This year’s Faculty Show, Small Works, features smaller-scale works by AAC teachers in our Community Arts gallery. Selected works are no larger than 12 x 12” in size and work to showcase the beauty within the small.
Small Works will run concurrently with our Fall Juried Show High in Fiber November 8, 2024 – January 6, 2025. A dual opening reception will be held November 8 from 6-8pm.
Exhibiting Faculty
Deejay Bosca Mat Citrenbaum Amy Cook Nick D’Angelo Megan Giampietro
Angie Humes Jason Patrick Jenkins Linda Johnson Patricia Lima Martha Kent Martin
Amy Newman Shoshi Rosenstein Bill Ryan Wendy Tonsits Jo Watko
Select Works
Megan Giampietro, A Kiss, Photograph $50. Bill Ryan, DeCline, Collage, mixed media, $300. Jason Patrick Jenkins, Duotone Portrait Demo II, Oil on canvaspanel, $400.Patricia Lima, Messenger, Drypoint $250. Amy Newman, William, Watercolor and collage on paper, $150. Wendy Tonsits, Floral Earrings, Sterling Silver, Cubic Zirconia, Tourmaline, Ruby, NFS.
Coffee Break: Artist Talks | Saturday, September 28 | 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Coffee Break: Artist Talks | Saturday, October 19 | 10:00 a.m. – 12:00p.m.
Featured Artists: Bobbie Diamond Adams, Anna Bockrath, Benjamin Long & Mick Ricereto
DIGITAL CATALOG
ARTISTS
Bobbie Diamond Adams, Printmaking and Papermaking
Tile Gallery
From the Alchemy Series | Mixed media, $600
From the Meditations Series | Collagraph Monoprint, $800
“I like to provide hints of subject matter in my titles, but leave specific narrative to the imagination of the viewer.”
– Bobbie Diamond Adams
Bobbie Diamond Adams’ printmaking and papermaking works are abstract in concept. From the hints of green that emerge from a sea of black textures in one piece, to the stillness and quiet of the lone green ellipse in another, her artistic eye is evident in the connections she makes amongst seemingly disparate or unrelated elements. The process of printmaking and papermaking are both labor-intensive and meditative to Diamond Adams, often layering over and reworking pieces for extensive periods of time. Following an intuitive approach, she notes “I use many different plates, and interweave many layers of transparent ink, assembling and embellishing, as well as overprinting.”
Bobbie Diamond Adams’ work is on display in our Tile gallery.
“Though weaving, screen printing, trimming, and folding, I utilize techniques that lend themselves to transformation through accumulations of repeated gestures.”
– Anna Bockrath
Inspired by poetry, mythology, and her own personal history, Anna Bockrath explores the complicated concepts of loss, care, and time through her interdisciplinary work. Bockrath’s creations have an airy and ephemeral quality about them, achieved by using both materials and processes that allow for light and air to permeate. Driven by a fascination with process and materiality, her works are created through acts of iteration, layering, and repetition. This act of repetition in her creative practice parallels the repetitive cycles she experiences in her own life, citing “I relate this use of repetition to my own experience of dealing with loss and the repetitive cycles that are entangled with grief.”
Anna Bockrath’s a certain slant of light is on view in our Community Arts gallery.
“Please just look and let your eyes have the experience…words can take a break this time.”
– Benjamin Long
Benjamin Long’s oil paintings are colorful, punchy, and both visually and conceptually intriguing. Each piece comes with its own complex, almost dream-like composition, which leaves the viewer yearning for context. Recurring motifs of snowman-like figures, beehives, and lit cigarettes and pipes give the work an illustrative quality, reminiscent of the work of the late artist Philip Guston. Long acknowledges the ambiguity of his narratives, noting “maybe someday I will figure out a way to translate a personal visual language into a written one” and invites the viewer to derive their own meaning from the clues provided instead.
Benjamin Long’s paintings are featured in our Kelner gallery.
“I work in response to our disordered, beautiful and sometimes crumbling civilization.”
