ARTIST STATEMENT
By Angel Eyedealism (aka Angela Repellant)
In 1984, not knowing shit about fuck, or fuck about shit, I stumbled upon what later was coined, 'The Rivington School,' a mythological Art Movement in NYC's LES. Ravaged by illness and youthful irreverence, I expressed myself in bold and flamboyant means. Searching thrift stores, I came up with kooky costumes, mismatched textures and fabrics. Local fashion designers asked me to do runway shows, and I ended up in People Magazine for a fashion show I did at Danceteria.
Using the tag Angela Repellant, juxtaposed with edgy glamour and barely clad in diaphanous rags, I hit the runways. My face became canvas, as I painted it daily with neon eyeshadow and hot pink lipstick. Expressing this angst proved cathartic, as I screamed the words I'd written at ABC NO RIO, doing Spoken Word. At 8BC, I did my first Performance Art show, on the struggles of women in art. It was at 8BC that I met DAB: David Andrew Bennett. We started fucking and started Womb Service, my first NYC band. We played at CBGB, The World, and Sculptures Gardens, and hung with Sonic Youth.
Living in subhuman conditions, unstable housing sublets, and working a string of odd jobs, I lived to make art. Having left Antioch College in 1983 for health reasons, I came to NYC for medical treatment. However, the burgeoning art scene swept me up in it's unforgiving arms, and there was no looking back.
Meeting new RS Artists,I started collaborating with them on Visual and Performance Art, I do not know how I lived through it. Diagnosed with uterine hemorrhage, and life-threatening anemia, my art centered around women's health issues, utilizing blood and tampons in my paintings and performance. We collaborated doing spontaneous Performance Art in the East Village/LES/SOHO/Canada and Europe over the course of the next 35 years.
It was those early years, in the mid 80s, in a combustion of Reaganomics and Aqua Net hairspray, that we thrived and expressed ourselves with wild abandon. James Love Cornwall, aka 'Jim C', was one of my first friends in 1984, and brought me around to NADA Gallery, one of the main Rivington School hangs.
Little did I know that we were planting the seeds of an Art Movement. He played Gato Barbier on cassette tape, and inspired me with his paintings, and his vision of an explosive art scene. In 1986, while at NADA, I started using the tag Angela Idealism Jim turned me on to Freddie The Dreamer Gallery, No Se No, and Fusion Arts. Shalom Neuman owned the latter, and I had many, many events there. Shalom included my written word/poetry and photos of my live performances in his book Fusion Arts, which is on permanent archive in The Whitney, MOMA, the Guggenheim and the Patterson Museum.
Unfettered by the confines of walls, social convention, or slick Soho, I screamed my youthful truth in the Sculpture Gardens. These were massive scrap heaps of metal and found objects welded together with blow torches, spray paint and a dream in abandoned lots of the East Village and Lower East Side. Being broke as fuck, found objects were my canvas. 'Tampon Alter' was a found wooden Buddhist temple, painted in acrylics and affixed with my used, sun-dried tampon. 'Vagina Hutch', was a found Victoria wooden hutch on which I painted acrylic neon vaginas.
Putting myself way out there, in dangerous situations, abandoned lots with broken glass and razor blades, I was deep in The Grit which was 80s NYC. Keeping me on the razor's edge of avant-gardism, the traditional was not for me, and I delighted in this unstructured rebellion. In the 90s, I studied opera and jazz, wrote songs, started touring with bands, and changed my name to Angel Eyedealism.
Currently, I am considered the number one astrologer in NYC, and one of the most famous astrologers in the world, and have been featured on Showtime, NBC, CBS, HBO, WPIX, FOX, Refinery29, The Washington Post, The New York Post, and The Financial Times, Cosmopolitan and Vogue, to name a few.
Having studied and practiced astrology since the early 90s, this kept me balanced in the mercurial business of show.
In 2015, I started WORS: Women Of Rivington School to honor the women who also contributed to the macho Boomer male art movement. With the massive media attention I have garnered as an astrologer, I want to shine a light on these brilliant, yet hidden jewels, I espied amidst the junk and rubble of Rivington School. WORS is the view of the Rivington School through my eyes and the few women I knew who painted, performed and stood out as rare gems, in this thrilling and dangerous time.