Park Row Gallery News

Altered States, a captivating solo exhibition of mixed-media constructions by the American artist John Sideli will be on view at Park Row Gallery in Chatham, NY, from April 1st – May 31st 2010. There will be a cocktail reception with the artist on Saturday, April 10th from 4pm - 6pm, and the public is cordially invited to attend.

Altered States will feature approximately 25 mixed media constructions made from old objects and antique artifacts that the artist collects on his travels. While the work is historically linked to the densely adorned “cabinets of curiosities” of the 16th - 18th century, and the surreal box assemblages of Joseph Cornell, Mr. Sideli’s constructions are much more sculptural in nature, and sparingly composed.

"Power Ball"

Primarily self-taught as an artist, Mr. Sideli studied painting and architecture in his formative years, and then developed an absorbing interest in antiques and history. He was deeply influenced by the playfulness and creative energy of the sculptor Alexander Calder during a two year period when he lived on the artist’s estate in Roxbury, CT, and it was during this time that the young John Sideli became fascinated with the beauty and mystery of ‘found objects.’ As the artist recollects, “I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I was taking it all in, and the concept that art could be anything, and everywhere, was clearly taking hold.”

Mr. Sideli gradually combined his interests in art, antiques and history into a very successful career as a dealer and expert in American Folk Art. But for the past forty years he’s also remained passionately engaged in the process of creating mixed media constructions from fragments of long forgotten objects. After living with these disparate artifacts and contemplating their beguiling forms for days, weeks or years, he reinterprets, recombines and magically transforms them into playful, poetic and transcendent works of art. “I try to liberate the spirit in matter by carefully combining objects in a way that allows them to transcend their original form or meaning, so that they evoke a feeling or tell a story,” the artist explains. “I combine and arrange objects in the same way that a poet combines words.”

Indeed, many of Sideli’s constructions convey an eloquent poetic narrative that is often reinforced by the titles, such as “On the Sacredness of Simple Work,” “Congregation,” “Artist’s World,” “Ozone Layer,” “Secret Garden,” "The Spirit of Pegasus,” or “Village Elders on a Journey to the Pointless Forest.” This latter piece is made from six umber gray wooden spires of varying size set into a long, narrow wooden form weathered by time and contextually redefined to suggest a small vessel that transports us (and the village elders) to another world. Such is the transcendent beauty of these works, for they are almost minimalist in their essential clarity, and yet still so full of mystery.

Some of the artist’s work draws on the inherent historical context of the specific objects to convey a social or political comment, such as “Hard Times for Jim Crow,” “Bitter Pill,” and “American Beauty.” Other pieces are quite playful and engage us in visual puns, paradox and wordplay, like “Letter Box,” “Heavyweight,” “Tools of the Trade,” and “Altered States.”

“Rare Bird” tells its own story and seems to illuminate the poetry and magic of John Sideli’s art. It’s made from an eccentric wooden pulley or armature mounted to a wooden base and adorned with a large, exquisite feather. That is all; so this ‘rare bird’ is really quite abstract. Yet there is something hopeful in its simple but stately grace, and in the ideal aesthetic relationship between the forms that, like a secret combination, sets the imagination in flight.

John Sideli lived and worked in Malden Bridge, NY for over thirty years before moving to Wiscasset, Maine. He was greatly inspired during his years living in Columbia County, and is delighted to be returning to the area to show his work in a community that he still calls home. Sideli shows his work nationally and internationally, including exhibitions with the Alexander Gallery and Giampietro in New York City, NY; Robert Young Antiques, London, England; Jenkins & Ingram, Wiscasset, ME; Tom Veilleux Gallery, Mount Vernon, ME; Red Mills Gallery, Claverack, NY; and Jeffrey Tillou Gallery, Litchfield, CT.