. That’s kind of a uniquely New York historical way of approaching the canvas. If you look at my work, for the most part, the works are rather large in scale and they’re also very tactical. They’re tough, they’re heavy, and they’re physical paintings. So I always found it kind of a nice juxtaposition when I would go to Los Angeles and see friends and artists out there and shows where it became about light and space. It was all about light and space and atmosphere and it was amazing. It was a trip, but then I get back here and it was like we’re back in this earthen realm of the physical, up-in-your grill surface structures. I love that because I feel like paintings are made as much as they are painted. I mean, there’s the idea of the mark.
NM: I agree and see that in your own work.
JN: There’s a certain attribute about mark-making in New York that is different than anywhere else, and I love it. That’s why I continue to be encouraged by the energy of it. I was talking with the painter Ed Moses about this one time, and he was an interesting painter because although he was in Los Angeles, he was a very physical type of painter. His surfaces were very physically driven. So if he had stayed in New York, he would’ve had a very different history. And if a painter like Brice Marden had gone to Los Angeles, with his type of work, those Cold Mountain paintings would have a totally different feel to them. I just think it’s interesting to really take note of the context of where it is you are painting in a landscape. Corot was painting in a certain landscape, Turner was painting in a certain landscape, Van Gogh too, and it’s just all this kind of stuff. So it’s really fascinating. I am so blessed and grateful to be able to have the opportunity to get up every day and go to the studio and do what I do.
NM: Where is your studio?
JN: My studio right now is located at Mana Contemporary. So I’m actually in Jersey City. But my studio was in Soho previously for twenty years. That was the right amount of time to be in Soho. I’m glad I was in Soho when it was like that. Especially in the nineties, because coming into Soho in 92, we got the backwash of what was there, but there was enough. From 92 to 95, it was still jamming. There were still unbelievable, pivotal types of presentations happening with exhibitions there and these artists and it was amazing. It was amazing. Things shifted, which is okay.
John Newsom in his studio, 2022.
Photo Credit: Jonathan Mannion
NM: As they do.
JN: Yeah, the city doesn’t go anywhere, you just get offered different options, but being there at that time was just incredible to come in on that period, you know? So listen, every generation comes in on their own time.
NM: That’s what I tell myself at least.
JN: Yeah, for sure. So I was planning a move of studios and my wife and I found out we were pregnant with our first child and we had been living in Soho prior to having kids. So we moved to Brooklyn and we live in Park Slope. I decided to move my studio, and through a chain of associations I was offered to take a look at the current space, and I built it out. I really like it. I’ve been at the current studio maybe six, seven years, something like that. It’s a long commute, but I’m glad I have it. I walk, I take the trains. I love living in a walking city. As a painter, I love it. That’s another reason why I could never be in LA. There was an apartment I had access to for four years through the gallery I was with in LA and I’d stay there and I’d either get a car or have a driver or some way to get around, but I never really drove. You get to run into people here. You want to have experiences. You feel a part of the city, you feel closer to it. So I walk, I take the trains. I don’t go to the gym, but I go to the studio. It helps you a little bit. But it’s all good. Everything’s good. Everything’s in a real good space. So yeah, totally. I’m happy.
NM: Good. I want to talk about your influences too. Your fauna definitely reminds me of Audubon and your backdrops remind me of Pollock or Mitchell, and your flora reminds me of Kahlo even.
JN: Well, I love all those artists you’re mentioning. It’s really important to do two things. It’s really important to address your influences, to work with and through your influences. You have to do that, but you have to literally work through your influences until it’s digested fully and it’s yours now.
John Newsom, Keep Watch, 2020. Credit: Oklahoma Contemporary Museum
NM: Absolutely, so you’re not just regurgitating.
