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JCAST Jersey City
Jersey City Times Staff

Jersey City Art and Studio Tour Kicks Off Tonight

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The Jersey City Art and Studio Tour, better known as JCAST, will kick off its 31st year tonight, Sept. 30, with an opening reception, dance performances, and other events at Nimbus Arts Center (329 Warren St.) starting at 6 p.m.

JCAST is the largest art tour in the State of New Jersey and will run through October 3, 2021 with creators opening their doors for visitors to explore a large selection of exhibits and arts-related activities.  Over 650 artists are participating.

Presented by the city of Jersey City and the city’s Municipal Council and Department of Cultural Affairs, the three-day event includes visual art gallery exhibitions, dance performances, poetry readings, films, artmaking for kids, studio visits, curated bike and walking tours, and more.

“This year’s JCAST will be bigger than ever with 150 events and an opening night like never before,” said event manager and independent curator Donna Kessinger. Nimbus will kick off the happening, and for the first time, Art House Productions, Pro Arts, and 150 Bay artists’ collective will be staging a group show.

A full listing of galleries, exhibitions, tours, and special events can be found at thejcast.com.

 

 

 

"Harbinger" by Amanda Thackray
Tris McCall

“Surface Tension” and “Too Much” at NJCU

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So how often do you think about trash?  Not just the contents of your own bin, but that of your neighbors, and your neighbors’ neighbors, and everybody else all over the globe, emptying cans, adding to the great planetary garbage heap? It’s not a pretty thought, and it’s one we usually suppress.

But two sharply pointed shows — protest shows, really — at New Jersey City University (2039 Kennedy Boulevard) foreground waste, and ask us to re-examine our careless relationship to what we use and discard. “Too Much! Overconsumption and Our Relationship to Stuff,” (curated by Eileen Ferrara) which’ll occupy the NJCU Visual Arts Gallery until Oct. 15, features discrete pieces done in the Hudson County post-industrial style. Many of these are assembled from materials retrieved from thrift shops and detritus heaps and refashioned into new shapes that retain the resonances of their old forms. Over at the smaller Lemmerman Gallery on the third floor of Hepburn Hall, Newark artist Amanda Thackray gives a brief but impressive solo performance. “Surface Tension” (curated by Doris Cacoilo) is highlighted by her exquisite paper nets, deliberately designed to evoke the ecological tragedy of plastic in the sea. Thackray’s work is instantly redolent of the ocean, “downhill from everywhere,” as Jackson Brown recently sang, a parallel world imperiled by our collective disregard.

“A Tangle; A Swarm; A Precondition of the Plastisphere,” which seems to float in space on the south wall of the Lemmerman, consists of overlapping paper lattices in dark greys, yellows, oranges, and washed-out reds.  It’s beautiful, delicate, and subtly sinister. Each shape feels fragile and transparent, and very much in gentle motion — tendrils that curve away from the shapes appear to be caught by a current. It suggests an amalgamation of waste, clumped together, seemingly anodyne but strangling the sea.  Should you miss the point (you won’t), Thackray makes it plainer yet on “Bottom Trawl in Repose,” a bright orange faux-fishing net fashioned from twisted paper, and downright unmissable on the column of treated, translucent sheets erected in the center of the gallery space. Here, Thackray has superimposed silhouettes of scores of waste items retrieved from the ocean on to paper marbled to appear aquatic. It’s a slice of a garbage-choked ocean: a scientist’s diagnostic sample of water retrieved from the Pacific trash gyre.

If “Surface Tension” feels like a frank examination of where we are, “Too Much!” offers a warning about where we’re going.  Yet while the critique is forceful, none of it is strident: this is a Hudson County show with Jersey attitude, which means the artists remain playful and self-deprecating, even in the midst of despair. Jersey City favorite Mollie Thonneson impales her assemblies of lingerie and thrift-store party dresses on meat hooks; the overtones of sexual violence are unmissable, but so is the joke about our collective obsession with fashion. Newark’s irrepressibly clever Robert Lach, who has quietly become one of the state’s most recognizable sculptors, contributes two of his discarded American Touristers transformed into animal nests. A conical mound of twigs and sawdust erupts from the surface of a red suitcase. It’s at once recognizable, spooky, and alien, and worthy of the cheeky title he’s given it: “Rabbit Hole.” Better, and wittier, still is “Illuminous City,” which transforms a nook of the Visual Arts Gallery into a landscape fashioned from hundreds of empty Mountain Dew bottles. Hovering over a skyline of great green towers hangs a network of globes fashioned by Thai-born artist Poramit Thantapalit from severed and conjoined bottle tops. They evoke the long chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms in polyethylene — molecular mass so weighty that it drags down the sky.