– Mick Ricereto
From dilapidated brick storefronts, to rusted fences and street signs, Mick Ricereto encapsulates the decay of the urban landscape in his intricate watercolor works. Ricereto uses watercolor to build each landscape layer by layer, a lengthy and intensive process that acts as a metaphor to the civil environment he captures: each layer is built upon the last. The fragility of the watercolor medium, he notes, doubles as “a nod to society’s delicate balance of survival.” This “tensionless state of constant entropy”, as described by Ricereto, is expressed through his paintings in both observed realism and idealized moments of repose.
Mick Ricereto’s Corner’s Report is being exhibited in our Book Room gallery.
Imagination and Play! is an exhibition that aims to create a fun space for people to let their imagination run loose. Art is often the source of people’s joy and entertainment, evoking a positive response and a sense of wonder in those that create and consume it. With bold colors, energetic paint strokes, and quirky interactive elements, the selected works in this exhibition showcase artists’ unique ability to look at life through a playful lens and share that sensation of joy with others.
Our 2024 Summer Juried Show Juror:
Summer Yates
Summer Yates is a mixed media artist living and working in Bucks County, PA. Her current body of work consists of soft sculpture and wall hangings made from donated and repurposed textiles, plastics, and foam. Yates received her BFA from Moore College of Art and Design and her MFA from The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Play and wonder are vital to her creative process, and is something she highly values within her own work and the work of others.
Asian Fusion, 2019-20 | Oil on unstretched canvas, bamboo
The Kiss, 2022 | MDF panel on wooden frame, lacquer paint, gold leaf
“My ethnographic approach goes against the grain of the Western art historical canon to embrace these fragments of archives.”
– Chau Nguyen
Chau Nguyen is a first-generation Vietnamese interdisciplinary artist, whose work draws from concepts of translation, memory, symbols, affect theory, materiality, and research on Vietnamese histories. They work to convey this notable friction at the intersection of cultural identity, colonial fragments, and transnationalism through their art and their study. Chau’s artistic practice allows for and relies on experimentation and material transformation as a way to combine their research into postcolonial transnationalism and their personal perspective as a Vietnamese immigrant. With an emphasis on material and its history, their work offers an open-ended and complex look into these concepts.
Nguyen’s Of Color is being exhibited in our Community Arts gallery.
Abound, 2020 | Handprinted, handcut and sewn paper
“Creation comes from an intense emotional state involving uncomfortable, non-cooperative responses to perceptions and resilience, while searching for joy and beauty.”
– Sante Johnson
Duwenavue Sante Johnson is a BIPOC embroiderer and contemporary artist, influenced by world travels, environmental patterns and textures, and colorscapes. Not limiting herself to any one medium, Johnson blends practices of painting, printmaking, textile, and craft to create dynamic works of art that encapsulate the human experience. Art acts as a tool for Johnson, helping her process and understand the complexities of humanity, its divides and cultural histories, and engage with these pathways to create something positive that unites.
Johnson’s Seasonal Resilience is on display in our Tile gallery
“Each piece is a fragment of a memory, a place recalled through a haze of blazing sunset and screaming fury.”
– Grue Shackelford
Grue Shackelford is a contemporary fiber artist based in Philadelphia, whose work explores the relationships between memory, intergenerational trauma, and the Appalachian identity. A West Virginia native, Shackelford is familiar with Appalachian Fatalism, a “pervasive, inborn spirit that is found in everyone and thing that dwells in those hills”. This mentality juxtaposed with the never-ending cycle of trauma that befalls the Appalachian people is something that intrigues them. Through tufts and tangles of multicolored yarn and felt, each of Shackelford’s intricate wall hangings tells a story.
Shackelford’s Montani Semper Liberi is on display in our Kellner gallery.
Smoke and Ember, 2024 | Plaster, acrylic, oil, sand
“There is only becoming; a permanent state can never be reached.”
– Abbey Stace
Abbey Stace is a contemporary abstract artist, whose material abstractions have developed over a lifetime of studying science, philosophy and art. Change and chance are fundamental to Stace’s artistic practice, creating work that is experimental and process-driven rather than literal and narrative-driven. She starts with a simple composition and then allows the materials to interact with each other to create naturally-forming textures, colors and shapes. This approach directly parallels the constant change that is life, noting “this mirrors the serendipitous and unpredictable process that is life…The layers of matter built up and worn away…mirror the accumulation and loss of experiences and memories in the human psyche.” Favoring ambiguity, Stace invites the viewer to derive their own associations and connections from her work.