JN: You have to do that. I mean, the Greats study the Greats in order to be great. You have to do that in anything, in music, sports, entertainment, in writing. Again, because I kind of started out early, I got to go through a lot, and quickly. I gathered a lot, I went through a lot. When I say a lot, it wasn’t like I was looking at a dozen artists. I was looking at hundreds of artists. Really, hundreds of artists, trying to see what it was all about. And there are many, many false starts. You’re not going to hit it out of the park every time. There’s going to be a lot of strikes, and you have to embrace it. Sometimes it’s like, “This is interesting, but it’s kind of a dead-end,” and so now I’m going to go over here and, “Oh, wow, this is happening.” But you have to keep an open mind, always have to keep an open mind. You never know where it’s going to come from, where that spark is going to be. So you’re mentioning artists like Audubon to Joan Mitchell, which is interesting. Who the hell is thinking of that together? You know what I mean? You make an interesting point because it’s like, “I want it all.” Going back to Rauschenberg, when you look at Skyway, it’s like he was cramming everything he could into every square inch of that painting. That’s what I love about Rauschenberg and certain other artists that I’ll get into – the level of generosity. I just love when I walk into a show, wherever it is, I’m like, “Oh, wow. Whoa.” You know, it’s just, “Oh my God, look at this!” So if I’m flipping through Artforum or whatever, I see an announcement for an exhibition by a certain artist, then it’s like, “Oh shit! I can’t wait to see this!”
NM: Me too! And when it hits, it hits.
JN: Oh man, when it delivers? Because it might not deliver. But when it delivers, you know, it’s like watching Pacino in a film or something…. and it delivers! You walk in and you’re like, “Wow, this is it!” It didn’t happen overnight. Paintings don’t make themselves. You’ve got to get up, get your coffee, get in the studio, grind, flow – however it gets done – and you have to paint every day. This reminds me of a quote by Alex Katz that I’ve always loved. I really admire Alex Katz. He’s amazing. And he said, “Go to the studio, paint 10 hours a day every day for 10 years, and then come see me.” And that’s just such a pretentious, badass, New York quote. That’s just awesome. So that’s what I did. I painted 10 hours a day for 10 years. And then I went to see him. He gave me a drawing of his wife Ada reclining on the beach, and my wife has it hanging in our bedroom and it’s signed: To John, Love Alex. So I took his advice and if you’re a painter like that, I’m giving you Alex Katz’s advice, because it was really good advice. Just get in there and grind, and that’s really it. You’re also going to find out a lot about yourself and if you’re cut out for this, because not everybody is built for this nor should they be. It’s just following your own bliss, figuring out what that means, and what’s that about.
John Newsom, Solstice, 2016. Credit: Oklahoma Contemporary Museum
So I can get into influences. Certainly, there have been many, many, many, and I gotta tell you, it’s at a point now where it’s become self-referential in the work. And that’s a strange thing to say. It’s not completely self-referential, but it’s to the degree that… like, the Jasper Johns show just closed at the Whitney, and it’s been a very busy time for me and I didn’t get to see it.
NM: What! No way.
JN: No, no, no, but it’s fine. I’m not stressed about not seeing it because I’ve seen other Johns’ shows. He’s a great painter, but I’m at the point where I can’t see anything right now because I’ve got to be on my shit. But it hasn’t always been like that. There was a point earlier where I would have made sure to see a show like that because I needed to see it. Or I had to see it or whatever, but you know what, I’ve seen iterations of it. I hope I’m getting this across because it’s an exciting place to be at. It’s like, wow, I finally have so much on my plate with my own painting that I actually can’t go see this stuff, but it’s okay. Because I know it, I know what it is. I’ve really enjoyed sharing these stories with you because it’s a time to look back. It’s a time to take a moment of self-reflection and to look back and to take stock and see what things have happened, what paintings exist now that are particularly important and strong in my own lineage, and then see where I’m going with it. Then I’ll have a period that opens up where I can exhale and go see something, and then you see what happens. It’s interesting, things that you would have never imagined you would’ve been into at a certain period, you’re obsessed with, you know what I mean?
NM: Totally. Some of my favorite painters now are artists I originally didn’t understand or like.