An adjacent installation by the reliably remarkable Jersey City fiber artist Maggie Ens offers a respite from the astringency of the show. “GAIA Calls Us to Healing” is a change in tone from Ens, whose work can be disquieting; instead, she’s gifted us with a piece that unfurls like a scroll, decorated with blue-green leaves and seashells, and possessing a fuzzy, welcoming, blanket-like quality.  If these artists weren’t hopeful that we could mend our ways, they wouldn’t be ringing the alarm bells in the first place. Even Thackray, sharp as she can be, seems to believe that mapping the devastation of the oceans might have a salutary effect on the collective conscience.  If we truly understood what we were doing — if we looked the monster in the eye — we’d stop. Her work is an act of faith in us. For the sake of a beleaguered planet, I hope it isn’t misplaced.

Amanda Thackray and Maggie Ens will be on site at the exhibitions on Saturday, Oct. 2.  From 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Thackray will lead a workshop on the Hepburn Hall patio that demonstrates some of the techniques she used in the creation of “Surface Tension.” From 2 p.m, to 4 p.m., Ens will lead a paper workshop of her own outside the Visual Arts Gallery (100 Culver St.)  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Painter and sculptor Paul Leibow
Tris McCall

“FeelLicks” at Novado Gallery

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What becomes of an old character?  Does it retain any of the peculiar characteristics that endeared it to audiences when it was new?  Or does it grow increasingly indistinct until it is absorbed by the static and white noise of popular culture?  Before the demands of commerce tore him asunder, and countless remixes and collaborations diluted his integrity, poor Mickey Mouse possessed a distinctive personality. The passage of time has pared Mickey down to a silhouette and a clutch of signifiers: a pair of round ears and white gloves, a corporate logo, a half-empty vessel, a soda pop gone flat.

Felix The Cat is older than Mickey. He was created over a century ago, and he’s been fading in plain view ever since sound was added to motion pictures. But in his Gilded Age prime, Felix was incredibly popular: famous enough to leave a burn mark in his image on the collective imagination. The spirit of the Cat retains enough psychic power to guide the hand of at least one contemporary artist — painter and sculptor Paul Leibow, whose “FeelLicks” is on view at Novado Gallery (110 Morgan Street) until October 16.

This playful, irreverent show uses the figure of Felix, or what’s left of him, to comment on sexuality, decay and reassembly, mechanical reproduction and corporate branding, and the ubiquity and ambiguity of the commercialized image. But mostly, this show is an examination of a character at the end of the line, and the radioactive quality of an icon in decay, well past its half-life but still generating audible clicks on the Geiger counter.

Leibow, not a man to pass up a pun, literalizes the notion of “branding” in the bluntest way possible. He applies a hot iron stamp made in the shape of the top of Felix’s head to some of his works. The branding iron is an imposing device, and it leans against a gallery wall with more than a trace of menace. In a video that’s very much part of this multimedia presentation, Leibow heats up the iron in a backyard fire and sears Felix’s huge, train-tunnel eyes and jagged, fanglike ears on to canvas.

The Cat’s questioning half-face haunts most of these works: sometimes burned on, sometimes painted in acrylic, sometimes superimposed on the backsides of pots or the vinyl of a record on a turntable or whispered on the side of a motorcycle helmet.  Felix is everywhere and nowhere, a friendly ghost and a spooky apparition, a fragmented after-image lurking somewhere behind the eyelids of American filmgoers. You can close your eyes to the brand, Leibow’s work implies, but it still lingers in the back of your mind. You may have forgotten Felix, but he’s not quite through with you.

The show draws connections between the Cat and other mass-marketed characters whose edges are getting blurry with age and constant adaptive reuse: Batman, whose horned mask calls back to Felix’s design, the cheery Japanese superhero Anpanman, who, in a striking work on paper, is shown dissolving into Felix, hints of the Simpsons and American Gothic, other echoes from pop-cultural consciousness. Leibow’s FeelLicks is constantly in the act of submerging — sometimes falling into sleep, sometimes slipping into a puddle, sometimes nearly swallowed by the painted backgrounds. His demise seems imminent, and he doesn’t seem to be fighting it too hard.

