Past Exhibition: Mike Howat
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Mayor Harvey E. Bernier RoomJames W. Foley Memorial Community Center
150 Wakefield Street, Rochester, NH 03867 (Suite 135) The Mayor Harvey E. Bernier Room features temporary art exhibits, made by emerging and seasoned artists, on a monthly basis.. The gallery showcases a wide range of original work - from painting and sculpture to works on paper and photography. The gallery is named for former Rochester Mayor Harvey E. Bernier. For tirelessly supporting arts and cultural programming and volunteerism during his tenure. Receptions are held from 6-8pm on the second Thursday of every month. |
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Jeremy Miranda / February 2022On view February 7 - March 4, 2022
Jeremy Miranda has become well known for his playful landscapes that fuse scenes of local environments with imagined architectural details - seaside sun rooms that merge with the ocean, or thin ladders that climb the side of a stories-high cliff. With his recent work, Jeremy is rooted in depictions of his changing routine, while keeping sparks of the ethereal within the small details of a moody sunset, or the glow of fireflies on a summer night. These new paintings are a departure from the invented narratives and spaces typical in his work. They are grounded in the everyday and are primarily about observing the forms and color that make up the spaces in his immediate surroundings. Miranda lives and works in Elliot, Maine. He received his BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Visit jeremymiranda.com to learn more. |
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Jarid del Deo / February 2022On view February 7 - March 4, 2022
Jarid del Deo views himself as a documentary painter. He feels a connection to the tradition of representational picture-making and is committed to observation. He believes that his genuine appreciation for the common objects and scenes around him is what activates his pictures. He strives to make images that can be understood individually and do not rely on a wider context. del Deo lives and paints in Biddeford, ME He received his BFA from the University of New Hampshire. Visit jariddeldeo.com to learn more. |
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Ryan John Lefebvre / January 2022Reception: Thursday, January 6 (6-8pm)
Ryan John Lefebvre is a Lowell, MA based painter. Lefebvre is a self taught artist and has exhibited at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, NH, the Robert Lincoln Levy Gallery in Portsmouth, NH, and Club Passim in Cambridge, MA.
Lefebvre’s works touch upon poignant topics like politics and culture, while not shying away from topics as sacred as religion and New England folk art. The pieces offer intrigue and haunt the viewer like unsolved puzzles, just when you think you’ve got an understanding of a piece, a minute detail will pop out bringing with it, the realization that you’ve only scratched the surface. |
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Eric Katzman / December 2021"Relational Sustainability: The Art of Local"
Reception: Thursday, December 9 (6-8pm) Eric Katzman is a New Hampshire based painter and curator. He is a life long artist and is currently working on large, bright, abstract paintings. Katzman is also the co-founder/owner of Katzman Contemporary in Dover, NH. The gallery features a wide range of art made by emerging and seasoned artists alike.
"We know that memory is very plastic and easily deformed. This idea is the seed that gives form to the internal dialogue that shapes how I paint. My visual vocabulary, through impressions and memories, is grown and developed. Like gardening, I prune branching ideas and images, discarding elements while emphasizing others. My mark making is the gentle unfolding of surface, interplay of form, undulating lines and hard geometric shapes. These works, which were painted in the past eighteen months, create nonfunctional visual narratives of memory." Learn more at erickatzman.com |
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Jim Banks / November 2021Reception: Thursday, November 11 (6-8pm) RSVP
Jim received his B.A. in Fine Art from Bard College. He has shown in Honolulu, San Antonio, Memphis, and in the Boston area. He is represented by Fountain Street Fine Arts in Boston. "In 2009, I began Planters Project. The concept was to fill planters with “wild” dirt – dirt taken from neglected/disturbed areas around my studio in Medford, MA, then see what grows. I struggled with the whole “Is this art?” question, so I put some token sculptural element in the planters with the notion that said element would be engulfed and eventually obscured by the growth. I suppose it has to do with the ol’ Man vs. Nature thing, that totally tedious discussion ranging from Eden to Apocalypse, and we’ve all heard it before. It became something quite different. What poured out of the dirt over the next several months amazed me. Not just the growth of X, but the growth and death of X, then the growth of Y taking its place. What began as the pursuit of one idea - to see how the weeds would obscure our monuments - became how the landscape within the planter itself changed throughout the season. If one purpose of Art is to abstract from Life details that draw attention to things often overlooked, then the changing nature of Nature is the real subject of Planters Project. Over the next several years, the shapes and sizes of my planters changed from small garden planters