JN: And then vice versa, you know, you’ve got to be like that. You can’t just stay on one thing. If you’re on a type of painting or an artist as an influence, and you’re looking at it and you know it back and forth, it doesn’t mean you have to stay on it forever. You can set it down and you can evolve into other things, knowing that it was there. It is there. But you don’t have to feel obligated to take it with you everywhere. Not that you should either, because the most important thing is to find your own voice as a painter. You have to work through your influences. You look at Velazquez or Caravaggio or late Manet – this is capital “P” Painting, and you have to get through that stuff. You have to go to the Prado and see Spanish painting, you have to see the Louvre and the French painting. You’ve got to do all that stuff. I was told that when I was young, and I’ve been to those places. So you get into a certain moment in your development and then you process it, and it gets better. It just keeps getting better, and you get wiser too, just by doing the work. Because the work leads the way.
Combining realistic representations of animals and vegetation, Abstract Expressionism, and hard-edge geometry, John Newsom’s paintings explore our intricate and complicated relationship with nature. I spoke with John about his origins, his practice, and his upcoming exhibitions – a mid-career retrospective at the Oklahoma Contemporary Museum and a two-person show with Raymond Pettibon in Palm Beach.
John Newsom, Keep Watch, 2020. Credit: Oklahoma Contemporary Museum
Combining realistic representations of animals and vegetation, Abstract Expressionism, and hard-edge geometry, John Newsom’s paintings explore our intricate and complicated relationship with nature. I spoke with John about his origins, his practice, and his upcoming exhibitions – a mid-career retrospective at the Oklahoma Contemporary Museum and a two-person show with Raymond Pettibon in Palm Beach.
JN: I grew up in a very solid family structure and being very close with my family. I have a family now and I just love family. I’m crazy about my family. So a strange thing happened on my 14th birthday. I thought that everybody had forgotten my birthday. Like everybody was playing dumb, they didn’t acknowledge it. And it freaked me out. It was a problem.
I went up to my room and was just kind of sad about it. It was on a Saturday. My Dad came up, and he peeked in and he said, “Hey, you want to drive downtown and get a Coke?” I said okay. And so we drove downtown. It was a beautiful sunny day. It was like a Norman Rockwell painting. We went into this soda stand and got Coke floats. We were talking about baseball and things like that. And then he said, “do you want to take a drive to Oklahoma City?” And I was like, yeah, sure, why not? I mean, that wasn’t totally out of the ordinary, but it was cool that he said that. But still no mention of the birthday.
Downtown Oklahoma City, 1987
So my dad and I drove to Oklahoma City. And at the time – this was before the ages of heightened security and terrorist alerts and all that – you could literally drive up to the tarmac of the landing pad at the airport, which is what we did. There was a small commuter plane waiting for us on the tarmac. I mean, it wasn’t a private jet or anything like that. It was just a small plane, which was cool. My dad looked at me and he said, “Hey, you want to take a plane ride?” Now this had never happened before. This was different. But he got up, we got on the plane and I was excited. I was just thrilled. This was an adventure.
We took off, I didn’t know where we were going. We were up in the air for a little over an hour, I’d say an hour and a half. We started making our descent and I look over and there are buildings around. We’re landing in a city. The plane lands, and we get out and there’s a car waiting for us. Not with a driver or anything fancy. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was everything to me. This was the moment. My dad’s like, “Hey, you want to take a drive and see where we’re at?” It was amazing how he laid this out. So we get in the car and we start looping around and we are in heavy urban traffic and it’s going fast. It’s moving. It’s not stalled. It’s not like being in LA during rush hour. It’s fast-moving and we zoom off the freeway and I’m just wide-eyed looking out the window. The car stops. I look over at my dad and he puts his arm around me. He looks at me and he goes, “Happy Birthday.” Oh my God. And I look out the window and it says the Dallas Museum of Art. I blew open the door. There was a sidewalk, a long sidewalk between the car and the front door. And I just started running down the sidewalk, and there’s this giant leaning wall of steel on the left side of the sidewalk. And later in life, I would tell Richard Serra this story – I literally did that, Nathalie. I told him this story. I actually got him to smile. It was its own achievement, but that’s for another time.
