Celebrate emerging Syracuse artist Michael Barletta and his dynamic artwork

About Improvisations: Sound in Motion
Akin to an improvisational jazz performance, Michael Barletta’s abstract paintings and drawings reflect a live moment in time and space. Each stroke of the brush or pen is a spontaneous gesture reflecting the artist’s visceral response to his immediate surroundings and inner emotions.

 “I try to capture a moment in time and space without imposing a message other than the arrangement of color and shapes that stir the emotions and engage the senses.”

Michael translates the energy and sound of music, conversation and social interactions into swirling, organic shapes upon the surface of his large canvases and mylar sheets.

About Michael Barletta
Michael is an emerging artist at the vortex of a thriving underground art community in Syracuse, New York. Though self-taught, with no formal art education, Michael has been an avid student of the arts since childhood -- absorbing and transforming the energy, chaos and emotion of the streets, the media and of his immediate environment drawings and paintings that pulse with raw emotion and energy.

Take the work of Takashi Murakami, Matthew Ritchie and Inka Essenhigh and mix it up with the music of contemporary artists and you might find some of Michael’s influences in terms of composition.
“I use my waist, arm and wrist as a pivot point to create arching lines that move my subjects as if they were in suspended in water or hung out in the wind. I want to suggest motion without implying the source.”

Colors and compositional elements are often derived or appropriated from familiar objects, mass media symbols or commercial graphics such as billboards, logos, ads or poster that catch his peripheral vision or a moment exists in pure abstraction. He imposes no message or point of view other than an arrangement of colors and shapes that engage the senses.

Michael’s artwork has recently been seen at the 2008 Everson Museum of Art Biennial, the NYU Kimmel Windows Gallery in NY, and several art fairs in New York and Miami.

On exhibit June 30 through August 31, 2010
153 East 53rd Street, New York City
Street and Plaza Levels
(The Atrium Shops and Café - formerly the Citicorp Center)

Special Live Painting Event with Michael Barletta and Michael Swatt as part of Creative Arts Workshop for Kids first annual Art Worksbenefit.

June 30th 6-8pm

Cocktail reception and live music by Swirl

We have a limited number of complimentary tickets to attend the Art Works benefit. If you are interested in attending, please let me know via email to Lisa@ElisaArt.com.

Proceeds from final painting from Live Painting event, as well a portion of all sales from the exhibit will be donated to Creative Arts Workshops for Kids.

Every donation helps support CAW programs. For example:
1 Patron Ticket supplies materials for 80 children at free Saturday Workshops
1 Supporting ticket covers the salary of a teen in the Summer Arts/Mural program
A bronze ticket supplies materials for 200 children to create 50 giraffes for the "Hike the Heights" program
A Silver ticket supports 15 Harlem/Washington Heights teens in the 12-week afterschool program.
A Gold ticket supports the creation of a community mural as part of the Summer Art Works job program