Stace’s Salt & Stone is on view in our Book Room gallery.
2024 Annual Juried Show – Feeling Blue: Navigating Challenges Through Art
Feeling Blue: Navigating Challenges Through Art asked artists to consider art as a tool for healing.
Artists often explore art as a tool for articulating emotions and navigating difficult circumstances. Art plays a vital role in society; it acts as a means for people to process the world around them and channel their response into tangible work for others to look at, interpret, and resonate with. We have all found ourselves in difficult situations, whether it be overcoming obstacles or dealing with something unprecedented, and artists are no strangers to this. Like Picasso with his Blue Period, artists use artwork as a way to navigate the complex emotions that arise from challenges, whether deeply personal or universally shared.
The selected works highlight art’s healing power in the face of adversity. Our Annual Juried Show is on display in our Kellner, Book Room, and Tile galleries from March 8 – April 15, 2024.
Our 2024 Annual Juried Show Jurors:
Lauren E. Peters Visual Artist
Peters is a Philadelphia-based visual artist working with the concepts of identity and gender through self-portraiture. Her self portrait series serves as a tool in navigating the complex relationship between her gender identity and gender expression.
Heather Ziegenmeyer, MA LPC ATR-BC Board Certified Art Therapist & Licensed Professional Counselor
Heather Ziegenmeyer is a certified art therapist and licensed professional counselor who founded Kindred Art Therapy, a local art therapy center that works with children ages 5+, teenagers, and adults through individual and family therapy sessions. Ziegenmeyer uses art as a form of therapy, allowing creativity and expression to act as another natural language: “[my] goal is to create a warm and safe outlet to create, express, and process the challenges we face in life.”
Lisa Kelley Teaching Artist at Kensington Storefront and Prevention Point
Kelley is a teaching artist at Kensington Storefront and Prevention Point, organizations that serve people struggling with addiction and homelessness in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. Kelley’s work is often narrative-driven, inspired by the experiences that impact her emotionally: “sometimes the stories are apparent in the work, and other times the stories are what fuel the art.”
Lisa Auerbach Grace Bauder Caroline Beattie Jessica Bednarcik Reena Brooks Caleb Booth Hollie Brown Charles Compo John Costanza Kirsten Cunningham Eleanor Day Emily Ennulat-Lustine Andrea Finch Katherine Fraser Rah Gerg
Megan Giampietro Raegan Glaser Barry Good Cecelia Grant Jenna Hannum Theresa Heidig Rooney Sarah Kowalski Kendall Laurent Cony Madariaga Paula Mandel Kyle Margiotta James Anthony Mariano Denise McDaid Shane Monaghan Florence Moonan
Ginny Perry Charlese Phillips Jeni Prescott Logan Radcliff Birgit Raders-Eichinger Sondra Rosenberg Jessica Shannon Harin Song Susan Uccelletti Sharon Wensel Kathleen Wert Lisa Wilde Francesca Woolson Nina Yocom
Annual Juried Show Select Works
Affirmation of Life: Art in Today’s Ukraine
Affirmation of Life: Art from Today’s Ukraine is organized by the Ukrainian Cultural Initiative in partnership with Abington Art Center, UGS, UCFP, AJC, and UKRFCU.
This remarkable exhibition showcases a fusion of both traditional and modern artwork, providing a window into the diverse and compelling world of Ukrainian artists. Conceived and spearheaded by Nataliya Proskura and Vladislav Shapiro, both Bedford, MA – based mathematician with Ukrainian ancestry, the exhibition will feature an array of mediums and themes, highlighting the incredible talent present in today’s Ukraine. All the artists presented at the exhibition, currently live and work in Ukraine.
Affirmation of Life: Art From Today’s Ukraine is on display in our Community Art Gallery from March 8 – April 15, 2024. Please also join us for a conversation with journalist Vladislav Davidzon and book presentation of Jewish-Ukrainian Relations and the Birth of a Political Nation Sunday, March 17 at 3pm.
All the proceeds collected during the exhibition will go directly to Ukraine for supporting the artists and their collaborative efforts with students and veterans.