NM: I’m smiling just hearing this.
JN: Yeah, man. But I didn’t know what it was at the time. I had no idea. All I could do was read the sign, Dallas Museum of Art. I run to the door. I walk in and I didn’t need to do check-in right away or any of that stuff – again, I was just 14 that day. So my dad was going to handle it. Because – because – installed right in front of me on the main wall was Robert Rauschenberg’s largest Combine Painting, Skyway, from 1964. And I just had an epiphany. John F. Kennedy was pointing down at me and I just saw my life flash before my eyes. I heard the calling. I was like, I’m going to be a painter. For real, for real, I’m going to go all the way with this, whatever that means.
Robert Rauschenberg, Skyway, 1964. Credit: Dallas Museum of Art
NM: Yeah, you flipped the switch.
JN: I really didn’t know what that meant, but I knew that it was happening. I knew this is what I wanted to do. So that was real, the real root of it. We had a great time. My dad came in, bless his heart, he didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t know what he was looking at.
NM: I have the same experience with my dad to this day. He always asks me to explain it to him, what does this mean, what am I looking at, you know, and I’m like, Dad, that’s beside the point.
JN: Right, he didn’t know, but thank God I had supportive, loving parents because they passed it on to me and I support my children like that. That’s a healthy chain of events, so that’s very cool beyond this discussion. So he walked in and he said, can you explain this to me? And I start talking about collage and painting, and there’s a giant Claes Oldenburg rope, anchor sculpture thing that’s extending from the ceiling down to the floor. There was a Jim Dine painting that has collaged tools in it, spray-painted elements, and just all this radical stuff. It was a radical presentation of Pop Art. It wasn’t so smooth. Even the Lichtenstein – it was the painted ceramic female bust. It wasn’t a domestic item. It was romantic, it was interesting, it was great. It was colorful. It was very tactile. I loved it.
But the Rauschenberg was the win for me that day. It really was, and I was kind of veering off the initial discovery of this whole thing via Warhol. I mean, I still love it. I admire it. I never got to meet him, but I hold his work in reverence. But just through self-discovery in life and your own painting practice, you come into your own. So I was, even then, veering away into other things, but I still was hoping to see a piece because I had never seen a Warhol in the flesh. But it wasn’t in the main gallery. So we walked through all this stuff, and before we left, I asked the person at the front desk where the restrooms were. I go to the restrooms, and there in between the restroom doors were two Warhol electric chair paintings. I was like, there they are! There they are. For some reason, they didn’t hang them in the main gallery. But if I hadn’t asked to go to the bathroom, I would’ve never seen the Warhol paintings. So I got to see them. They were really cool because those were some really edgy pieces. The electric chair series is just so intense, and I’ve seen thousands of Warhol paintings since then, but those are some of the best.
Andy Warhol, Electric Chair (Portfolio), 1971. Credit: Dallas Museum of Art
The Dallas Museum of Art is amazing. I saw a Philip Guston retrospective there. It’s a great space. I came back to Enid, the small town where I was from in Oklahoma, and my life would never be the same. I started taking pieces of found wood and plywood panels and I would staple TV dinner trays to the pieces of wood and throw paint all over them and take them into my art class, present them as art, and everyone thought I was crazy. Because that’s what I really wanted to be doing. But on the other hand, I was trying to draw as realistic as possible because that’s what everybody was getting off on. It was like, wow this guy can draw like the wind, it’s amazing, it looks like a photograph – but then I’m doing this crazy, really tactile, abject painting. I was just getting into it, you know, I had all this passion, but not really much direction. I was swirling and I continued to swirl for the next two years, which was good. It was all build up. I was still going to the library in my teenage years and I discovered an area of magazines that they had. I wondered if they had a magazine for art. So I asked the librarian about it and sure enough they carried ARTnews magazine.
