Open Studio with Jason A. Cina

TOPAZ ARTS presents an Open Studio Showing with painter and photographer Jason A. Cina. As part of a one-month artist residency, Cina shares new work in sculptural paintings, as well as a series of photography.

Open Studio with Jason A. Cina
Fri, Jan 13, 5-9pm
Sat, Jan 14, 12-4pm
TOPAZ ARTS, 55-03 39th Ave, Queens, NY > directions

Join us for Open Studio with Jason A. Cina, presented as part of a one-month artist residency at TOPAZ ARTS. Cina shares new work in sculptural paintings, displayed in contrast with his series of photography, developed over 30 years. As a painter, Cina works against a crisp photographic viewpoint resulting in reactionary arrays of color and reliance on rudimentary forms. His method is improvisational resulting in expressionistic, cellular-like formations, floating in repetitious layers of playful conglomeration of colors and shapes.

About the Artist:
A native New Yorker from Roosevelt Island, Jason A. Cina formally trained in the theatre and designed lighting for stage plays, musicals, dance, and jazz concerts in NYC venues, regional summer theaters as well as national tours to performing arts centers. Cina’s main focus returned to photography, capturing images in urban and rural settings to documenting decades of jazz and street portraiture. In painting, Cina’s skills were kept sharp by regularly freelancing as a scenic artist Off Broadway, concurrently working as a teaching-artist for public and private institutions. In 2007 he founded the photography program at the Harlem Children’s Zone / Promise Academy then on to AHRC to establish a studio art curriculum for adults with developmental disabilities. His years spent in occupational ‘day-habs’ fortuitously lead to the creation of his first cohesive series of mixed media paintings entitled SLABS: ten freely carved and thickly painted recycled plywood panels. Since their debut in 2013, these large naturalistic abstract microcosms have shown regularly in commercial and collective galleries throughout the city. In 2018 Jason was awarded a yearlong residency at Bliss on Bliss Studios which begat a second solo exhibition through ChaShaMa in midtown Manhattan. Jason is also an active member of the Plaxall Gallery in L.I.C. which functions as a nurturing arts organization. Cina’s one-month residency is supported by The TOPAZ ARTS Visual Arts Program with support from NYC Dept. of Cultural Affairs.

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