Exhibiting Artists
T.Kolechko S. Kolechko B.Eghiazaryan N. Martynenko
L. Minenko O. Bednoshey O. Omelchyshyna
N. Huliayeva-Smahlo O. Dovban O. Pilyuhina
Affirmation of Life: Art From Today’s Ukraine Featured Works
Mama Liked The Roses, 2021 | Aluminum wire, leather lace, fabric, wire, silkscreen, collage, spray, wood, drywall, foam core, digital photographs, acrylic paint, latex paint and found objects
“My work operates at the intersection of architecture, sociology and visual art.”
– Mia Fabrizio
Interdisciplinary artist, Mia Fabrizio, creates mixed media paintings, freestanding sculptures, and installations comprised of building materials and domestic items. Her work acts as an investigation into the relationship between physical construction and cultural paradigms, highlighting contradictions within domestic spaces with the intent of exposing the true fluidity of perceived binaries, such as masculine and feminine, public and private, and modern and traditional. She describes her artistic process as “[vacillating] between tearing apart and tenderly memorializing [her] personal family experience.”
Fabrizio’s work is on display in our Tile gallery.
Filagree, 2023 | Indigo dye, watercolor pencil, interference watercolor, on botanical dyed paper
Earth Embrace, 2023 | Rust, Monotype Print, Collage with pronto plate litho on Rives
Pareidolic Figure, 2023 | Indigo dye, watercolor pencil, interference watercolor, on botanical dyed paper
“This work is motivated by a fascination with the mycorrhizal network – the symbiotic association between the plant world and fungi, drawing on the deep connections between trees, plants and mycelia. The new work draws on concepts of how they invisibly share what the other lacks, how they rescue each other.”
– Karen Hunter McLaughlin
Artist Karen Hunter McLaughlin’s work uses symmetry to expand on long-held interests in the connections between natural science and art. This series investigates kinship with the more-than-human world, and a dive into “Ki”, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s suggested pronoun for other-than-human. She employs a language of shapes that mimic the threadlike hyphae of mycelium, the same marks often used to illustrate galactic space, brain synapses, and other human, and non-human body systems. They are perfect symbols of the matrixes that support the essential nexus of human connection.
Hunter McLaughlin’s new series, Golden Thread, is on view in our Book Room gallery.
“My work is autobiographical, its content thinly veiled by the mundane domestic debris that clutters the picture plane.”
– Nicole Santiago
Artist Nicole Santiago creates paintings that are rooted in personal experiences, yet read universally. Her use of familiar scenes, a desk littered with empty soda cans and medicine bottles, help stretch her compositions beyond the limits of her own experiences and engage with broader audiences. She notes, “while storytelling is an integral part of my work, it always remains subservient to the broader formal concerns of the picture itself.”
Santiago’s narrative paintings are on display in our Kellner gallery.
Dine, 2023 | Photograph of platter, polyester, and hanger
Get Outta My Mouth, 2020 | Acrylic, vinyl, and ribboning
“In a celebratory fashion, the work reflects the complexities of ‘holding it all together’ and total surrender.”
– Summer Yates
Summer Yates assembles mixed media wall hangings and soft sculptures that are light, flexible, and brightly-colored. There is an emphasis on the material of her work and how it parallels her intertwined experiences as a woman, artist and mother. She notes, “As a mother, I’m confronted with my own need to care for and nourish myself… the sculpture, installation, and wall hangings in this show reveal the catharsis I experienced in doing so…the soft, squishy quality of my materials and how I assemble them affirm how I embrace all the parts of myself.”
Yates’ series, WAM! (Woman Artist Mother), is on view in our Community Arts gallery.
This exhibition celebrates the diverse artistic talent of Abington Art Center’s faculty, staff, and members!
Exhibiting Artists
Jenny Cardoso Mat Citrenbaum Amy Cook Cara Croke Nick D’Angelo Kathleen Dunleavy John Fansmith L.A. Feldstein Sarah Francis Megan Giampietro
Maxine Jackson Jason Patrick Jenkins Linda Johnson Martha Kent Martin Bob Ketterlinus Martha Knox Patricia Lima Laura Madeline Jane Mihalick Shannon Moriarty
Thomas Murray Koz Noruzi Caitlyn Rudolph Bill Ryan Caroline Sawyer Naomi Shon Jeremy Sims Diane Warchola Maya Williams AJ Wright
“Sara Allen made snapshots over the years but left serious photography to ‘real’ artists. After the death of her husband and retirement from teaching English literature to middle schoolers, she began to think about creating images with a sense of purpose. Moving to a Nikon SLR, she began the long process of becoming a photographer.”