I got a copy of ARTnews… and it was a still a little early, maybe late 13, 14 years old. I got back from Dallas and I was like, I gotta keep figuring this out, and we didn’t have Google. So I found ARTnews and I started reading it and I waited and anticipated when the library would get the new issue. I would look at the ads and I would read the reviews and articles and I’d discover artists. That was my junior high school into high school education of art. I knew what the galleries were showing in New York when I was 14, 15 growing up in Oklahoma. And honestly, Nathalie, I couldn’t wait to get there, because we had taken a family trip to New York around that time as well. I told my mother, I said, “this is where I’m going to live.” She was like, oh John, okay, whatever, and I’m like, no – mark my words. I’m going to do this. I’m a Taurus. So once I set my mind to it, it’s happening.
Julian Schnabel on the cover of ARTnews, April 1985
JN: So I found an ad in the back of ARTnews. It was a quarter-page ad for a summer camp called Interlochen in Northern Michigan, outside of Traverse City. It was advertised as a music camp, and I thought that was interesting, but I also read that they had painting. It was music, dance, and painting. It was basically an art preparatory school but a summer camp, and everybody was going to camp, including myself. I’d gone to baseball camp and church camp, but I didn’t want to go to those camps. I wanted to go to art camp. So I asked my parents, I showed them the ad and I said, “Hey, what do you think about this? This sounds really amazing. Can I apply?” Everybody was going to camp, so they were like, “well let’s see.” We looked into it and long story short, I got to go to the summer camp Interlochen.
That was kind of another pivotal point in this process because I just fell in love with it. It was just fantastic because there were instructors there, it was serious. It was life-drawing and still-life drawing and blind contour drawing and printmaking and introduction to woodcutting and intaglio etching. It’s all that stuff, you know, the classics. It was the academy. So while I was there, I discovered that they did offer the academy during the school year. I couldn’t go back home. I thought, how am I going to get to New York if I don’t do this? I don’t know how, but this is part of my journey. So I went, I left in the middle of high school to go to Interlochen Arts Academy. I got in and I worked really hard and I loved it. And it was just everything. It was –
NM: Where you needed to be.
JN: Nathalie, it was just everything. It was just amazing. I dove into art history and the hardcore academics of art-making and the instructors were incredible. They were also interested in regional exhibitions that were happening in places like the Detroit Museum and Cranbrook and we would take trips there. I remember going to the Detroit Museum one time and they had a giant Rosenquist painting. I think maybe it’s where I grew up because I did grow up with a horizontal landscape, whereas my kids are growing up with a vertical landscape because they live in the city. It’s just a different site point, it really is. Day after day you get accustomed to it. So there really was an expansive field to the things, or paintings, physically, that I was attracted to. Just the scale of it. They’re like grand spaces you can walk in. If you get far back enough, it becomes another picture, you get close, it becomes an incredible physical reality. It’s just an amazing thing. So Rosenquist, how he was using aspects of visual collage was really interesting to me, especially the idea of remixing – again, revisiting notions of MTV and early days of Hip Hop. Even like certain types of rhythmic or electric guitars, metal, Kraftwerk, anything, listening to all this stuff. I’m thinking, like –
James Rosenquist, Star Thief, 1980
NM: Thinking what is going on!
JN: Yeah! Thinking that this is our time. This is now, it can’t be like the Italian Renaissance. It’s different, but you got to go and learn all that stuff. You asked me in the beginning about school and things like that. I really felt obligated to go in and learn as much as I could and just figure out the etymology of what it was I was getting involved with. And I love it to this day, I love just sitting down and getting into it like that. Doesn’t have to be about my own work. It can be about ideas of artistic thought and movement and other things. You know what I mean?
NM: Absolutely, I totally agree.
