Reviews and Blogs




The New York Times 1.15.12 - "An Art Exhibit That's Good to the Last Drop" by David W. Dunlap

"For almost five months, one of the busiest intersections in New York City has been transformed — by the unlikely medium of 800 used paper coffee cups hung from fishing line — into an enchanted cleft in the canyons, a place of visual delight and surprising tranquillity.

 

The cups, on which the artist Gwyneth Leech has drawn or painted vibrant graphic patterns and imagery, fill the glass-enclosed “prow” at the base of the Flatiron Building, on 23rd Street, between Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Suspended in space, they move gently, too, as heat currents rise from the floor registers. It’s a public art installation for which no invitation is needed. Passers-by simply stop — amused, astonished, perplexed, engaged. Or they come by, as Michael Munguia did the other day from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, because their friends have told them they must see the lady who draws on coffee cups. 

 

"Bach had fugues," Ms. Leech said. "Shakespeare had sonnets. I have used coffee cups."  Click here to read more.

 

Supreme Fiction 1.27.12 -"A Studio Visit with Gwyneth Leech" by James Panero  

"Gwyneth Leech has the coolest studio in New York."  

"Dancing around in the uplighting and circulating air of the space, the cups are in one sense a fanciful play on a disposable (and highly caffeinated) culture. But Leech's presence also makes this an installation about the process of making art and turning trash into treasure." Click here to read more.

 

Haber Arts 11.18.11 - "Color as Obsession" by John Haber

"Many shows begin with a studio visit, in that moment when a dealer says, I want that in my gallery. With Gwyneth Leech, however, that was not just her work. It includes her colors, her studio detritus, her habits, her obsessions, and for that matter the artist. In the process, however, all of them have changed. They have become an installation."
Click here the read more.




HandEye  12.8.11 "Upcycled Cups Caffeinate the City" by Tina Seligman

"Cup-gazing, photographing and blogging have become a New York obsession for thousands of people daily captivated by Hypergraphia: The Cup Drawings – Studio in the Prow. Gwyneth Leech’s expanding universe of upcycled take-out paper coffee/tea cups has converted the iconic Flatiron building’s glass peninsula adjacent to Sprint’s retail store into a hybrid of public space, gallery and art studio."
Click here to read more.


Psychology Today
“Do what you Love, Money Follows: The Coffee Cup Artist”
Dr. Susan Biali, M.D. Looks at Hypergraphia at the Flatiron. December 2011
Click here to read more.


Art of the Times
"Hypergraphia, the Cup Drawings - Studio in the Prow" 
By Tina Seligman
Winter 2012 
"Gwyneth Leech's work personifies New York City, Measured in coffee cups."
Click here to read more.



Manhattan Living
"Gwyneth Leech:Hypergraphia, in the Flatiron Prow Art Space"
By Glenwood
January 4, 2012
"We like the way it looks from a distance, especially at night, a beckoning jewel box of light and color; we like the way it looks up close, each coffee cup its own work of art, all of varying compositions, subjects, styles and palettes. Adding to the magic is the way Leech suspends her pieces floor to ceiling, filling the space with her designs."

"A Flatiron District neighborhood treasure."
Click here to read more.
 

New York City Minute  "Cup Drawings at the Flatiron"
By Voyages Vistas Vino
January 12, 2012

 "In the windowed prow of the historic Flatiron Building on Fifth Avenue hangs more than 600 repurposed paper coffee cups. Hypergraphia: The Cup Drawings is a temporary art exhibit by Gwyneth Leech that concludes its spellbinding run on February 18, 2012. This installation is truly a work in progress as you can watch the artist in action Tuesdays through Saturdays between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. as Gwyneth adds to her collection of hand-drawn cups of art."
Click here to read more.


Everydaytrash.com "Hypergraphia: The Cup Drawings"
By Leila Derabi
February 2nd, 2012

"The stack of used cups not yet decorated beside a chair and a bunch of colored markers is a quiet reminder of the endless supply of disposable canvas we generate in this city, this country, this world…"
Click here to read more. 



Gadling "Used Coffee Cup Art in New York City"
By Elizabeth Seward
February 8, 2012

"Haven't you ever found yourself pacing along with the quick-moving, coffee-cup-holding crowds of NYC wondering, "What if all of those coffee cups could somehow be collected to make an amazing used coffee cup art?" Admittedly, I haven't ever had that thought, either. But I'm happy someone did."
Click here to read more.



Toni On! New York
December 21, 2011

Toni Senecal visits the Hypergraphia installation in the Flatiron Prow Artspace and talks with artist Gwyneth Leech and curator Cheryl McGinnis.
Click here to view.


PSFK
Artist Spends Hours in Store Window Drawing on Coffee Cups
By Liz Walsh
November 1, 2011
"The simplicity of this project and its message–that everyday objects have multiple uses, and should be repurposed–creates a playful and lively yet calming center for one of the city’s busier atmospheres. Amidst all the traffic, passersby have the opportunity to experience a thought-provoking artistic intervention."
Lessons form Social Media
By Nick Martin
November 2, 2011

"The message that the little every day things we do that produce waste can be transformed into something awe inspiring is something to think about."

“Leech saves cups from her drinks — and occasionally from other artists she meets for tea or coffee — washes, dries them and records on the bottom the date, place, occasion, and drink it held, thus documenting the social moment.”

