BORBAY

This Sunday, January 22nd, from 1:00-3:00 PM, “Street Legal – Gratiffyti: Seslow & Borbay on Canvas” will open at Iona College. Taking place at the The Brother Kenneth Chapman Gallery Iona College Arts Center, this exhibit will explore a NYC inspired street style, on canvas, with a focus on portraiture.

My self portrait anchors the wall opposite the entrance. This piece was completed in January 2010, and stylistically set the compass for the ensuing two years.

Read on for a preview of the show, thoughts from yours truly and Seslow, and at the bottom — directions on how to get to the gallery.

Flanking my portrait are pictures of Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson and Brad Pitt as Mickey from Snatch. This is the “hats only” wall.

Hunter S. Depp, where my collage-painting style has evolved since that first self portrait.

The beauty of curating your own work is arranging favorable juxtapositions. In my head, I live in a world where Borbay, Pitt and Depp share a wall.

Mickey O’Pitt… my second-to-last canvas of 2011.

To the left of the first three are two of my #KingsOfHipHop — Diddy and Wayne.

Diddy is carefully looking at Ryan Seslow’s work.

Diddys Dirty Money White Party, now in New Rochelle. This series was a breakthrough for yours truly, stylistically and thematically.

Wayne is keeping an eye on people as they walk in.

Weezy Taught Me, Not Yeezy, my seventh and final #King in the series.

As you glance to the right from my work, you can see Seslow’s installation. Over the next few pictures, I’ll be sharing some thoughts from the artist himself.

“I’m over-stimulated, I admit it. I also admit that I love that part of myself. My case of over-stimulation, which was once claimed, be to be “hyperactive” seems to have transcended itself nicely. I cant blame the doctors of the 1970′s who’s misdiagnosis of my early symptoms of radical creativity were in fact something else…I think I will send them a image from this show, as well as some of the other images in this series. I’m interested in fragments as a subject matter and also as a muse for exploring content. Fragmentation has a strong association with the context of things being modular. Meaning, many parts come together or function together to make up a whole.”

“My installations are linear sequences.  They are based on a time-line of repeated mental images. I think about this a lot. Since our birth, we have been exposed to thousands upon thousands of images. Not only the physical images that we see, but print and digital media as well. Much like our thoughts, many of the things that we see day in and day out are repetitive. We participate in this unconsciously for the most part. I do believe that we can alter this if we want to, but it takes work, and that is a whole other blog post. We participate in the recording process of the images that we are exposed to, and we can even attach meaning and emotions to them.”

“Why do clowns still make you feel terrified, and you are 43 years old? Think about where this comes from, and how that images and feeling has stayed with you. I’m now in my late thirties, and I feel that I have a good solid inner index of content stored. Of course we can’t recall everything that has crossed our eyes, but what does that internal index of stored images look like? This is part one of my installation concept definition; to create large scale stored mental collages. I create visual environments to exercise that energy. They are much bigger than we are physically. I hold or have held onto a lot of these specific images in the works for reasons both known and unknown.”

“Modern day advertising also plays a role. They figured out how to scientifically make an image and a feeling stick to people through their ads. It enters our physiology and our consciousness triggers, and it propels us into action. We buy things as a result. I find that fascinating. Sometimes I select images to work with purely due to their aesthetic qualities, or for their traditional principles. Line, color, shape, texture, and value have always captured my continued interest. While other images appear to be objective at first glance, their placement in the installation suggests otherwise. My visual influences appear in my work. My love for bright colors, forms, 1980′s cartoons, video games, and graffiti have transcended over two decades in my work. The installation set up process does not have a set plan. The works are laid out on the floor. The pieces, parts, forms, and colors become more and more relative as I gaze at them.”

“Something happens, a physical urgency sets in, a creative impulse to compose and arrange attacks me. As the installation process develops I feel as if I am liberating the imagination and the unconscious. The stored images and their stories that live inside of me finally have an outlet, a place to create a dialog, and reveal themselves to others. The works take on their own life, a narrative begins, and the viewer must dictate it’s meaning or tell the story. I have cultivated this into a new faculty and a habitual ritual with my imagination.  The result of this process executes a large-scale mental collage of the past, present and future of my human experience.  The piece will exercise a multidisciplinary form of drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, and video art. For those who come to see the works in person, the installations are there to show you that you are your creative potential; it is bigger than you are physically and mentally. That is the metaphor. It lives with in each and every one of us. It is my intention to make other human beings take creative action as a result of experiencing my work.”

GETTING TO THE SHOW

For those of you in Manhattan, the easiest way to get there is to take the Metro North to the New Rochelle stop. Here is the schedule from Grand Central to New Rochelle for Sunday:

From there, you have a .9 mile walk from the station to the gallery.

Naturally, attendance brownie points will count for double in light of the journey. We hope to see you there on Sunday. The show will be up through February 23rd; and Ryan and I will be providing a gallery tour on Thursday, February 16th at 6:30PM.