Come to our exhibit opening, our artist Ira Merritt will be here to talk to you about his work. We will have live music from Sinuhe Padilla Isunza and refreshments.
"Ephemeral is about the timelessness of man’s interaction to place. It is about a specific place, Van Cortlandt Park, but it is also a universal playground of woods and structures. It was photographed over six years in which the nature of the project took several turns. It began as a study of the seasonal changes in the park and an escape from taking care of my elderly parents. It moved into the theme of winter as my parents embarked onto the journey beyond. Finally it evolved into ephemeral, a feeling of timelessness, quickly passing, existing, and looking ahead." Ira
Ira Merritt is a Bronx resident for 71 years, married with two grown children. He is retired from teaching photography for 35 years, the last 26 at the High School of Art & Design in Manhattan. Before teaching he worked as a freelance photographer associate at the Dena Photography Agency and also as a videographer for the Health and Nursing Program at Lehman College in the Bronx. He has been a recipient of six individual artist awards in photography from the Bronx Council on the Arts and has received grants for photography projects including documenting the residents of the Amalgamated Cooperative (the oldest housing co-op in the nation) during their 85th anniversary year. Ira also participated as one of the photographers for the borough wide Bronx Artist Documentary Project which resulted in a traveling show and book. As a mixed media artist Ira Merritt’s images begin with the photographic process and then evolve through assemblage, montage, collage, and drawing; to create edgy fractured remnants of a disenfranchised population. Ira considers himself to be a deconstructive – reconstructive artist in that he finds elements of our culture and re-imagines them as if they were found by another society in the future and used by those people for purposes other than their intended use.
Sinuhé Padilla Isunza is a Mexican musicologist, producer, composer, and artistic director. With more than 25 years of teaching and research experience, he’s led and collaborated in multiple compelling artistic and social projects around the traditional and contemporary Afro-Amerindian music scene. A path that has allowed him to inspire and encourage community-based fandango projects in many cities including New York, Philadelphia, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Bello Horizonte, Montreal, Albuquerque, Miami, among others. As a performing multi-instrumentalist, he has shared the stage and toured with Multi Grammy Award-winning artists like Lila Downs, Residente, Aida Cuevas, Ana Tijoux, and many more. Padilla Isunza has also directed musical projects such as Jarana Beat, Mexico Beyond Mariachi, The Bilingual Birdies Band, among other projects in New York. Sinuhe has served as music writer and producer for National Geographic, Mundo (Firmes), The taco Chronicles documentary series by Netflix, Storyhunter TV, The United Nations; and as lecturer in conferences and Master Classes for The New School University, the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics (NYU), Berklee College of Music, Dutchess Community College, New Mexico State University, and the CUNY Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His main creative output, Jarana Beat, has been acclaimed world-wide and awarded Best Folk Contemporary Band by the Mexican Music Awards 2015, and recognition by the City of New York for his contribution to Latin culture in the same year.
