Upcoming Receptions

Shiao-Ping Wang
Reception: Thursday, December 12, 2019 (6-8pm)
Andrew Carnegie Gallery

Shiao-Ping Wang was born in Taiwan and immigrated to the United States in 1981. She studied both Western art and Chinese art in New York and earned a MFA degree from Queens College, City University of New York. She works both abstractly and from observation in various painting media. Her work has been exhibited throughout the US and China. She has taught painting and drawing in various colleges including the University of New Hampshire. In 2007 Shiao-Ping won a Fellowship at Vermont Studio Center. In 2008 she won the Spotlight Award for Best Painter in the Seacoast.

"In patterns, I look for meanings outside of their conventional function as ornaments on an object or surface; for many patterns also served a dual purpose not only as decoration but also as symbols. But those interpretations have been lost through the ages. 

Patterns of a constructive nature—architectural graphs, weaving patterns, and city maps—are sources for my composition. Once I have integrated them into my work, I then add more shapes and elements to each painting layer, using acrylic paint and medium, to gradually “build” a cohesive picture that features different degrees of translucency."
Liese Gauthier
Reception: Thursday, January 9, 2020 (6-8pm)
​Mayor Harvey E. Bernier Room

Liese Gauthier creates mixed-media abstract work in Tuftonboro, New Hampshire. Her work combines painting, collage and mark-making in energetic, joyful and expressive work. Liese was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1974. She graduated from Colorado College in 1996, and the University of New Hampshire with a Masters of Teaching in 1998.

"I work to convey joy, energy, and freedom in my work. I paint abstract art because I like to find new ways of creating. I like to scribble with pencils and scrape into layers of wet paint with a screwdriver. Through painting, I need to constantly challenge myself and come up with new ideas and methods. It is a joy and challenge to create something that has never been made before.

Each painting is a series of decisions: what colors to use, how to vary the value, shape, and size of elements. I work in many layers to build interest and history in the work. Collage adds structure and then I paint over the paper to add interest. Decisions teach me what to keep and what to change -- and so I learn and grow as an artist."
Matt Demers
Reception: Thursday, January 23, 2020 (6-8pm)
The Art Gallery at RPAC

Matt Demers is a visual Artist living in Gardiner, Maine. His work has been featured in a variety of venues including Jumee Kim Gallery, UMVA Gallery, Frank Brockman Gallery, Common Street Arts, Sheepscot General Gallery, Harmon’s and Barton’s Gallery, Harlow Gallery, and many more. Learn more at www.mattdemersart.com​.

"I grew up making the kind of crafts you make out of toilet paper tubes and pipe cleaners, coloring outside the lines of coloring books, scribbling everywhere and on everything, reading old comics, and customizing everything I owned. My childhood home was very old and filled with old stuff which led to my passion for old objects and material."

"I studied graphic arts in high school and college and I was really inspired by graffiti and street art at that time. I’ve worked as a screen printer, embroiderer, sign maker, antiques dealer, and gravedigger. These are the things that have shaped me the most and affect my observation and inspiration. I create non objective compositions working quickly and spontaneously using elements of all these things to create new visual objects with a variety of materials and techniques."
Lisa Paige
Reception: Thursday, January 23, 2020 (6-8pm)
The Art Gallery at RPAC

"I once was a painter. Making art my whole life. But after finishing art school I was burnt out. The entire art world, the pretense, the self-importance of making art all day and then pandering to a following which an artist depends to make a living. It felt tight. Inspiration and passion ran low... I became a nurse. A really good cardiac nurse actually. There is much involved in medical science that is like creating art. Observing, connecting threads, processes, tactile work, every patient is different and requires creative thinking to meet help heal them. My paints were ignored for years, however I missed making. Therefore I started trying out complicated recipes, making children’s clothes, sewing costumes, recreating Masterworks with perler beads and the odd painting here and there.

I stumbled upon embroidery. The thread making marks similar to the way I once painted strokes. The subject matter though was just fun, not constricted or stuffy. It’s enjoyable to embroider subjects not traditionally thought to be decorative. To pair flowery fabrics with ham or lumberjack plaid with a uterus. The juxtaposition when pairing subject and fabric is a joy. And bonus, I get to create art while watching my children or on my lunch break at the hospital, relaxing in bed before falling asleep because thread is portable and  the residual mess is nothing compared to oil paint.

So many people have returned to embroidery lately as an art form, you could talk about it being elevated from craft to art, with the comfort of why you do it as an artist as opposed to being able to paint, because it's handy and you can pick it up easily and keep returning to it. There is a turning away from slick commercial art, back to "evidence of hand" people want to know the art they are holding was made by someone that is accessible to them and not high brow. Our grandmothers embroidered so it connects us through time and place. The irreverent subject matter makes it even more accessible because it's humorous."

About Us

The Rochester Museum of Fine Arts is a community art initiative dedicated to the accessibility of contemporary works made by regionally, nationally, and internationally recognized artists.
Founded in 2011, the museum works to enrich people’s lives through the presentation of fine art. The museum is located in the Rochester Community Center (Suite 135) and Rochester Public Library. 

The historic Andrew Carnegie Gallery (at the Rochester Public Library) and Mayor Harvey E. Bernier Room (at the Rochester Community Center, Suite 135) feature temporary art exhibits by emerging and seasoned artists, on an alternating monthly basis. The museum also curates The Art Gallery at the Rochester Performance & Arts Center (RPAC). 

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