MICHELA MARTELLO @ TRIA GALLERY, New York TILL JUNE 8, 2013

Josh George, Christophe Lopez-Huici, Michela Martello, Erik Sanner,
ChrisRWK & Herb Veng Smith, Justin West

Tria Gallery presents Urbane Decay from April 4 through June 8, 2013.

Urban living takes its toll on the human spirit. The six artists in Urbane Decay have all grappled with the grittiness and realities of city living, and have found ways, through their artistic endeavors, to make the experience more livable and urbane. On display in Urbane Decay will be large scale graffiti installations, very fine and detailed pencil etchings of crumbling city spaces, collages of buildings created from personal belongings, paintings of a flower trying to break through the concrete and individual portraits of disenfranchised people trying to connect on some level with the strangers around them. In the center of it all will be an interactive sculptural installation of traffic cones which will invite viewers to express their own opinions on art and city life.
Each artist creates a unique dialogue, sometimes intimate, and other times in the form of a mass communication. Each reminds us that human connection is always possible even in an ever changing, and sometimes decaying, environment. One can embrace the decay and find in it inherent beauty, re-create its essence, interact with it, or simply cover it up.

Michela Martello
“Because I live in a large city, I have an issue with loneliness and need to believe that we are all connected somehow. I started taking pictures randomly in the crazy urban New York City environment and began painting the faces of people I had captured. I found the human element in the streets to be wide open, and that there was virtually no gap between intense aggressiveness and beautiful kindness.”
Michela Martello was born in Grosseto, Italy. She received her Bachelor of Arts in illustration from the Europe Institute of Design. In the ensuing years she traveled extensively, dividing her time between Milan, London and New York, and became a prominent illustrator, publishing work in over thirty books. She evolved from illustrator to painter, and ever since her paintings have been exhibited regularly over the past decade, both in the U.S. and abroad, and is held in both private and public collections worldwide, including the Serafina Group, the City Cinema Group, and the Fulton Collection.

Tria is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 11:00 to 6:00, or by appointment. Urbane Decay runs from April 4 through June 8, 2013. For more information, please visit www.triagallerynyc.com