– Sara Allen
Sara Allen’s photographs capture the naturally aging body, with its creases, wrinkles, textures, and age spots. She frames the body in ways that make familiar parts, such as the neck, fingers, and back, feel like extraordinary foreign landscapes. Photographing in black in white allows for the viewer to appreciate the composition of each piece without the distraction of color.
Allen’s series, FRAGMENTS, will be on view in our Community Arts gallery.
Birgit Raders-Eichinger, Painting
Kelner Gallery
Roam, 2023 | Acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas
Birchwood, 2023 | Mixed media acrylic collage on gallery-wrapped canvas
Hidden Treasure, 2023 | Acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas
“I prefer contemporary composition and neutral colors with gold and silver. I enjoy bringing texture to the canvas and using different tools to develop the painting. I like to simplify and to reduce – that is where I am right now.”
– Birgit Raders-Eichinger
Despite having had a diverse professional history, from teaching culinary classes to being a private German language tutor, Birgit Raders-Eichinger has always had an inclination towards creative expression. During the pandemic, she made the shift from working in watercolor to creating large-scale paintings of abstracted shapes with large brushstrokes. She limits her color palette, primarily using black and white to contrast each other and create depth, and utilizing gold to accent and emphasize key elements within her abstract compositions. She notes, “When I do creative work, my mind relaxes beautifully. I love the process of abstract painting so much.”
Raders-Eichinger will be exhibiting her abstract paintings in our Kelner gallery.
“I am drawn to landscapes because they are both universal and personal; they are intertwined in both individual lives and collective histories, and are historically and culturally relevant in the art community and in the larger world. Though they are constantly changing, they are ever-present.”
– Lauren Scavo-Fulk
Lauren Scavo-Fulk’s small-scale, hyper-realistic landscapes capture brief moments in time. She renders each piece with scrupulous care, highlighting quiet, intimate moments within commonplace and familiar scenes. From parking lots to overgrown highway guardrails and overpasses, Scavo-Fulk’s work also calls attention to the ever-present relationship of nature and humanity; “to depict the contrast between the objective depiction of nature and the subjective human element that is always present in our interpretation of our surroundings.”
Scavo-Fulk’s graphite drawings will be on display in our Book Room gallery.
Purple WrapAround, 2018 | Linden wood, acrylic and oil paints
Yellow Earth, 2017 | Linden wood, acrylic painted areas
“I like to mix vocabularies, searching for the syntax that will allow the languages of two and three dimensions to coexist [and] synthesize in my work.”
– Kathran Siegel
Though trained as a painter, Kathran Siegel began creating sculptural work early in her artistic career. Using power tools and large industrial machinery, she carves organic forms out of wood, and uses her exacto-knife for precision. This manual approach slows down production and gives Siegel time to reflect and revise. She states that “it is this process that keeps [her] coming back to the work.” Siegel’s manipulation of materials creates two dimensional works that exude a painterly quality with their organic, freeform shapes. Adding paint to highlight specific areas creates even more visual interest. The evidence of the artists’ hand is present in her artwork making the objects feel like unique hybrid’s which exist as both paintings and sculptures.
Siegel’s sculptures will be on view in our Tile gallery.
2023 Summer Juried Show – Ethnicity Through the Eyes of the Artist
Ethnicity Through the Eyes of the Artist challenged our artists to explore and contemplate the meaning of ethnicity, and the ideas, associations, and questions that surround this concept.
Ethnicity can express a shared culture such as language, worldview, and value systems of a particular social group. A person’s identity and personal enculturation/acculturation experience often shape their orientation to the world and how it is seen from their eyes. Artists have an uncanny ability to bring to life a perspective that can frame or deconstruct these arrangements in a visual way. This challenges the viewer to reflect on, and see beyond attitudes and boundaries that have been formed previously within the greater culture. Artists have the ability to creatively illustrate how ethnicity, just as language, is an evolution that is constantly shifting.
