Wandering Star

Jonathan Levine Projects is committed to new and cutting edge art. Our roots go back to 1995 when LeVine's life-long participation in punk and underground music grew into a curatorial experiment with the visual culture that surrounded him. In 2005, he opened Jonathan LeVine Gallery in the Chelsea district of New York City and had great success nurturing the careers of many celebrated artists. In 2017, the gallery relocated to Jersey City with a newfound focus on community and collaboration. The newly named Jonathan LeVine Projects aims to create engaging programs and interesting partnerships beyond the traditional gallery space. With an eye towards honoring and connecting with the history and context of Post War art, Jonathan LeVine Projects explores the terrain of the high/low and everything in between. Mixed media tends to refer to a work of visual art that combines various traditionally distinct visual art media. For example, a work on canvas that combines paint, ink, and collage could properly be called a "mixed media" work. When creating a painted or photographed work using mixed media it is important to choose the layers carefully and allow enough drying time between the layers to ensure the final work will have integrity. If many different media are used it is equally important to choose a sturdy foundation upon which the different layers are imposed. Many interesting effects can be achieved by using mixed media. Often, found objects are used in conjunction with traditional artist media, such as paints and graphite, to express a meaning in the everyday life. In this manner, many different elements of art become more flexible than with traditional artist media. The themes in Audrey Kawasaki's work are contradictions within themselves. Her work is both innocent and erotic. Each subject is attractive yet disturbing. Audrey's precise technical style is at once influenced by both manga comics and Art Nouveau. Her sharp graphic imagery is combined with the natural grain of the wood panels she paints on, bringing an unexpected warmth to enigmatic subject matter. The figures she paints are seductive and contain an air of melancholy. They exist in their own sensually esoteric realm, yet at the same time present a sense of accessibility that draws the observer to them. These mysterious young women captivate with the direct stare of their bedroom eyes. Jonathan LeVine Gallery is pleased to announce Midnight Reverie, a series of new works by highly celebrated Los Angeles-based artist Audrey Kawasaki, in what will be her second solo exhibition at the gallery. Kawasaki’s work conveys the subtle intrigue and mystique of feminine sensuality through contrasting themes of innocence and eroticism. She paints sultry, seductive female subjects posed provocatively and often gazing suggestively at the viewer. Their graceful gestures, delicate features and direct eye contact exudes a combination of melancholy and desire. Kawasaki creates finely detailed imagery by applying thin washes of oil paint onto wooden panels, accentuated by sharp organic lines drawn with control and precision, in graphite. The natural wood grain adds a warm glow to her enigmatic subject matter, complementing the curves and contours of the female form, flowing hair and floral adornments. Midnight Reverie marks a new direction in Kawasaki’s imagery, in that—for the first time—the works in this exhibition feature flat, graphic shapes, painted in layers of solid black acrylic. Incorporating these dark, crisp, bold elements adds a stark contrast with the soft, delicate quality of the artist’s signature female portraiture. Additionally, Kawasaki rendered her figures and their environments in this series with much more vibrant hues