New River Fine Art proudly presents a curated exhibition titled: Now is Now at Hamptons Fine Art Fair 2022, opening July 14, 2022; showcasing artwork from Mr. Brainwash, Miss Bugs, Andrew Cotton, Pietro & Riccardo Ferro, Estella Fransbergen, Jennifer JL Jones, Marlene Rose, and Hunt Slonem in a highly curated spotlight on contemporary art.

All the artists in Now is Now bring a groundbreaking, and often trailblazing technique, innovation, or narrative to their artwork, making it evergreen- always appearing contemporary and current.

Mr. Brainwash wrangles with our collective psyche to commandeer our mind’s eye as he thrusts forward a vivacious encounter of his fragmented explosions of pop culture psychodelia. The showmanship and personality flows from hand to canvas in such an unequivocal way, that nothing is obscured in the transmission of transcendental pop art pizzazz. The viewer steps into an alternative macrocosm of bold color, graffiti style markings, and splatter paint pièce de resistance. Black stencils, silkscreened iconology, and audacious street art aesthetics gyrate and pulse within an indefatigable composition.

Miss Bugs is a Bristol, UK based artistic duo founded in 2007. They are known for their colorful and contemporary kaleidoscopic patterns of resin-encapsulated razorblades, drug paraphernalia, and pop culture icons which explore a common theme of society's obsession and consumption of social media and technology and how these innovations filter what we see. The “Data Rader” series of 3-D wall sculptures are vibrantly colored resin artworks that contain cut paper, surgical blades, and embossed butterfly wings – a comment on our addiction to digital technology, and how overexposure to news reels, screens, and digital feeds can act as an anesthetic and numb the sense of reality. Their unique artistic statement and its implied irony is cemented in the fact that our current technology advances have infiltrated many aspects of our private lives and hold us hostage to our addictions, obsessions, and fascinations.

Andrew Cotton uses elements of art history, art movements, and signature aesthetics in his contemporary portraits that give us an unusual hybrid model of unsymmetrical duality. His Pop Iconology allows us to reference a culture in such a way that visual familiarity, recognition, and acceptance is reinforced through relatable imagery. From splatter-painted Pollock portraits to Graffiti-style Basquiat busts, Cotton separates his subject in two. Part anatomically correct portraiture juxtaposed with the preferred visual nomenclature of such identity, we see a bold and beautiful split personality. Cotton makes the outward appearance of his subjects and the inner, conceptual appearance exist simultaneously.

Pietro and Riccardo Ferro born in 1975 and 1980 respectively, started working at a very young ages in different glass-factories until they became expert glass grinders themselves. Having earned the distinguished titled of Maestros, the Ferro Brother’s own works are now found in the most important public and private glass collections around the world. Their commitment to innovation, design, and research prefigures a long and volcanic journey in the world of glass art. In the tradition of Murano, under the tutelage of their father, Pietro and Riccardo Ferro learned the innovative art of glass grinding. In 2000, they opened their own studio, Moleria, where all artists who work in glass grinding can be followed. The Ferro brothers see glass as a valuable canvas for creating and expressing their ideas. They specialize in developing new vessels and special artistic structures, the dynamic layers of which form exceptionally intricate details of craftsmanship. The brothers have collaborated with world-renowned artists such as Lino Tagliapietra, Davide Salvadore, Pino Signoretto, and many others.

Ranging from 24-ct gold glazes to three different types of bronze patina – pearly white, traditional bronze, and highly polished bronze – Estella Fransbergen female form driven sculptures range in color as well as aesthetic, giving off energies that can stretch the spectrum from elegant and regal to naturalized earthen tones. In her metaphorical forms, she uses the torso to represent nature, adorned with feathers, branches, leaves, semi-precious gems, and rare stones that have formed over millions of years. By channeling an ancient science, she can elegantly recount the symbolic meaning beneath each stone while our eyes detect the unique beauty of what lies within. An exploration of beauty and energy, Jennifer JL Jones’ mixed media paintings are a meditation on the dichotomy of the existence of nature both as corporeal reality and intangible spirituality. Employing multiple layers of abstraction and combined mediums including a refined glazing technique, she creates rich, organic patinas that evoke universal emotional and physical connecting points for the observer.

Layers of paint create a palimpsest quality to the work, elegant, ever-shifting paintings combining a poetic, sensual grace with consistently bold execution.

Marlene Rose's work has a quality of timelessness reflecting both ancient and modern. When casting sculptures she incorporates relics of modern life, interesting objects that have been cast away, industrial waste items that seem to unite present and past. In the end, the completed piece transcends the sensibility of mere time. Each piece is hand cast in sand from molten glass in a spectacular process of heat and light. The energy of this dangerous dance of creation reflects in the finished work. They celebrate the unique properties of glass, of transparency, shine, and reflection. And because these are cast objects, they hold in their form the memory of the shapes and textures of the materials that formed them; they are fine-grained, rugged, or smooth, transparent, or translucent, colored, or clear. The glass immortalizes a glimpse of something fleeting beyond the moment, taking that moment, and freezing it over.

Hunt Slonem, the colorful monarch, and jubilant mastermind artist in an imaginative land of butterflies, birds, and bunnies heralds a new decree of three-dimensional artworks that dazzle, entertain, and astonish. Continuing in his bold and brilliant investigation of the world’s flora and fauna, Hunt Slonem’s groundbreaking metamorphic transformation gives birth to a wonderfully refreshing realm of casted bronze, blown glass, neon, and multimedia-based au-courant artistry, in addition to his signature minimalistic and bold animal paintings. Whipping the viewer into an ecstasy of artistic bliss, his new sculptures are a diverse mixture of ornate blue-chip craftmanship populated by Gothic Pop Art pageantry. Hunt achieves a new level of mischievous maturity, evolving beyond the painterly renditions of his favorite flora and fauna. He embarks on a journey that explores eccentric airs of contemporary art making. By working in a three-dimensional mode, Hunt shatters the procedural mold and ventures into an uncharted territory of sculptural fabrications, propelling his art into a new, refreshing, and appealing realm of glass ears, bright lights, glowing fur, and polished bronze. In Slonem’s Salon Collection, ornately baroque frames adorn the protruding bunny bust portraits. Fragile sensibilities of material are juxtaposed by ludicrously portrayed aristocracy. Neither gaudy nor kitschy, the immeasurable depictions are golden in their delightful executions. The calculated renaissance to this perfect storm of three dimensionality is the fact that Slonem owns the revival by exposing his artistic susceptibilities and recalculates a new simplicity that is worlds apart from the abstract expressionistic practices.