JN: So that was a really great period of work and development for me. And then the time came to leave and I applied to The Rhode Island School of Design and Cooper Union, and I got into both, but I decided to go to The Rhode Island School of Design. I applied there first, I got into Cooper after RISD and I just thought it would be a little buffer before New York, let’s put it that way. Being a late teenager, New York might’ve been a little much, but I knew I was going to be there eventually anyway, so it didn’t matter. So I went to Providence. It’s a gorgeous city. It’s a very, very European city. I felt a little stunted to be honest, the first two years there, and I came very close to transferring to Cooper Union.
NM: And you were in the painting program at RISD?
JN: Yeah, I was in the painting program. I was just ready to get to New York, but I still wanted to be in school. It just wasn’t time yet. But then I started to meet some people. I started to make some real friendships and I stayed there. I didn’t go. I finished at RISD and then I came to New York in 1992. So I’ve been here 30 years now. Then we get into New York itself, but I mean, we just covered a large swath of my history from the beginning to New York. Those are key points, the highlights.
John Newsom in his Spring Street Studio, New York, New York, 1992-93
Combining realistic representations of animals and vegetation, Abstract Expressionism, and hard-edge geometry, John Newsom’s paintings explore our intricate and complicated relationship with nature. I spoke with John about his origins, his practice, and his upcoming exhibitions – a mid-career retrospective at the Oklahoma Contemporary Museum and a two-person show with Raymond Pettibon in Palm Beach.
Kareem Taylor – Catch A Vibe is a pop up dance improvisation session based in NYC. It is a safe space that is curated to explore movement through various prompts that are meant to challenge the minds and bodies of the participants.
THE SHOW
ABOVE FRESH AIR (FASHION SHOW)
STYLISTS
Joshua Joseph (@swordofthemornin) – Joshua Joseph is a fashion designer and stylist born in Trinidad, based in New York. Joshua has been creating since he was young, having learned with his father about sewing and working with leather. Now, he is the founder of his clothing line “Rebels to Dons”, and a stylist to many people across the fashion, film, music and sports industries. Joshua is curating “Above Fresh Air”, an experience that looks to encourage and uplift local creators who would like to show their work to the world.
John Taylor (@jtizalive) – John Taylor is a Menswear designer and Art director based inNew York City, he has designed for some of the most acclaimed menswear in the city, such as Thom Browne, Aimeé Leon Dore, and Willy Chavarria. John Taylor will be officially launching his line “Moment Homme” in Fall 2021.
DESIGNERS
Rebels to Dons (@rebelstodons)
Rebels to Dons is an innovative brand founded in 2012 by Joshua Joseph. Joshua’s label, rooted in the upcycling of garments, looks to encompass the merging of island and city culture through his designs. Elaborations such as cut and sew techniques on sportswear silhouettes make Rebels to Dons stand out as a brand that merges luxury with leisurewear.
Daily Paper (@dailypaper)
Daily Paper is an Amsterdam based fashion brand founded in 2012 by Abderrahmane Trabsini, Jefferson Osei, and Hussein Suleiman. The three founders have been friends since school and creating together since 2008, evolving what once was a streetwear blog into an internationally recognized clothing brand. The designers look to make their African heritage an intrinsic element in the creation of their designs and prioritize giving back to communities across Africa. Daily Paper looks to represent a generation of underrepresented creators while breaking away with limiting barriers in the fashion world.
LAAMS nyc (@laams.nyc)
LAAMS is a streetwear shop located on 74 Orchard street that is difficult to confuse with any other clothing store. When it was first elaborated, its founder, Scott Selvin, envisioned a space that could house a vintage boutique, bookstore, juice bar, screen printing lab, and a tattoo shop, among many other things. The essence of community and creation can be seen within the multidisciplinary space. At LAAMS, creatives are welcomed to browse merchandise and are simultaneously offered an accessible space to view and produce art.
Barriers NY (@barriersny)
Barriers NY is a New York based brand that uses its platform to commemorate important activists and revolutionaries such as Angela Davis, Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton among others, as it also offers a platform for upcoming artists to show their creations and get involved in streetwear culture. On their website, it is mentioned that the mantra “Create Your Opportunity” transcends across the brand’s vision.
