"An Introduction" for sure

This weekend was the opening reception of Artist Street's "An Introduction". To give you a little background on Artist Street: Raul "Rez" Barquet was the first friend in Staten Island that I met. We began having conversations about the artists and the art scene in general in Staten Island. We asked, "where are all the young emerging artists like us?". We soon met Gustavo Galvan at Art Lab at their "Open Show" Reception where all of us had a piece showing. Soon after, Gustavo was on board with finding other artists like us. We wanted a community of us. Meeting at the local diners and then soon moving our meetings to Gustavo's apartment, we started "Artist Street". The mission of Artist Street was simple: "Artist Street is a group of young artists that work together to enhance the experience of being an artist on Staten Island through collaboration and cooperation." The reason for the name Artist Street is because it is an avenue of opportunity that can be anywhere. We have no one place we belong. We are on Artist Street. The ideas were flowing limitless between the 3 of us. Art Lab is a large part of all of our lives and we thought that their gallery was perfect to have our first show. Art Lab's gallery is beautiful, professional, and perfect for Artist Street. Once we got an acceptance letter from our proposal to the board members, we put the call to artists out and the response was great!

"An Introduction" is a self portrait exhibition. Since it is our first show, we wanted to "introduce" ourselves and show the community who we are not only personally, but artistically. I think we did just that. The artists that are showing in this exhibition are:

Erica DiNiso

Desiree Arroyo

Dannie Compono

Samantha Floyd

Raul "Rez" Barquet

Gustavo Galvan

Cana Sarnes

Zoe Tirado

Tabitha Turchio

Jimmy Bricks

Emily Peters

Keri Sheheen

Jason Passalaqua

Imam Asad

I am honored to show with each of these artists and without them this show couldn't have happened.

Here are some photos from the opening. The show runs until the 24th so please go to Art Lab in Snug Harbor Cultural Center (1000 Richmond Terrace, SINY Building H).

As you come into the exhibition, this is the first thing you see

The gallery was filling up! We had this gallery jam packed!

NY1 even came out to interview us!

 For more info on anyone I have mentioned you can visit
 www.facebook.com/artiststreet
www.artlab.info
or email
artiststreetinfo@gmail.com
For the NY1 interview visit: http://statenisland.ny1.com/content/top_stories/162389/self-portrait-exhibit-opens-in-snug-harbor

And you can click on my "Upcoming" page to see more info on the show card for "An Introduction".