Spotlight: Lady Art NYC with Olivia Jane

February 1, 2017

Founded by Olivia Jane in 2014, Lady Art is an intersectional feminist group for creatives. With over 1,000 members in NYC, Nevada, and Chicago, each chapter uses online platforms to share art projects, articles, and coordinate events and meet-ups. Lady Art acts as a safe space—encompassing all ethnicities, genders, and creative endeavors. Today we’re spotlighting four recent projects from Lady Art NYC—Rare Humdrum, BBQ Extravaganza, Lady Art: Talks, and Forward Union Fair—all of which were curated by Oliva Jane.

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Rare Humdrum at Idio Gallery:
Lady Art NYC’s inaugural exhibition, Rare Humdrum, is an effort to move beyond the mainstream binary gender roles to celebrate and create a space for further identification, expression, and conversation. This pop-up show on July 25th, 2016 featured 15 visual artists as well as 15 music projects by Lady Art NYC members, and a compilation CD was created with all the music projects, which can be listened to via Bandcamp.

BBQ Extravaganza at Catland:
Located at Catland Books, the second pop-up event/fundraiser on August 13th, 2016 exhibited 9 visual artists, a Butoh performance (a form of Japanese dance theatre), tarot readings, and showcased 4 bands with women/queer members.

Lady Art: Talks at New Women Space:
This two-week exhibition (November 26th-December 10th, 2016) highlighted 5 members of Lady Art NYC and featured 10 minute artist talks. The show included a mix of film, painting, textiles, and performance with work from Sophia Harvey, Amy Khoshbin, Kelsey Shwetz, Eri King, and Frank Locke.

Forward Union Fair:
Forward Union Fair—a free, all-day political and community action fair which provided practical, action-based resources to help concerned individuals cope with the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. Posed with the question “what can I do now?”, the fair featured topical art installations, talks, panel discussions, and performances to empower and protect the people and values under threat. Structured like an informal fair, a diverse range of organizations were given table space to distribute materials, collect signatures, recruit volunteers, and meet new constituents. Lady Art’s contribution to the Fair was a curated exhibition featuring works from 11 artists with an activist concept.

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We are excited to announce that in the upcoming weeks, the SDA blog will feature 3 bi-weekly articles spotlighting different textile artists from the three Lady Art chapters.

Stay tuned for articles by:
Quinne Myers on Victoria Manganiello (NYC chapter)
Rachel Henry on Mariel Harari (Chicago chapter)
Leslie Ventura on Krystal Ramirez (Nevada chapter)