Last June, when CARTWHEEL held our first benefit silent auction/pop up art show for Surfer’s Healing, A Red Hot Night of Music & Film, featuring Fishbone and rock photographer John Scarpati,  Xany Rudoff–whose work has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, and Vanity Fair Magazine, and in the collections of collections of celebrities and musicians like Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, David Lynch, Patti Smith, Josh and Brody Homme, Alan McGee, The Getty Family, and Pink–donated one of her rock and roll icon paintings.

Last year Xany was the recipient of a grant from the prestigious Robert Rauchenberg Foundation, and has previously participated in and organized group and benefit shows of her art, donating her work to raise funds for charity auctions with The David Lynch Foundation, The Music Cares Foundation, and The Los Angeles Children’s Hospital, amongst many others.

So we are really thrilled that “Iconic Illuminating Album Cover Paintings,”  Xany’s first solo show in New York City, presented by the Soho-based Ward-Nasse Gallery in conjunction with Spencer Drate and Judith Salavetz opens May 4th, 2013, with an artist’s reception from 7pm to 10pm.  “Iconic Illuminating Album Cover Paintings” runs through May 31.

Xany’s current work, the “Icon Series,” features vintage album covers that have been painted and embellished using 24 carat gold leafing Renaissance and Byzantine era techniques to affect the look of religious icon paintings. In these works, Xany explores the idea of the iconic by using found albums such as David Bowie’s “Aladdin Sane” and Led Zeppelin’s “Houses Of The Holy” amongst many others, and applies gold leaf to the album’s surface, followed by extensive burnishing, painting and lacquering techniques in the same time honored tradition of the Old Masters. She transforms the covers into beautiful, luminescent “Icons” that reflect the modern day “worship” of classic albums and musicians of today.  The result is a breathtaking series of work that glow with the burnished luster of a church fresco, but are intimate and personal in size and image. These rock and roll icons are made magnificent in a work that is at once transcendent and familiar and take the ordinary into the extraordinary.

This collaboration with The Ward-Nasse Gallery is very special to Xany, as she has been a long-time supporter of and activist for artist’s rights. She chose to show at the Ward-Nasse Gallery specifically because it is has been run as an artist’s co-op since its inception in 1972. Founded by Mr. Harry Nasse, it  is one of the few galleries in New York City that provides new artists the opportunity to expose their work in the Soho Art District, the most prestigious area for art in New York City.