to larger installations built into the earth itself. When I began the write-up of the first season in 2009, I realized I did not know the names of any of the weeds except the dandelion. That seemed immoral, so since 2009, I've been obsessed with identifying every weed I see. One of the first I identified was a sow thistle growing from a crack in the sidewalk in front of my studio. I was so taken by the leaf structure, that I made a few drawings, then painted it. As I reviewed the photos I’d taken of weeds, I noticed that many took on elements of my college studies in Abstract Expressionism, namely, the all-over image pressed up flat against the picture plane. I called these “Footscapes” because they are what you see when you look down in front of your feet. That angle, devoid of horizon, was an interesting way to approach the structure of landscape. And of course I have violated the “flatness” by attempting to reveal the spacial passages from bud to dirt. As I continued to study weeds, they challenged me to reveal their details. I found that in early Spring, some flowers can be seen only from your knees. It is this quality of seeing more as you look more that I want to infuse into my paintings." Visit www.jimbanksartist.com to learn more. |
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Scott Kuckler / October 2021Reception: Thursday, October 7th (6-8pm) RSVP
Scott Kuckler is a photographer based in the seacoast of New Hampshire who works in alternative photography. This exhibition includes works created with the photographic silver gelatin process using unconventional toning processes. “I make photographs with an unconventional approach to the silver-gelatin process that employ various toning and post development processes. Some photographs are printed on traditional fiber based papers while others are printed on emulsion treated canvas. Rather than being a window into another world, I create photographs that are objects in their own right and unreproducible. While many of my photographs are very abstract others are distinct in their subject matter. The approach to their creation however is very similar. I like that the individual viewer can make their own subjective associations rather than be guided to a preconceived conclusion.” Visit scott-kuckler.format.com to learn more. |
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Steven J. Cabral / September 2021Reception: Thursday, September 9 (6-8pm) RSVP
Steven Cabral is a Boston-based painter and has shown his work in several group exhibitions in the greater Boston area. He is a member of the Vernon Street artists’ community in Somerville, as well as an Associate member at Kingston Gallery. Steven holds a BFA in painting from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and currently working on his MFA in painting at Lesley University of Art and Design. He currently lives and works in Somerville. "My paintings investigate the psychology of painting through an exploration of patterns, hard edges, soft edges, geometric and organic shapes, and color experimentation to form new meanings and narrations. The awareness of inner dialogue has strengthened my working process, allowing for a chain reaction of thoughts and ideas focused on mark-making to form the composition. This listening process clarifies painterly space, including the risks I need to take to break the visual grammar by using thin and thick paint, shapes, and colors. The elements explore how light and dark creates a sense of mystery, mysticism, depth, and risk. I explore and layer a new palette of contemporary hues, and allow my past geometric abstractions to take on more flowing, painterly, and undefined shapes. Combining the freehand production of geometric shapes of squares, circles, triangles, and lines with undefinable biomorphic shapes has led me to a more focused desire to construct an aesthetic that creates challenging and unconventional viewing experiences for the viewers." Visit www.stevenjcabral.com to learn more. |
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Beth Wittenberg / August 2021"Urban Landscape"
Reception: Thursday, August 12 (6-8pm) Beth Wittenberg has been creating artwork professionally for over 25 years and currently lives and works in rural New Hampshire. Her explorative style covers many mediums including spray paint, acrylic, paper sculpture, and fiber. Urban Landscape explores the themes of home, permanence, and belonging. Each of these works were created in 2021, pulling from the artists’ experiences of 2020. Using her innate sense of composition, Wittenberg layers spray paint on canvas, both free form and using her vast collection of handcrafted stencils. The resulting works feel both fresh and deep, the vibrant colors pull the viewer in to explore these large scale works. Wittenberg received a Master of Fine Arts (1998) from the Maryland Institute College of Art after beginning graduate coursework in Art Education (1991) from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Undergraduate work includes a Bachelor of Fine Arts (1991) and Bachelor of Arts (1989) from Slippery Rock University. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States. Recent exhibitions include the Franklin Gallery in Rochester, NH (2020); Buoy Gallery in Kittery, ME (2020); Engine Gallery in Biddeford, ME (2020), and the Harlow Gallery, Gallowell, ME (2019). Art residencies have included the Carina House on Monhegan Island, ME sponsored by Gallery East of Frederick, MD (2018) and a six week residency at the The Griffin Art Center, in Frederick, MD (2018). A true multi medium artist, Wittenberg has also published a number of zines including Innerscapes (2015-16) and Sleep Walking, the companion book to her solo exhibition at the University of Maine Farmington Art Gallery in Farmington, Maine (2018). Wittenberg collaborated with fashion brand apathy. in 2018 to make a collection of single edition apparel. Wittenberrg received the Min Colors Artroom Award for Outstanding Artist (2016) and was recognized with the Spotlight on the Arts Award for Outstanding Artist - Non-Traditional Media (2016). Wittenberg is represented by the Art Center in Dover, NH. Wittenberg lives with her wife, Sheri, her dog, Penny, and two bonded rescue dogs. Beth maintains an open invitation to other artists who wish to collaborate and opens her home to do such. Visit www.bethwittenberg.com to learn more. |
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Jason Bombaci / July 2021Reception: Thursday, July 8 (6-8pm)
A native of Concord, NH, Jason Bombaci spent his youth exploring New Hampshire’s mountains, rivers and rocky streams. His interest in the study of art was sparked at a very young age. Bombaci began a private study of art at age nine in Marblehead, MA and by high school was studying under Estelle Smith in Manchester, NH. He graduated from the University of New Hampshire’s Bachelor of Fine Arts program and received a Masters of Fine Art from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. He has also studied landscape painting and art history in Italy through the University of New Hampshire in Italy program. Bombaci, 38, died of cancer on November 28, 2020, at his home in Rochester NH. An avid kayaker and fisherman, Bombaci spent a lot of time on the water and these activities seem to recur as a theme in some of his work. When asked if people ever misinterpret his work, he replied, “I paint what I paint and let viewers make what they will of it."
Viewers may recognize many local scenes from his collection of thickly-layered canvases which use a broad palette of colors to capture the play of light so handily. “I have been concentrating mostly on the landscape as a context to further explore my painting experience. I work mostly en plein air around Great Bay and the Seacoast.” Bombaci said he liked to “build an image abstractly, focusing on mixing and laying down marks of pure color.” As the colors come together and meet, an image starts to emerge. This way of working builds what he calls “an active surface” which he would work over repeatedly before arriving at the final image. |
BJ Eckardt, Wayfaring Ferns
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NH Women's Caucus for Art / June 2021The WCA is revisiting the relationship between humans and nature at a time when perhaps reconnection is needed most. Seeking solace in our sacred spaces, many choose the majesty of the forest - warm, protective canopies, or towering strengths of possibilities reaching into the sky - home to hundreds of minute neighborhoods of their own, all trying to do the same thing we’re doing now - live.
How do you see your own relationship with nature and the forest? What aspects of forests or their natural ingredients inspire you? What do you focus on when you experience and respond to groupings of trees? WCA/NH is the New Hampshire Chapter of the Women’s Caucus for Art. We are part of a national organization that promotes the advancement of women in the visual arts through educational programs, networking and exhibition opportunities. The New Hampshire Chapter is a thriving organization with about 100 members. WCA/NH offers several exhibitions a year, bi-annual members’ meetings and more.
Membership in the WCA/NH is open to all artists, from student to seasoned professional. WCA/NH offers a rich variety of juried and non-juried exhibition opportunities to our members. WCA/NH members include painters, sculptors, ceramicists, mixed-media artists, photographers, fiber artists, stained glass artists, video and digital artists, printmakers, jewelers and bead artists … the list is endless! |
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Brian Keith Stephens / May 2021Reception: Thursday, May 6 (6-8pm)
Brian Keith Stephens studied at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Art in Connecticut. Since 2000, his work has been featured in a variety of venues such as Hugo Gallerie NYC, M Fine Arts Boston & Palm Beach, Punto Sull'Arte Milan, Sirona Fine Arts Miami, and many more. He currently lives and works in Connecticut. Visit www.briankeithstephens.com to learn more. “How to capture the past, present and future at the same time; this is at the center of my work as an artist and as a father, son, friend, and lover. As we navigating our daily lives, we must face thoughts, anxieties, joys and emotions from all three of these tenses, and often at the same time. Seemingly opposite emotions — lust, hatred, desire, love, pride, inhibition — exists simultaneously between these moments in time. For some of us, some emotions out weigh others, grabbing our attention and transfixing our minds, sometimes taking over the way we live and breath. For myself, the emotions that occupy my mind and capture my energy are that of love, desire, and the fear of hurt or disappointment. And so, at the center of my work are these forceful emotions–they guide my hand to paint and my heart and mind to live. My work explores the emotions that guide us, that pull us and push us and ultimately define who we are, in relation to others and to ourselves.