Our artists explored what ethnicity means to them personally versus how ethnicity represents them in the greater culture. The selected works represent ethnicity in an array of forms, from mosaic and collage works, to drawings, paintings, and wearable art. Some artists saw this as an opportunity to educate, while others used this as a means of self expression. From celebrating cultures and traditions, to rejecting the stereotypes and associations encircling ethnic identities, our artists offer deeply personal investigations that highlight the complexities within ethnicity and how it intersects with identity.
As you explore the work on view, we would like you to consider your own relationship ethnicity. How has your personal experience regarding ethnic identity shaped you? What is the boundary between identity and ethnicity and how do they coexist? What values tie you to your cultural heritage?
Our 2023 Summer Juried Show Jurors:
Erika Land, M.A. Ethnographer, Artist, and Educator
Juror and curator, Erika Land, received her BFA and teaching certification at Moore College of Art & Design. Influenced by her undergraduate studio work, which focused on cultural arts, Land went on to pursue further education, receiving her M.A. in cultural anthropology from Eastern University. She is a current anthropology teacher at Eastern University, and maintains a studio practice in her studio based in Phoenixville, PA.
Juror Cheryl Harper received her MFA in printmaking from the University of Delaware and her M.A. in art history from Temple University. In addition, Harper completed a two-year Museology program through the University of Illinois, which looks at all areas of museum study, including exhibit planning.
Harper works as an independent curator, while maintaining an art practice in printmaking. She has had work exhibited throughout the country, including the Maier Museum in Lynchburg, VA, Drew University in Madison, NJ, and the InLiquid Art + Design gallery in Philadelphia, PA.
Nina Guzmán Executive Director of Alianzas De Phoenixville
Juror Nina M. Guzmán received her Bachelor’s degree in Urban Missions and Social Work from The University of Valley Forge.
Guzmán is the founder and executive director of Alianzas de Phoenixville, a non-profit organization that works to create a welcoming place for diverse immigrant communities. Alianzas de Phoenixville connects individuals with the resources needed to better acclimate to their immediate world and neighbors.
Sarah Watkins-Nathan Dawn Merritt Z Kaplan Birgit Raders-Eichinger Kim Robbins Lauren Silver Marissa Georgiou Frank Burd Lauren Vargas Lisa Smith Janell Sampson Oxana Kovalchuk Gary Grissom Maremi Andreozzi Kirsten Cunningham
David Levy Oscar Vance Kimberly Stemler Violet Alexandre Erika Matyok David Fuentes Marlene Adler Jacqueline Valenzuela Thomas Murray Jeremy Sims Giulia Giordano Debra Powell-Wright Robin Brownfield Jerod Mason Henry Morales
DeJeonge Reese Ronald Washington Mindy Flexer Laura Madeleine Robert Reinhardt Martha Knox Brenda Rydstrom Rickie Sanders Ted Lutkus Gail Morrison-Hall Maxine Schwartz Laila Wah L. A. Feldstein Alana Walters
Our 2023 Summer Juried Show Award Winners
Kirsten Cunningham, Expectations (Awarded Best in Show by Erika Land)
“Being biracial in a country with such a complicated history can often cause confusion for someone longing for a sense of identity. [This] piece symbolizes the different cultural influences that aim to shape us into what they want us to be. Being half-black in this country can cause a feeling of being pulled in both directions and never truly fitting into one or the other. The hands in this image are different shades that range from dark to light, which symbolize the ‘acceptable’ identities and norms that exist. Black, white, and grey are thoughtful color choices; they represent that we are colorless at our core and that American society has long dulled our cultural origins and heritage. The color of our skin is minor and insignificant. I am not just ‘black or white’; instead, I am a collection of colors, cultures, stories, heritage, and history.”
Alana Walters, There’s Levels to This… (Awarded Most Unique Application of Material by Cheryl Harper)
“This piece is directly tied into the cultural phenomena of African hair braiding. When a black child goes to get their hair done in the salon, there are posters hanging on the wall depicting different styles of braids that they can choose from. The panels in this piece represent parts of different posters. The print work within them represents the different hair styles. The process of getting your hair done by another person is not only a cultural experience, it’s also in many ways a meditative experience. A way to decompress and heal our minds in that moment. I want this piece to open up discussions among black communities about the importance of mental health. Not only is it a topic that needs to be discussed more often but this is a topic that can be discussed in a place we feel most at ease; a hair salon.”