Yet the most provocative and therefore most successful work in this show is the loudest, bossiest, including a great wooden half-head, painted pink and black and set to squat against a back wall covered in antique classified advertisements from the comic pages. Here, as elsewhere in the show, the two ovals of Felix’s eyes resemble a pair of butt-cheeks. Was Felix always mooning us? Was Batman?  Did it take a mind as pleasantly twisted as Paul Leibow’s to tease the callipygian implications from these famous designs?

Leibow gives us a clue in the show’s best piece: a motley FeelLicks head made of old tin, metal pieces, wood, and what appears to be a sawed-off top of a suitcase. Here is a Frankenstein Felix, made of jagged parts, cobbled together and from materials in disrepair, but still weirdly fascinating and surprisingly solid. The piece summarizes the show’s implicit argument — the vintage character belongs to the visionary who can hold it together in the centrifuge of pop culture, hammer it into shape, twist it all around, and breathe into it a new spirit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hector Rivera Jersey City
Aaron Morrill

Trial Date is Set for Jersey City’s January 6 Insurrectionist Hector Vargas

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The criminal case against accused Capitol insurrectionist and former Jersey City resident Hector Vargas moved forward yesterday before a federal judge in Washington D.C. with the setting of May 16, 2022 for trial.

In May of last year, Vargas, a Marine Corps veteran, was profiled by Jersey City Times for his work delivering meals to the homeless. The article focused on several of Jersey City’s “unsung heroes” during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the time, several of Vargas’s neighbors, who questioned his sincerity and temperament, were critical of JCT for including him in the article. Some accused Vargas of stealing donations meant for the homeless. Councilman-at-large Daniel Rivera, however, came to Vargas’s defense telling JCT that “he can be rough around the edges and very outspoken, but his heart is genuine.”

Hector Vargas Insurrection PostThe neighbors’ concerns appeared to be borne out when Vargas placed himself in the thick of the January 6 insurrection via a series of social media posts. In one Facebook post, Vargas wrote “WE THE PEOPLE TOOK OVER THE U.S. CAPITOL. #HOLDTHELINE.” In a video post in “selfie mode” Vargas filmed himself in the Capitol and said, “We took over this motherfucker … we took over this fucking capitol, tell them.” 

In a four-count criminal “information,” Vargas was charged with Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building, Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building, Violent Entry and Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building, and Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building.

A review of court records reveals that the case has followed a standard trajectory.  A warrant for Vargas’s arrest was issued on January 14. Vargas was arrested and appeared in court via a video link for his initial appearance on January 22. Counsel was assigned, and Vargas was released on a Personal Recognizance Bond. On February 22, Vargas was formally arraigned and pleaded not guilty to the charges.

A July 27 letter from Assistant U.S. Attorney Angela N. Buckner details a trove of evidence that may be offered at trial, including Jersey City Police Department investigation reports, a Jersey City Police Department arrest report, and a Jersey City Police Department warrant. The letter discloses that “during transport” Vargas gave a 34-minute interview to law enforcement authorities.  Also included are search warrants to Facebook, Twitter, and Vargas’s cell phone provider as well as multiple social media posts.

At yesterday’s status conference, Vargas received permission from Federal District Court Judge Randolph D. Moss to travel within the United States “upon the condition that Defendant gives advance notice and gains prior approval by Pretrial Services, and with the understanding that this excludes travel to Washington, D.C., unless meeting with counsel.”  A previous order requiring approval before traveling to Puerto Rico was left in place.

Vargas’s court-appointed attorney, Dwight E. Crawley, declined to comment on the case.

Today Councilman Rivera looks back on his support for Vargas philosophically. “It’s sad when you think someone is genuinely caring, but life takes them through a weird journey that makes it hard for people to explain.”

To date, 654 people have been charged in connection with the insurrection. Seventy-four have pleaded guilty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crime Scene Tape
Jersey City Times Staff

Report: Shooting Leaves One Critically Wounded in Bergen-Lafayette

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According to an unconfirmed report, a man was critically wounded this afternoon when a shooter fired into a Bergen-Lafayette home.

The shooting reportedly occurred between 5:15 and 5:30 in the vicinity of 282 Claremont Avenue. The victim was shot multiple times.

There is no information as to whether the shooter has been identified or apprehended.

Sue Henderson NJCU
Sophie Nieto-Munoz

NJCU Faculty Approve ‘No Confidence’ Vote in School’s President

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Republished courtesy of New Jersey Monitor

Faculty members at New Jersey City University signaled they want to oust the state school’s president after a tense, two-hour Zoom meeting Monday.

