Global Chaos, Healing Art:
The Works of Sam
Sebren
by Jay Blotcher
Among the amenities of his Ridge Street apartment:
junkies passed out in the hallway and the occasional stray
bullet whizzing through an open window. “Some of us
have certain moments in their lives when they are politicized,”
Sebren said. “Living in the Lower East Side at that
time in the 1980s was a moment when I began to understand
divisions in society, not to mention the horrific days of
AIDS and Ronald Reagan.”
Sebren was not another middle-class artist
kid glomming onto lower-class pain for kicks and inspiration;
at one point he was homeless (a landlord stole his entire
nest egg) and living for several weeks in Tompkins Square
Park. Even in indigence, the artist was wildly resourceful:
the Park became his open-air studio. While camping out on
a bench, he continued painting, creating miniatures or conjuring
sidewalk murals for spare change. He attended numerous gallery
openings in the neighborhood not only to further his career,
but to ensure at least one meal a day, even if it was only
wine, cheese and crackers.
His subject matter, once focused on psychological
states of mind, began reflecting newfound sensibilities. Portraits
of neighborhood denizens would omit the bleak surroundings;
instead, Sebren would place them into brightly colored fantasy
situations: “surreal landscapes and trippy atmospheres,
or riding bikes in the sky.” In hindsight, Sebren realizes
his artistic reconfigurations were necessary coping skills.
“[I was] trying to create a brighter world than what
I was experiencing,” he said.
Artist Martin Wong, a social realist rising
on the East Village scene, invited Sebren to share his apartment
where the two painted days and late nights...CONTINUE....
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