Henry Morales, Mi Papa Jose (Awarded Most Compelling Interpretation of Theme by Nina Guzmán)
“My experience as a first-generation Guatemalan American inspires me to explore themes of labor, identity, hybridity, and place through works that mix non-traditional and familiar materials. I am driven to explore what it means to be a child of immigrants and investigate the impact of migrating and assimilating to a new land.”
“I explore the family bond and emotional narrative from my own viewpoint.”
– Maryanne Buschini
Maryanne Buschini explores ideas of origin, ancestry, history, and community in her figurative paintings. As a child of immigrants, Buschini uses her artwork as a tool to better understand her own connections to her ancestors and home.
Her most recent work looks at the history of the laborers who contributed to the construction of the New York City water system, a project that was an important part of her childhood, having grown up in the area and “seeing the reservoir lake and large dam almost every day…in a town where many of the immigrant/workers had settled.” The artwork is the result of her research, piecing together the family and cultural history of those who lived on the land used for the reservoir and displaying it in a personable way that evokes an emotional response in the viewer.
Maryanne Buschini will be showing her paintings in our Tile gallery.
“Lauren E. Peters is a visual artist working with the concepts of identity and gender through self-portraiture.”
Artist Lauren E. Peters explores identity, self expression, and the ties to gender in her vibrant self portrait paintings. Drawing inspiration from those who “do not live according to the bodies they were born into, who break through the constraints that hold them captive, and stand firmly in their own place on the vast spectrum of femininity” as well as from her own personal experiences, Peters uses the self portrait as a tool to reveal the complex relationship between her gender identity and gender expression.
Despite being self portraits, each painting is radically different from each other. Peters plays dress up, sporting colorful wigs, puffy scarves, and elaborate wardrobes, and notes that “donning wigs and costumes is an assembling of identity” and that her paintings “speak to the performance of gender and appearance.” These physical attributes can influence our perception of the person she is revealing herself to be and plays into the idea of what is revealed and what is left hidden in how we present ourselves in society.
Lauren E. Peters will be exhibiting her paintings in our Kelner gallery.
Bright Orb Dancing in the East Sky (diptych), 2021 | Watercolor, gouache, colored pencil on paper
Saw This, 2021 | Collaged painting with watercolor, gouache, colored pencil on paper
Bright Orb Dancing in the East Sky (diptych), 2021 | Watercolor, gouache, colored pencil on paper
“I am fascinated by space, not as an exact location, but as a mysterious place, an infinite place of wonder with shifting atmospheres and moods.”
– Adina Segal
Visual artist Adina Segal creates abstract mixed-media paintings inspired by her own intuition and the organic forms she finds in nature. Segal takes on an intuitive approach when making her paintings, layering thin coats of watercolor and gouache and letting the work naturally take shape by trusting the process and learning when to pull away.
She notes, “following my intuition and trusting when to stop and when to work back into the painting, is contrary to how I often exist in other areas of my life…I am a planner, a list-maker, someone who likes to know what to expect.” Letting herself create in this way creates compositions that feel fluid, expressive, and unique and allows for new artistic discovery.
Adina Segal will be exhibiting her artwork in our Book Room gallery.
All Dressed Up with no Where to Go, 2021 | Acrylic on canvas
God and the Devil, 2021 | Acrylic on canvas
Mother Nature, 2020 | Acrylic on canvas
“My art seeks to take the viewer on a visual ride through the silent places between thought, thereby allowing revelation and transformation of the human consciousness to occur.”
– James Terrell
Artist and educator James Terrell explores universal human experiences through his vibrant paintings and collages. Using bold colors to capture the viewer’s attention and intricate patterns to slow the viewer’s gaze, Terrell’s work is simultaneously loud and intimate. His art acts as a “reflection of joy, pain, confusion, contemplation, and deliverance” on a personal level and on a greater scale. He notes, “the paintings represent shared life experiences…the experiences, although individual to one’s own heart, are experiences that bind us and bring us together.” Each pattern, each color change, each paint stroke is representative of those experiences and the complexities within us and within life.
James Terrell will be exhibiting his work in our Community Arts gallery.