Lately, what I have been most interested in capturing is how alternative perceptions of ones identity can change the effect these daily emotions. My work speaks to this in two mediums: oil pantings and collage/installation. With the first medium, I do this primarily through mystical imagery juxtaposed with figurative technique. I am using oil paints to create this mystical alter-reality where the human is the animal and the animal is the human.”
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Shyla Hazen / May - July 2021"Contrary & We Are All Inside"
Reception: Thursday, May 6 (6-8pm), Thursday, July 8 (6-8pm) Shyla Hazen is a New Hampshire-based artist who works in paper, printmaking, and origami. Hazen received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2019 from the New Hampshire Institute of Art and is currently pursuing a Master of Arts degree. This special installation combines two of the artist's works, Contrary and We Are All Inside. Since graduating, she has continued to learn the art of paper floristry. For Contrary, Hazen creates a New England-inspired garden, filling the exhibition with expertly crafted native flowers and plants including hollyhocks, hostas, buttercups, and poppies. As a nod to New England gardeners like her mother and sister, Hazen’s work makes permanent the fleeting spring season and lush flora.
In We Are All Inside, Hazen created hanging strings of found paper, writing her thoughts, feelings, and concerns about the pandemic and racial injustice. She then folded the paper into origami houses, and sewed them together to make long, varied strings. This work continues her exploration of home.
"My work is exploring home and memory. While home is thought of as a place of comfort and refuge some think of home as simply a resting place. We can have many homes. I have my own home and I call my mothers’ house home. Others are nomadic and don’t have a set home. Memory plays a role in our ideas of home and what that perception is. Not all memories in my work are mine, they are narratives that have been woven into my understanding of self." These pieces have become a personal journey, yet at the same time people can find their own connections and memories. The content of my work is universal, and centers around home and the objects within, as well as memories that connect to home.
My intention is for people to look at my work and become immersed, to discover their own memories and feelings. My imagery comes from my own emotions, memories and social convictions. I’d like those memories to be what drives and inspires both myself and my viewer." Hazen has exhibited at the New Hampshire Institute of Art and the Derryfield School. Her work is influenced by Edward Hopper, Charles Burchfield, Oscar Blumner, Georgia O’Keefe, and Faith Ringgold. She is currently a practicing hairstylist in Concord, NH and lives in Allenstown, NH with her two adult children, two grandchildren, two dogs, and an angry cat. Learn more here.
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Kimberly Meuse / April 2021Kimberly is self-taught in her style of watercolor painting, after an introductory course in college where she studied Graphic Design opened the door to the wonders and challenges of the medium. The graphic design world focuses on simplifying messages, while Kimberly's eye consistently sought the finer points and sumptuous detail. After a decade of working in corporate design, she followed her heart to fine art and watercolor.
Taking watercolor painting from a generally loose methodology to create works that defy the confines of representational painting, she has surmounted the challenges inherent in water-based media to create exquisitely deep, rich paintings that have become a career-long passion.
"There is something calming, tranquil, absorbing about still life. The eye pours over the textures and lines, absorbs every nuance of hues and values, distinguishes the interplay of shadow versus light over the surface of a petal. Still life draws you in. It forces you to step forward and drink it all in. Details so fine that the trick is to determine if it's a photograph - and if not, how is it watercolor?" |
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Douglas Breault / March 2021Breault’s photographs still life arrangements that retreat to memories of his late father; testing time through documenting ephemeral elements like camera obscura projections, printed archival images, shadows, dying flowers, and objects owned by his father.
Breault freely misapplies traditional artistic methods of painting, photography, and sculpture by misaligning materials and connecting collected fragments. Materiality is essential to develop his ideas, subordinating form to process. The series, Sleepwalking, enlists obliterated images downloaded and printed from the internet, traditional techniques like camera obscuras or pinhole cameras, and incorporates banal objects to build connections between narrative and memory. The process entangles a digital excavation combined with the sculptural element of altered objects and images. Strategies of mimicry and abstraction bring into question truth and transformation. These accumulations coalesce objects, images, and narrative into physical space. Douglas Breault works as an interdisciplinary artist, frequently overlapping elements from photography, painting, sculpture, and video. He received his MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in 2017, and he currently divides his time between Boston and Providence. His work has been included in exhibitions and screenings at various institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Bristol Art Museum, the Stone Gallery at Boston University, and the Amos Eno Gallery in Brooklyn.. He currently teaches art at Bridgewater State University, Holyoke Community College, RISD Continuing Education, and is the Exhibitions Manager at Gallery 263 in Cambridge, MA.
