Last Sunday I spent a few hours in Hudson, NY once more, this time looking at artwork and while I was walking up Warren Street I came across a rather large store front with an arresting exhibition of different items in the large windows. There was something unusual and different then the stores I had walked past by before.
Some signs hanging above the doorway woke my interest and at first I was not sure if I had walked into a shop, studio or a performance place of sorts.It was all of the above and more.
An artwork installation was under way and the two artists - Nicholas Kahn and Andrew Dupont - invited me to look around and after a few minutes I realized I had walked into a treasure box! Most interesting paintings, drawings and a installation of figurines, puppets, different object were set up into a panorama, viewed as a tableaux of the imagination...
It reminded me of Joseph Beuys and the works of the illustrator Francois Place.
The artist's ability to remove ordinary objects out of their common place to a higher platform opens a new world of the fantastic and the estranged yet familiar.
I always had an affinity towards this world I understand his language on a subconscious level. Nicholas Kahn combines found pieces, drawings and photography, pulls together a new viewpoint, let's you dream about otherworldly places, different dimensions.
I love were it leads me. I became at once again aware of the endless possibilities of art, the fundamental power of the imagination and the inspirations an open mind can draw from it!
It leads me into a parallel universe, a place I feel at home.
His drawings are precise and meticulous and with childlike ease. I love his realistic paintings, filled with metaphors, illusions and humor.
The abstract work of Andrew Dupont on the other hand is cheerful and like a garden of bright spots, flowing and jumping, an interesting counter point to Kahn's 'realism'.
I like these colorful paintings a lot.
Kahn shares this space with his wife Sarah Falkner and although I knew nothing about the couple upon entering the workspace I realized the connection between them. The anteroom is her realm, filled with apothecary bottles containing massage oil mixtures, healing aroma therapeutic essences and he had build a faux fire place, the burning fire made from crystals and semi precious stones, golden flames painted. An homage to an earthy goddess, Gaia perhaps?
Sarah is a licensed massage therapist, but I guess she might also be his muse and inspiration.
After doing a little research to find a little more about the artists backgrounds I came upon a wealth of work, done by Nicholas Kahn and also his close collaborator, the artist Richard Selesnick. Sarah Falkner wrote also an essay in the book the artists created together: City Of Salt. It only confirmed my idea of them working together.
The signs above the shop read as follows:
(HI)STORY Labor(ATORY)
APPLIED ARTS
Coordinated environments & rites for living
Onsite workshop and clinic/apothecary
at 624 Warren Street, Hudson, New York 12534 or call 518.291.4779
Monday 9 - 11:30 AM, Thursday, Friday 9 - 6 , saturday/Sunday 11 - 6.
You can read Nicholas Kahn's blog here!
It is so refreshing to find this space on the end of this street, almost entirely devoted to antiques and design shops.
I am enchanted and can't wait to see more! I highly recommend a visit!
All pictures by V.Zlotkowski, images as indicated!