Catch that last part? Each cup documents a “social moment”. Every single cup suspended so delicately in midair symbolizes a personal interaction, an exchange of stories or ideas, a connection with another human being. All of these social moments are then made into art, and displayed to hundreds of onlookers sparking new social moments, ideas, stories, and connections."


Meet Artist Gwyneth Leech
November 4, 2011
"REA stumbled upon the artwork of Gwyneth Leech in the Flatiron building, where she creates beautiful drawings on paper coffee cups and hangs them from the ceiling.  We were so impressed and inspired by her work, that we decided to shoot a quick film and interview her for our “REA APPROVED” blog.  
Check out the video here.
 
 
For Artist Gwyneth Leech, Coffee Cups Are the Perfect Medium
Arts Observer
October 16, 2011

"Leech has chosen a unique medium for her work and her current studio is also innovative. Since September 19, she has been drawing in the Flatiron Prow Art Space.
Hundreds of her completed cups hang in the window gallery and for three hours a day she continues to pen intricate patterns in an array of colors while passersby observe. The project is called “Hypergraphia: The Cup Drawings.” It is not really performance art, but it is an intriguing display."
Click here  to read more.


Art by the Cupful
Wednesday, October 12, 2011

"One of my favorite things about walking around in New York is happening upon unexpected and unusual loveliness, and that's just what I got as I passed the Flatiron Building the other night. The glassed-in artspace there is currently housing an installation called Hypergraphia. It's paper cups covered in beautiful drawings, strung from the ceiling, just waiting to be admired from the street. The work is by artist Gwyneth Leech who creates a unique and intricate design on every cup. It's really some of the happiest, most approachable artwork I've ever come across."
Click here to read more.


Art from Office Waste
Radchika S. Saxena
November 14, 2011

"How many times do you need a caffeine fix while at office. Those used coffee cups just add to the litter generated and end up on landfills. But an artist from New York, Gwyneth Leech has turned them into beautiful suspensions."
Click here to read more.


The Landscape
Art Cups at the Flatiron
Richard Alomar
November 27, 2011

"The whole thing is just a wonderful synergy (do people still use that word?) of art, street life, voyeurism, commerciality  (this word I just made up) and public education."
Click here to read more


Trashmanian Devil 
Artist of the Week: Gwyneth Leech
Trash Man
November 12, 2011

"Gwyneth draws fractal patterns on her morning coffee cup and on those contributed by her friends. Then she adds them to her ever-growing mobile. Her obsessive drawing is called Hypergraphia  in some circles–but it’s Art with a capital A to the Trashman.  Best of all, those cups aren’t litter."
Click here to read more.


A Cat Chat on Art
Claire Medol Hyman 
November 22, 2011

"Gwyneth draws city scenes and patterns on her coffee cups that are hanging afloat in front of this famous window. Like leaves and butterflies a flutter, the lines and leanings direct our attention away from the moment into a netherland of movement and fragility. The cup form carries a memory for all of us, adding a drawing makes it a cup from a moment in time. Thank you Gwyneth."
Click here to read more. 


Joanne Mattera 
3.23.2011 - "Arrangement in Gray and Cups", by Joanne Mattera

"Hypergraphia is right. Designs flow out of the artist’s pen like the house blend out of a deli spigot at breakfast. Leech is prolific. The results suggest Italian pottery, Greek vases, paisley prints, tattoos, cuneiform script and more—a range of contemporary abstraction.  And, if I may say so, the installation is really fun. It’s interactive in that people on the street stop to look at the cascade of cups, then spying Leech in the corner, painting, call their friends over to come and look.  “She musta drunk $900 worth of coffee,” said one hip-hop homie to another (I’m guessing more), as they paused to take in the range of graphic expression. But others are drawn in by the artist drawing. Those of us “in the life” forget just how fascinating it is to watch someone make something out nothing, or in this instance, a white paper cup.
Click here to read more.


Pennsylvania Gazette
July/August 2011 - Profile by Molly Petrilla

"Inside her 13th-floor studio in the heart of the Fashion District, Leech shows me some of her favorite cups. They’re as diverse as you might imagine: cityscapes based on her soaring studio view; vines and other mesmerizing plantlike patterns; abstract shapes and designs of all sorts; a bright springtime landscape from her sister’s place in upstate New York. “For whatever reason, [the cups] are a useful form for me,” she says. “Shakespeare wrote sonnets. Bach wrote fugues. I draw on used paper coffee cups.”
Click here to read more.



Hand / Eye Magazine
Full Brew & View
By Sarah Buttenwieser | July 22, 2010

"As you speak with Leech and get to know her work, you realize Full Brew encapsulates the essence not of all her work but of how she approaches art-making—and her life as artist, mother, daughter, New Yorker, friend, sister. A few things matter most up front. They don’t compete. They all coexist. Leech cares about the place where she lives, the people in it, the landscape, and the way she sees and responds to all of it. Her work—including short videos about artists and dancers she’s gotten to know, paintings of diverse families, images of familiar landscapes viewed from different vantage points, photographs of playgrounds and parks—weaves together her world and her intimate, seamless responses".
Click here to read more.

 
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Videos 
 
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Photos Blogs   
 
Garment District Exhibit (February - April, 2011)

Nearsay

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