University senators — the school’s faculty leaders — voted 30 to 23 to cast a vote of “no confidence” in NJCU President Sue Henderson, who has been at the helm of the Jersey City school since August 2012. Faculty and students cited swelling financial debt and a lack of transparency in the school’s real estate projects as major factors in their decision.

“This is an opportunity to restore faculty members’ voices and the future of our university,” said English professor Laura Wadenpfuhl.

NJCU officials still have to verify the vote, which was conducted using a Zoom poll feature as nearly 200 attendees popped in and out of the meeting. If verified, the resolution approved Monday then heads to the university’s board of trustees.

The meeting opened with Henderson’s presentation of the school’s accomplishments. She touted NJCU’s spot as No. 4 in the nation for social mobility by CollegeNET and said the university prides itself on serving minority and first-generation students.

Henderson conceded the last 18 months have been hard on the school, which saw a drop in enrollment, but she maintained NJCU is not in financial peril.

Henderson logged off the Zoom call shortly after a professor asked how long it would take to pay off $156 million of university debt. An administrator said it would take a “few weeks” to get that answer.

Faculty members said they spent the summer researching the school’s COVID protocols, spending practices, and the hiring of RPK Group, a consulting firm that plans to study the university’s academic efficiencies and administrative services.

Anne Mabry, an English professor, called Henderson’s presentation “a last ditch effort to spin her fantasy” and the $300,000 spent on the consulting group “a page out of an Orwellian nightmare.”

Mabry detailed documents she received after filing public-records requests, highlighting what she called abuse of ID and credit cards used by faculty, staff, and administrators. She called some spending “highly questionable,” saying she found $6,000 spent on 22 physical therapy visits, $825 for a phone app, and GrubHub orders charged to the credit cards.

NJCU’s financial statements show the school had a $102.8 million surplus when Henderson ended her first school year in 2013, a figure that plummeted to negative $5.5 million by 2015. By 2020, the statements show a $67 million deficit.

Joel Katz, a media arts professor who presented the amendment for a vote of no confidence in Henderson at the faculty senate’s May meeting, asked why during Henderson’s tenure “NJCU’s financial position tumbled” $168 million.

A few staffers defended Henderson, arguing she’s not the only one responsible for the uphill battle the school faces. One student noted the board of trustees has supported all her controversial decisions.

Faculty members expressed concerns over RPK Group’s consulting tactics. They worry the group will call for major cuts to departments and staffing, they said.

The construction of luxury apartments on the campus was another contentious point brought up by several professors. NJCU partnered with real estate developers on the real estate project, part of an expansive effort to attract people to live on Jersey City’s west side.

Khadija Diop, a student representative, asked what can be done to make these apartments more affordable. A one-bedroom apartment begins at $1,800, out of reach for the university’s low-income students.

“These apartments are not for our students or for our community. They’re not actually bringing in revenue to our communities,” said Max Herman. “What has been built on the west side hasn’t brought in one cent to NJCU.”

He added, “As far as business, we have done very, very bad business,” calling the school’s financial situation a “self-inflicted wound.”

NJCU is one of the smallest of New Jersey’s public universities, with an enrollment of about 6,200 undergraduates and 1,700 graduate students in 2018. Rutgers had about 70,000 students total.

 

Aleyna Kilic Jersey City
Rania Dadlani

McNair Junior Organizes Local Protest on Oct. 3 Against Texas Abortion Law

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Aleyna Kilic, a junior at Jersey City’s McNair Academic High School, will be leading a rally Sunday, Oct. 3 at city hall to protest the recent passage of the Texas Heartbeat Act, which went into effect Sept. 1. Inspired by the Women’s March, which is sponsoring rallies nationwide on Saturday, Oct. 2, the Jersey City event will take place one day before the Supreme Court reconvenes October 4.

“We must demonstrate to the Supreme Court that we will fight back and will continue to protest, rally, and march throughout all fifty states in order to protect our choice,” Kilic said, referring to Roe v. Wade. “As long as the message gets across to one person, that’s one life that you’ll change forever.”

