Visual Arts Journal
School of Visual Arts Magazine
Fall 2004, by Brian Glaser

Island Hopping
Staten Island's Emerging Art Scene


When the Brooklyn Museum unveiled its grandly updated entrance way in April 2004, it also declared a new mission: After years of unsuccessfully competing with Manhattan for art, artists and audiences the museum will focus instead on the work of Brooklyn artists and try to attract more local residents.

This comes at a time of soaring prices for Manhattan living and studio space and increasing difficulty to gain entry to the Chelsea gallery scene, leaving a lot  of young and emerging artists out in the cold. As a result, many have packed up and headed for other boroughs, creating a blossoming gallery scene in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn and taking advantage of institutions like P.S.1 in Long Island City, Queens, that provide exhibition space in neighborhoods that are affordable to artists who have yet to break through to  big paydays.

Now that so many artists have ridden across bridges and through tunnels away from Manhattan (driving up some of the once-low rents in sections of Brooklyn and Queens), it seems that some are beginning to hop the ferry, too: Staten Island is laying the seeds of its own art scene, with artists, galleries and cultural institutions pulling themselves together in a place that provides affordable studio and living space, accessible gallery walls and even inspirational environs.

Malin Abrahamsson (BFA 1998 Fine Arts) is a prototypical Staten Island artist. After years of living in a tiny Manhattan apartment, she and her husband went to visit fellow alum Todd Kelly (MFA 2000 Fine Arts) on the island borough. "I couldn't believe the size and price," Abrahamsson says of Kelly's apartment," and there were trees and birds!" Having grown up in Sweden surrounded by flora and fauna, the combination of landscape and affordability lured her to the island in February 2002, and she has remained there since.

Tanya Trivizas, owner of the Vlepo Gallery in St. George (where the ferry lands), also has a typical newcomer's story, though it is nearly the opposite of Abrahamsson's - Trivizas grew up on Staten Island, and while she briefly moved to Manhattan, she soon returned to her roots. "It was easier to live here," Trivizas says simply. When friends and family members who are artists began to talk about the lack of local gallery space and art - community cohesiveness. Trivizas was inspired to open Vlepo (named for the Greek work meaning "I see") in October 2003. "There are artists who have been working and living here for a long time," she says, " and I wanted to give these people a modern space on their own turf." Choosing a spot in the underdeveloped north shore area surrounding the ferry terminal meant that Trivizas could open the doors to a 700-square-foot space." I could never afford that in Chelsea, " she says.

The Tattfoo Temple of Art and Design is another recently opened modern art gallery not far from Vlepo. Launched New Year's Eve 2002 in a large space that originally housed a factory and livery stables, the Tattfoo Temple was primarily intended to house the work of Tattfoo Tan, an artist who had run out of space in his apartment in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood. But soon the temple was featuring the work of other artists. Gallery director Ensze Tan (Tattfoo Tan's wife) says that the gallery is dedicated to offering space for art that may not be immediately welcome in a more established gallery scene. "We love installation shows," says Ensze Tan," and we want to help young, experimental artists." In fact, Malin Abrahamsson took advantage of the Tans' space and enthusiasm for installation exhibition that had been funded by a grant from the Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island (COAHSI), an organization dedicated to developing, supporting and promoting local arts and artists.

These new galleries are located where they are primarily because of one key element: access. It's a short walk from the ferry terminal to both Vlepo and Tattfoo, making them accessible to visitors from Manhattan who might not blink at a 45-minute subway ride to Brooklyn, but generally consider the 25-minute harbor crossing too much of a hassle. While currently the bulk of the Staten Island gallery audience is native, both Trivizas and the Tans are optimistic that art lovers from Manhattan and Brooklyn will start making the waterborne trip more regularly.

Bill Murphy isn't so sure. A 1975 BFA Illustration graduate who currently teaches fine arts at Staten Island's Wagner College, Murphy has lived on the island his entire life and is skeptical that the current art boom can translate into a scene with staying power. While he is encouraged by the recent spate of gallery openings, Murphy also recalls, "There were three galleries in the mid-1970s in Stapleton [just south of St. George]." He says that part of the challenge is the larger picture of the borough's cultural and socio-economic makeup. "The bulk of Staten Islanders are not gallerygoers," he says. "There are small pockets of art people living here, but on a wider level, art is not in the consciousness of Staten Island's middle-class suburbia."

On the other hand, Murphy is quick to agree that the place can be inspirational for an artist. He feels that his landscape paintings, especially, have benefited, and credits the island's diverse geography. "There is Fresh Kills landfill, the marshlands, the north shore's hills, the decaying urban imagery, the waterfront," he says. "You can walk up to the water and see old wrecks." Murphy also finds that, for an artist, the economics of Staten Island go beyond the lower rents. "It's much easier to sell 10 prints here at $300 each than one painting at $3,000," he says. "I think the mentality is that the people who can spend $10,000 on a painting are going to go to Chelsea to do that."

In addition to the inspiring vistas and smaller economic scale, SI's emerging art scene has a certain amount of preexisting cultural and financial support. In addition to COAHSI, artists can take advantage of the resources provided by the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, an 83-acre facility that includes the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, the Staten Island Children's Museum, botanical gardens, and many studio and performances spaces. Snug Harbor has been around since 1976 (the grounds are a converted seamen's retirement home), created as a resource by and for the last generation of Staten Island artists, but which continues to reach out to the current crop.

Tanya Trivizas' sister Martha (second-year student, MFA Computer Art; BFA 2002 Fine Arts) helps with curatorial duties at Vlepo. She sees a sort of split-track art community on Staten Island. "First, there's the art community that was already here," she says, "and then there has been a revival, another generation of artists." All of these artists work side by side, sharing resources like Snug Harbor's studio spaces, while also having a mutually beneficial effect on one another. According to Martha, the newly arrived artists bring "a fresh outlook that's infiltrating the existing art community. The new spaces are showcasing the newer artists, while respecting the older artists who've been here as well."

It is too early to know for sure whether new galleries like Vlepo and Tattfoo will lead the way to a solid art scene on Staten Island, but the combination of artists, galleries and organizations suggest that a lot more Manhattanites might soon be taking that ferry ride across the harbor.