VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: A new downtown gallery brings more life to the local art scene
McCusker (Reporter): Down a blustery alley in Syracuse, you can find Brewer Harris Projects, the newest addition to the local art scene. There, you’ll find Riley Sottile, a local student who saw the need for more life in the city’s art.
Riley Sottile (Research Assistant, Brewer Harris Projects): There’s a lot of like street art on like murals on the walls and stuff and I have that at home too but there’s not as many places you can go to really look at art, unless you’re going to the art museum. So, I just think that being a part of something that adds more is really important.
McCusker: And this is exactly what co-founders, Laura Heyman and Miesha Shih, were looking for. Laura and Miesha wanted a transformative space where people in the community could come and feel welcome. This hidden gem in a downtown alley proved to be the perfect place.
Laura Heyman (Co-Director, Brewer Harris Projects): We really wanted to bring a kind of major city art energy to Syracuse while still being able to maintain a kind of welcoming sensibility to the local public that you would have in a smaller town.
McCusker: New York City-based painter Manuel Hernandez’s “Singing Wall” was carefully chosen as the inaugural exhibit for the gallery.
Heyman: It really rewards continued viewing, right? So, like, you think you’ve seen everything and then you see something else and then you see something else and then there’s like figures that repeat. McCusker: The gallery’s next event will be on Friday, free to the public, and featuring live music performances. In Syracuse, Anna McCusker, NCC News.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — A new gallery opened at 138 Bank Alley in downtown Syracuse.
Brewer Harris Projects is a small, one-room gallery created by Laura Heyman and Miesha Shih. Heyman and Shih are both prominent names in the local and broader art scene, and they met through art years ago.
Shih had wanted to open a gallery for a while, and after inviting Heyman to give her advice on the project, the two decided to partner together with the goal of highlighting the work of underrepresented artists and making the art accessible to the community.
“We really wanted to bring a kind of major city art energy to Syracuse, while still being able to maintain a kind of welcoming sensibility to the local public that you would have in a smaller town,” Heyman said.
Riley Sottile is a student at Syracuse University and a research assistant at Brewer Harris Projects. She noticed the lack of life in the art scene around Syracuse and how this gallery is helping to change that.
“There’s a lot of street art on murals, on the walls and stuff and I have that at home too, but there’s not as many places you can go to really look at art, unless you’re going to the art museum,” Sottile said. “So, I just think that being a part of something that adds more is really important.”
The inaugural exhibition chosen for the grand opening of Brewer Harris Projects is called “The Singing Wall” and is by New York City-based painter, Manuel Hernandez. Hernandez’s work focuses on representing contemporary Native American people within Latin America, specifically around topics of migration.
Heyman said Hernandez’s artwork is thoughtful and has many elements for viewers to discover.
“You think you’ve seen everything and then you see something else and then there’s like figures that repeat,” she said.
Heyman said she hopes the gallery and its art will impact viewers the way any art would – by letting them step away from their everyday lives.