On Wednesday, May 17 at 8:00 pm, join us for an artist talk at Espresso 77 cafe at 35-57 77th St, Jackson Heights, NY 11372.
We invite you to arrive around 7:00 pm, settle in with a drink and/or food, and grab a seat. Espresso 77 is pleased to offer a happy hour until 8 pm for our event.
The evening will begin with JHAT veteran Mary Valverde sharing images of her recent work.
Mary will be followed by Jean Foos who will give a 30-40 minute talk about her interdisciplinary work.
An informal Q&A will follow.
The event is free, but the purchase of a beverage or food item is strongly encouraged in support of our venue partner Espresso 77.
Event will also be live streamed via our FB page.
About the artists:
Jean Foos is a visual artist whose practice centers on richly painted and patterned surfaces. She gives new life to objects made from discarded packing materials and ceramics. For her installations she favors ad hoc urban settings, such as long-abandoned industrial buildings, military housing, and community gardens. Jean Foos’s singular painting style is colorful, layered, exuberant. She began painting as a Cooper Union student in the 1970s. She was first inspired by the freedom of abstract expressionist painters and listened to their stories as told by Doré Ashton and Jack Whitten.
Born in Rochester, New York, in 1953, Foos moved to NYC to attend Cooper Union and lived in the East Village for over 20 years. She first had a studio at 32 Union Square East, and later moved many times to work in Soho, the Bronx and the garment district. At each of her locations she was active in the community of artists and held open studios and exhibitions.
Two shows curated by the Yale art historian, Jonathan Weinberg, highlighted her paintings and early involvement with the downtown community of artists of the 80s and 90s. These were: “Something Possible Everywhere: Pier 34, NYC 1983” and “Painting to Survive: 1985–1995.” These were reviewed widely and images of her work were shown in the Village Voice and Hyperallergic articles.
In early 2020, before things closed down due to the Covid pandemic, Jean was proud to have her painted sculptures shown in 3 different cities: Harrisburg, Princeton, and Washington DC. In 2019 she built variations of a sculptural tower that were displayed in several locations on the Lower East Side of NYC—powerful totems that stood floor-to-ceiling in Empirical Nonsense Gallery (10.5 ft) and La Mama Galleria (12 ft.). An updated version of the tower (9.5 ft) was also installed in York College Gallery (CUNY) as part of FORMATIONS: Southeast Queens Biennial.
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Mary Valverde (born 1975, Queens, New York) is an interdisciplinary artist based in New York. She received her MFA at the University of Pennsylvania in 2012 as a School of Design’s Dean’s Diversity Fellow, and her BFA from the School of Visual Arts, NY in 1999. Valverde teaches at Hunter College. Her work, “Huaca”, exhibited at BRIC for the Latinx Abstraction show was featured in the New York Times. Valverde has given lectures and exhibited her work at BRIC, Smack Mellon, MoCA North Miami, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, The New Jersey State Museum, Art Center South Florida, El Museo del Barrio, The Queens Museum of Art, Jersey City Museum, Momenta Gallery, Saltworks Gallery, Corridor Gallery, Rush Arts Gallery, Diaspora Vibe Gallery, Aferro Gallery, among others. Since 2015 Valverde serves as a Commissioner (Sculptor seat) for the Public Design Commission of the City of New York, and often contributes as an advisor to the NYC Cultural Arts Affairs. Valverde is a 2021 CCSRE Arts Practitioner Fellow at Stanford University. She has been in residence at the Thomas Hunter Ceramic Artist in Residence in 2014, an MFA Lecturer at the ICA Philadelphia in 2011, at Artist Alliance Residency 2007, and at Aljira Center for Contemporary Art’s Emerge Program in 2006. Valverde has curated exhibitions and published her writing through AC Institute, NY and the Korean Cultural Center of New York.
JH Art Talks 
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