Lower Art Side

Two neighborhood entities team up to showcase emerging LES art and artists

Founders of The Lo-Down teamed up with The Yard, a co-working space on the Lower East Side, to showcase art inspired by the LES and its residents.

Andy Smith, a writer and producer with The Yard, said the space had a long-running exhibit and it was time to change things up. Traven Rice, who handles arts coverage for The Lo-Down, said her angle has always been to promote the LES art scene. For them, it simply made sense that the two enterprises team up on a show.

The guidelines were simple: artwork must have been created in the Lower East Side area sometime in 2013. Our Town Downtown stopped by to speak with some of the 10 artists exhibited about their work. The show, called "Our Lower East Side," will run at The Yard ? 85 Delancey Street - through Nov. 14.

jdx ? "Thousand Yard Stare"

Taken with an iPhone from a window in his 10th floor apartment, the photographer known as jdx, age 38, made this photo without any filters, proving that it's possible to get a different ? and compelling ? shot of a Lower East Side sunset without Instagram. jdx said it's still possible to find beautiful moments in the city, but you have to look for them.

H. Spencer Young - "Natural Composites"

This piece is a combination of two photographs - one of foliage taken in his hometown of Chagrin Valley, Ohio, with an antique Hasselblad film camera, and the other taken of the Freedom Tower with a Nikon digital camera - that Young said symbolizes the re-birth of downtown Manhattan in the wake of 9/11.

"I think there's just something about growth and cycles and rebirth," said Young about the piece. Young, who lived downtown on 9/11, said it's impossible for a New Yorker to not be affected by the attacks. Making the piece was cathartic and therapeutic for him. "There was something about combining my two homes," he said.

Marvin Pique ? "Flag" and "Open Your Eyes"

Marvin Pique, 42, made "Flag" soon after moving to New York City from the Netherlands. The piece consists of newspaper clippings, "some good news, some bad," he said, with the American flag juxtaposed on them to signify his arrival.

The mixed media "Open Your Eyes" came about from Piques interest in re-arranging disparate parts of prior endeavors to form a cohesive whole, which he said is a favorite part of his process. Both pieces were made on paper that he made himself from the cardboard of banana boxes.