Senate Bill 8 (SB8), often known as the “heartbeat bill,” is one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the United States. Signed into law on May 19, 2021, the bill outlaws abortion in Texas after six weeks of pregnancy with no exceptions for rape, sexual abuse, incest, or fetal anomaly diagnosis. The law’s criminal penalties apply to anybody who performs or induces a prohibited abortion, anyone who “knowingly” “aides or abets” the performance or inducement of a prohibited abortion, and even anyone who “intends” to conduct or help in the performance or inducement of a prohibited abortion. Furthermore, rather than relying on the executive branch of the state to enforce the law, as is the norm in Texas and elsewhere, the state has deputized ordinary citizens to serve as bounty hunters authorized to recover at least $10,000 per claim.

The rally will feature a variety of speakers, including McNair students Zoe Van Gelder, Tara Pathak, Madison O’Neill, Al Macaraeg, and Gwendolyn Chung and Jersey City Municipal Council President Joyce Watterman.

Councilman-at-large Daniel Rivera helped Kilic plan the protest. “For an event to be spearheaded by young women in high school, it is important to engage into that mindset as an advocate or to show support and solidarity.”

Mayor Steven Fulop Jersey City
Aaron Morrill

Mayor Calls Refund of Property Tax Overcharge a “Tax Reduction”

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As the saying goes, when life delivers you lemons, make lemonade.

In a Facebook post this morning, Mayor Fulop announced some “good news” for taxpayers.  As part of the administration’s ongoing efforts to “lower taxes & of course our public facing city services,” the city would be giving the average homeowner an “$88 further reduction in their taxes” on their fourth quarter property tax bill.

In fact, some residents are arguing that the mayor should have called it what it is, a tax refund. In the post, the mayor, it seems, described a refund made necessary by an overcharge on third quarter property tax bills as a tax cut. Said Maria Ross in response to the mayor’s post, “what a whopper of a story from Fulop!”

The overcharge was first picked up by John Ross on nextdoor.com.

“Hey fellow JC home owners, so no new taxes if you look top right of your recent RE tax bill you will see you are being charged a art & culture Tax. While this was being pushed for I asked repeatedly How much! All of city hall and prominent members of the art community all said don’t worry it will be in line with the open space tax, they would only offer reassurance without facts. Looking at my tax bill I see I’m paying $12 for open space & $250 for Art Tax Even in simple math not Comparable.”

Robinson Holloway, one of the architects of the Arts Trust Fund, then confirmed Ross’s suspicion. “It looks like there was a mistake in the Arts Tax – that they assessed the maximum possible amount, 2 pennies, instead of the 1/4 penny amount that the City Council approved earlier this year. The City is aware and looking into it. So your actual Arts & Culture tax should be what was promised – about $25/year for property worth $1million.”

In November of last year, 64% of Jersey City residents voted in favor of the creation of the Arts Trust Fund. Similar to the Open Space Trust Fund, money for the fund would was to come from a new tax on property owners. In March, the city council agreed upon a tax assessment of a quarter of a cent per $100 of assessed value, approximately one eighth the amount charged on the third quarter property tax bills. That assessment was to raise approximately $1 million to support local artists and arts education.

This is the second time in three months that the administration was compelled to undo a charge to Jersey City residents. In July, the mayor was forced to rescind the unpopular “water tax.”

 

 

 

Vaccination
Jersey City Times Staff

Hudson County Announces Vaccine Distribution Center Will Begin Distributing Pfizer Booster Shots  

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Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise has announced that anyone eligible to receive a booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine will be able to do so at the Hudson County Vaccine Distribution Center starting Monday, free of charge with no appointment necessary.

“We are fully prepared to begin administering booster shots of the Pfizer vaccine at the Hudson County Vaccine Distribution Center and we encourage anyone who is eligible to get their vaccine today and do their part to keep our communities safe,” said County Executive Tom DeGise. “Just as we have been since our vaccine program began late last year, our team is working cooperatively with municipal health officers, state and federal government and all other stakeholders to ensure an efficient, equitable distribution of vaccines.”

The CDC announced new guidance with regard to booster shots, recommending that anyone who got their first two Pfizer vaccines, and meets the specified criteria, get a booster dose. The CDC recommends booster doses for anyone 65 and over, and people 50-64 with underlying medical conditions. Those 18-49 with underlying medical conditions and anyone who is at increased risk for transmission, including healthcare workers, may also receive a booster dose.

This guidance does not apply to those who received Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines and additional information will be released regarding those varieties when it becomes available.

Vaccines are available for free at the Hudson County Vaccine Distribution Center in Kearny with no appointment necessary. More information about the County Distribution Center’s hours is available at their website.

