A new Jersey City art gallery called Fish with Braids boldly displayed the subject of its first exhibit on June 6: the toilet.
The art gallery, which participated in JC Fridays, a free quarterly event that highlights Jersey City art galleries, has been exhibiting toilet seats designed by a variety of local artists.
Some seats are mosaics, while others are painted.
The gallery’s owner, German born Uta Brauser, opened the show last month and got the idea from one of her own paintings.
Brauser, who has lived in Jersey City the last three and a half years, said that she began painting representations of multi-tasking mothers on toilets after she gave birth to her son Ezra.
“When you become a mother, everything changes,” said Brauser.
After many people said that the painting would be great for bathrooms, she decided that contributing arts should have a bathroom theme.
Last Friday’s opening included a live installment of artist Julianne Pisciotta, who sat on a toilet in the gallery’s store front window.
Some of the children at the gallery asked Pisciotta endless questions.
“That’s how it really is when you have kids,” said Jersey City artist Christine Moss-Higuita, who also had toilet seats on display. “They don’t care if you’re on the toilet.”
Seats with Sass
Brauser advertised last Friday’s opening by walking around in a toilet costume at the Journal Square and Pavonia PATH stations.
“The PATH officals said that they needed to see a specific permit for me to be there, and I said that this was public transportation,” Brauser said last week. “The reactions [from people] were certainly mixed, because toilets have an icky theme.”
Reactions to the exhibit itself were positive.
Moss-Higuita’s daughter, Carmen, 7, said that she really enjoyed the exhibit. She said that the toilet seats were artistic and that their creators were using their imagination.
Carmen said that her mom, who made a mosaic seat from glass and stone, especially used her imagination in creating different patterns.
Moss-Higuita said that her children are used to her sometimes outlandish pieces of artwork.
“I’ll basically mosaic on anything that doesn’t move,” Moss-Higuita said last week.
Moss-Higuita, who has shown her art throughout the area, including the Artists in Residence building and the Newark Museum, said that Fish with Braids is exactly what downtown Jersey City needs.
She became involved after meeting Brauser at Grace Church, located at 39 Erie St. Although the gallery is small, she said that the Jersey Avenue location is great for exposing locals to different perspectives.
Sonia Nelson, a Jersey City resident for the last year, was taking part of JC Fridays and said that she was really impressed with the seats and toilet art.
Nelson said that she would want to buy a “funky” toilet seat, while her boyfriend Ben Mayer enjoyed the seat with man-like pig painted on it.
“I think it is great that people are making art out of a kind of mundane object,” Nelson said last Friday. “There are opportunities for art everywhere.”
It’s a learning process
Along with displaying works of art, Brauser said that the studio will be a place to create art, as well as a accessory boutique.
She said that she wants the space to exhibit everything from toilet seats to straight-laced landscape paintings.
Pisciotta, who also displayed a toilet seat and a fabric sculpture along with her live installment, has been learning about art with Brauser’s help.
After graduating from the University of Connecticut with a communications and art history major this past May, Pisciotta said that she wanted to enhance her self-taught art skills. She said Brauser has been very encouraging of her progress.
She created a fabric toilet, which included stitching with a similar look to graffiti, and two toilet seats. One said “embrace the poop,” which is an inside joke in her circle of friends.
She said that girls are embarrassed when talking about the bathroom and farting, when it’s a natural part of life.
For Moss-Higuita, the gallery is a fresh of breath air in the art scene. She said that she was happy Brauser decided Jersey City for its location.
“I think [this gallery] is more down to earth,” said Moss-Higuita. “It’s more accessible.”
Comments on this story may be sent to TriciaT@hudsonreporter.com.