Reus Laboratories (@reus_labs)
Established in Brooklyn, NY in 2018, ⓇEUS is a BIPOC-owned mind lab and high-fashion streetwear brand focused on sustainability and hand craftsmanship. The creator presents one-of-a-kind Upcycled and Reworked Custom designs to create timeless and environmentally conscious style.
New Way of Life (@newwayoflife.world)
New Way of Life is a clothing brand that consists of streetwear often displaying the brand’s name in the Pan-African colors of red, yellow, and green. On their website you can find tote bags, t-shirts, and jeans reading “New Way of Life”, often embroidered, making their pieces intricate and one of a kind. A recurrent phrase seen among their pieces is “We are from and of the people.” Besides clothing, other items such as the book “Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes”, and necklaces with the Ethiopian Coptic cross can be found on their site.
Pat’s Pants (@pats.pants)
Pat’s Pants, founded by Pat Hoblin and Cassandra Mayela, looks to produce sustainably made clothing and make use of all scraps and extra fabrics. The brand is currently run by Pat, who maintains a goal to make clothes that are intentionally sustainable as it is useful to whoever wears it. Pat’s Pants has a vision to make that one pair of comfortable and functional pants that you wouldn’t want to take off.
Gangsters Buy Flowers (@gangsters.buy.flowers)
Founded by Maxime Hilaire, The “Gangsters Buy Flowers” brand is about highlighting the duality of man. The art of being tough but having a softer side. Hustling & grinding all day, but picking up a bouquet or a few roses for the house on your way home. Having that tough exterior but still having a love & admiration for life & the beautiful atmosphere that flowers.
Maison Monsieur Mikey (@maisonmonsieurmikey)
Maison Monsieur Mikey New York is a contemporary lifestyle designer brand, founded, designed and produced by Mickal “Mr. Mikey” Stubblefield, that seeks to answer the question ‘what is contemporary from a classic NYC style perspective?’ It is an anti-fast fashion experimental brand that offers a selection of ready-to-wear outerwear & apparel, accessories, home goods and jewelry that aims to appeal to both aspirational and luxury clientele. Its current Spring-Summer 2021 collection, titled “No Man Is An Island,” seeks to find unity after going through an especially difficult and isolating time.
True Yorkers (@trueyorkers)
The True Yorkers brand represents “a connection between those that walk the talk and those eager to right NYC history.” Their apparel is made to represent the city lifestyle and energy, and, as seen on many of their pieces, True Yorkers are “often imitated, never duplicated.”
Western Elders (@westernelders)
Western Elders is a “physical representation of heritage, legacy, and culture.” Its founder is heavily influenced by their West African heritage and its culture, sharing in their website a fond memory of their grandmother reminding to “respect your elders.” Western Elders is an expression of the duality that is growing up in New York with West African roots, it is “built by Africa, Made in New York.”
Vinnie’s Styles (@vinniesstyles)
Vinnie’s Styles first opened up on Flatbush Ave in 2002. The store is named after the Panamanian grandfather of the three brothers who founded the space-Jacob, Paul, and Desta Parris. One of their most iconic pieces are their “Brooklyn” t-shirts written in varying scripts, besides these, Vinnie’s Styles supply shoppers with a wide range of streetwear coming from collaborations or their in-house brand, Paulie’s. The three brothers from Vinnie’s have also expanded their operations, setting up a store in Atlanta.
It’s important that we create a vision of what it looks like when we support each other and our communities. The concept of Above Fresh Air is to introduce people to new up & coming brands and artists.
This summer, the branded runway show and exhibition presented by The Trops will focus on highlighting the freshest brands from NYC communities.
This fashion show at FSG Park in LES is uniquely designed by some of the most creative stylists of NYC, combining different garments from each brand to create a series of unique looks for the runway.