In addition to booster shots of the Pfizer vaccine, Hudson County is also offering third doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine to immunocompromised people as per guidance from the CDC, and encourages anyone who is eligible to get their third dose at the County Vaccine Distribution Center. The county’s Vaccine Task Force is preparing to offer third doses to the general public at the direction of the State of New Jersey once the additional doses receive FDA approval.

The Hudson County Vaccine Distribution Center is located at the USS Juneau Center at 110 Hackensack in Kearny.

I May Bend But I Will Not Break 1411
Tris McCall

“Body Language” at Hamilton Square Condominiums

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How much torsion can the human body take?  More than we thought, perhaps. These last two brutal years have tested the limits of our emotional and physical strength and flexibility. If you’re feeling stretched, and bent out of shape, and buffeted by fate — and who isn’t? — you might sympathize with the spindly characters who populate the canvases of “Body Language,” which is now on view in the first floor gallery of the Hamilton Square Condominiums (232 Pavonia Avenue). There, an artist going by the heady name of Occipital has mounted a show that feels simultaneously timeless and very much of the moment: an examination of the human form under stress, bending like a bough in a gale.

Occipital’s figures don’t have faces.  Though they strongly suggest female identity, they don’t exactly possess gendered characteristics, either.  They don’t even have context: the white ones are painted on solid black backgrounds, and the black ones are painted on bright white. (One canvas displays a black-outlined figure in white on a white background, but that’s about as far from her own formula as the artist goes). Occipital’s best images are studies of the expressive power of human posture — body position as a kind of poetry, stark and plain, pared-back, bluntly eloquent.

These postures suggest acquiescence to the reality of mighty forces. In a series of acrylic paintings on canvas titled “I Will Bend But I Will Not Break,” Occipital’s figures are stretched and twisted, their thin arms crossed like wheat-stalks in the wind, their torsos folded back at angles that would concern an orthopedist, their thin oval heads attached to shoulders by little wisps of neck. Slight variations in tone and texture in their black-and-white backgrounds suggest movement, and broad and visible brushstrokes connote troubled emotional weather. Yet no matter how contorted the bodies get, Occipital has managed to preserve these characters’ sense of poise. These are portraits of dignity amidst difficulty, and if you can’t identify with them at all, I reckon you missed 2020-2021.

It all may seem a little too familiar, though. Occipital’s figures have many antecedents in the battery of popular images — most notably Giacometti, whose sculpted walkers with blank faces and elongated, twiglike limbs speak so passionately about determination amidst the unbearable pressures of modern life. Giacometti drew inspiration from African and Oceanic art, and it’s likely that Occipital does, too. But her work may also remind you of vintage American fashion illustrations and clothing designers’ sketches: faceless female bodies in silhouette, arms and legs like rails, heads tilted, shoulders provocatively angled, their bearings at once alluring and vulnerable.

Occipital’s figures aren’t explicitly eroticized; they aren’t explicitly anything at all.  Yet when two or more of her characters share a frame, the ambiguity is often multiplied — and this leads to the most intriguing work in the “Body Language” show. What, for instance, are the two figures, conjoined at the hand, doing in “Perspective 3672”?  One stands, poised and receptive, while the other, with a shoulder pitched forward and a knee bent, leans in. It could be the prelude to a kiss, it could be an argument, it could be an act of teaching or a solicitation to dance. What’s unmissable is the sense of tenderness that radiates from the acrylic: the intimacy of two humans in a tight space, arranging their bodies in a manner that complements their partner.

This wordless conversation becomes a silent chorus on “Perspective 2448 (a-e)”, a five-panel painting that finds room for fifty of Occipital’s figures in various states of motion.  Without showing any faces, the artist captures profound interpersonal ambivalence — people tugged in inviting directions by the magnetic fields generated by other bodies.

So successful is Occipital at communicating complicated feelings through proxemics alone that you might wonder why she bothers to include written words in some of her less successful paintings. Her “During Q” series, mostly done in gouache, write emotional states directly into the pictures: “thankful,” “confused,” “wild,” etcetera. Coming from a woman who understands the force of body language, these captions feel redundant. The crossed arms, antenna-thin legs, and angled heads of her characters have already had their say — and they’ve said plenty.

 

“Body Language” will be on view in the Hamilton Square Condominium lobby until December 27, 2021.  Occipital will be present during Jersey City Art & Studio Tour dates and hours: Friday, Oct. 1 from 4-6 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 2 from 12-4 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 3 from 12-4 p.m.