'Humanity in Pixels and Stone': Classic Values in Modern Form on Upper West Side Personable Art Crowd Views Brownstone Gallery Opening Sublime Sculptures by Lilian Engel, Emotional Digitals by Gary Kaleda Two artistic responses to the form and fantasy of the female torso, that eternal preoccupation of humanity, share space this month at the well established brownstone gallery of Susan Eley in her new show, Humanity in Pixels and Stone. Both of them are richly rewarding in unique ways. The intriguing show kicked off with a packed opening reception on Thursday January 8th, and will run through Thursday February 19 (open to the public Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 11am-5pm or by appointment, at 46 West 90th Street, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10024, between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, as well as on the Web at Susan Eley Fine Art and 1stdibs; tel 917.952.7641 or email: susie@susaneleyfineart.com. ). Mingling with one of the art world's more interesting crowds - thoughtful Upper West Siders in funky coats and hats to protect against the freezing weather outside, many long time players well rooted in the fertile soil of New York City intellectual creativity - we admired the exquisite balance and softness of proportion of the abstract forms shaped by Lilian Engel, which seemed to have an almost Zen-like repose, evoking respect for as well as appreciation of the female forms which inspired them (Engel is on the staff of and sculpts at the Art Students League). Torsos of the female variety are also the current preoccupation of lanky digital artist Gary Kaleda, present in Pee Wee spiked hair and a red track suit with his equally tall partner Susannah Maurer at his side in a very upbeat foliage patterned dress. Was Susannah the model he had in mind for his not-so-pixilated, in fact brush-like photoportraits of divinely fleshy female forms in active, upright, speeding poses? "Oh yes, all of them " he assured us, though in a burst of artistic honesty immediately following this diplomatic statement he added, "Well, I do have some other subjects of fantasy too!" Kaleda is that exceptional, perhaps unique digital artist that has expanded his attention to include the flesh and blood of real life. "What I liked about his work is it retains a warmth and humanity," said Susan Eley, the gallery owner, "which a lot of digital work doesn't." Kaleda starts with a virtual model, as he later explained, which he develops with digital tools and techniques, but he doesn't stop there. "My figures are not from real people, I have a virtual photoshoot, as it were, rendering a 3d model, but then I'm interested in imparting my feelings onto it. I'm part of this world and I try to grasp our connection with it, and get beyond the cold, hard, mechanical aspect." Susannah is fully supportive, she says. " A lot of digital work is empty for me. Inaccessible - it doesn't move me!" In unexpected harmony with his high energy, even hot variations on the parallel topic of the human body the smaller scale but still Henry Moore-like abstract statuary by Lilian Engel on pedestals around the gallery contrasted Kaleda's emotional dynamism with some boldly assertive standing pieces. But most of them lay in calm repose, their harmoniously variegated contours making for a quiet aesthetic that suggested some of these in fact very heavy objects seem light enough to float off their stands. Engel, who works as graphic designer director at the Art Students League while not carving and polishing marble (and more lately wood, under her mentor Seiji Saito, a Nagucci disciple) in one of its studios or her own, said that she had pursued figurative clay sculpture so long in her early career that if her focus is now on the torso, "I guess I was a student so long it's just in me. Torsos are the most exciting part of the figure, because there is so much motion in them. I think of bodies in motion, and I want to get the stone into movement, out of its confined space. Often, it becomes a back and forth play." She explained to a small group gathered round one of her works in creamy white marble that she sometimes skipped making a model in clay first, but "if it's a big piece of marble I don't like to take chances. My process is usually an intuitive one." With her was her man Brad Whitermore, also a sculptor, who she met in the corridors of the Art Student League in a cloud of marble dust from a teaching studio there, when he was working next door in wood. They went to the Whitney Biennial, then for walks in the park, and ended up living together, though with separate studios now in Long Island City. Images on his iPhone Brad showed us confirmed they had much in common, since two were also of torsos in exceptionally fine classical style. "I like torsos, yes" he said. "The classical department of the Met is one of my favorite spots, a point of departure for lines I am interested in." Also present were Helaine Soller and Ira Soller, she a painter of swirling images reminiscent of skies and natural landscapes, whose card stated that "my art reveals intimate views of nature, captured at a moment in time, to create awareness and support for our fragile ecosystems", he a champion sitter, as he demonstrated several times at the opening; Carole Eisner, the artist (and mother of the gallery owner) whose giant sculptures are seen outdoors in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York, including a monumental one below the tramway to Roosevelt Island at 59St and 2nd Avenue last year. \Other guests included Allison Chernow, director of external affairs at the Bronx Museum, with her daughter Dorothea Trufelman, still a Skidmore student, who is planning to visit Cuba in May to photograph life there for an NYU Tisch program project; Naomi Campbell the artist; Christopher Priore who paints on thick vinyl, he says, and has a video up on YouTube titled Rapunzel;s Village; and Jennie Schurman, a West Sider and business communications consultant who lived nearby, a friend of Gary and Susannah, who wound up the evening by having dinner together. (Next up at Susan Eley: Talk by Michael Spalter, Chairman of the Board of the Rhode Island School of Design, on his large collection of early digital art amassed with his wife, artist, author, educator Anne Morgan Spalter. Thursday Jan 29 6.30pm)