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James Mullen / February 2021Born and raised in the rural environment of western New Jersey, James Mullen received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in Sculpture and Printmaking from the University of New Hampshire in 1985. In 1986 he participated in the LaNapoule Summer Art Program, then completed his Master of Fine Arts in Painting at Indiana University in 1991. He has taught at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, the University of Evansville in Indiana, and since 1999 has taught at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME, where he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art. Mullen has received numerous awards and scholarships including an Individual Artist Grant from the state of Georgia as well as Research Grants from both the University of Evansville and Bowdoin College.
He has had over twenty solo exhibitions at venues including the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art in Augusta, GA, The Chattahoochie Valley Art Museum in LaGrange, GA, Artemisia Gallery in Chicago, IL , The Maine Center for Contemporary Art in Rockport, ME, and at Providence College in Rhode Island. He has also had several solo exhibitions at the Ruschman Art Gallery in Indianapolis, IN and at Sherry French Gallery in New York City. He has also been awarded residencies at the Spring Island Artist in Residence program in South Carolina, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, IL. In 2010 he was selected for an Artist Residency at the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, and in 2015 was awarded a residency at Hewnoaks Artsist Colony. In 2015 he was awarded a Puffin Foundation Grant for the Pilgrimage Project. Recent solo exhibitions have included Phoenix Gallery in New York City, New England College in Henniker, NH, University of Southern New Hampshire, and the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, ME.
"My work is centered on painting the landscape, often based on photographs I have made on site. This is a continuation of a body of work that I have been building over the last two decades dealing with the depictions of the environment.
Recently I have refined the focus of that investigation to examine iconic sites belonging to the lexicon of the 19th century American landscape. These sites include locations like Kaaterskill Falls, Mount Desert Island, and the White Mountains. During this investigation I have expanded my focus to also include other destination landscapes, most notably works of the late 20th century Land Art movement. All of these sites have been understood primarily through reliance upon mechanical reproduction, whether through the dissemination of engravings in portfolios and publications in the 19th century, or in the 20th century through photography. This new body of work seeks to visit a number of these sites, and treat them as primary documents to research and develop. I see many of these sites as iconic condensers of memory, and I am interested in redefining them through works created from primary observation at those locations. This project pushes back against the proliferation of digital images that bombard us every day, converting “place” into a veneer. I spend extended time at these sites in an effort to engage them in a more mindful manner. In doing this, I hope to create work that can help remind the viewer of the value of a more thoughtful engagement with the environment, and the importance of that connection." |
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Kevin Kintner / January 2021Kintner received a BFA from Buffalo State College in 1981 and completed his MFA at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1984. For more than 40 years he's continued to produce art and exhibit his works throughout the United States and Canada. For 18 months he owned and operated ARGH Gallery (Manchester, NH) and he is also a member of the City of Manchester Arts Commission.
"Since this horrible pandemic shuttered people back in March I've been painting. The world had become full of anxiety and fear and my first instinct was to paint those stressed-out emotions on canvas. In my mind, in the news, in the world out there everything seemed bleak, heavy, dark. but it turned out what I needed to paint was escape. I wanted bright color and energetic light and joyous movement and something alive. These are some of the paintings from this year. I guess they are floral themed though no actual flower species is directly reproduced. I see them as garden paintings or landscapes or space-scapes but ultimately escapes. I hope others enjoy them, too."
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Joe Carton / December 2020Born in 1970, Joe Carton is a New Hampshire-based painter and printmaker. His work has been exhibited widely throughout greater New England. Joe received his BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 1992. He currently lives and works in New Hampshire.
His work incorporates imagery related to luck, enlightenment, man’s ruin, the fool’s journey, and other contemporary themes. An important component of Joe’s work is the use of images pulled from popular culture. These images, whether subtle or blatant, serve as reminders of society’s impact on an individual.
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Robert Motherwell / TBARobert Motherwell, one of the earliest proponents of the Abstract Expressionist movement, rose to critical acclaim with his first solo exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century gallery in 1944.
Not only was Motherwell one of the major practicing Abstract Expressionist artists, he was, in fact, the main intellectual driving force within the movement—corralling fellow New York painters such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Hans Hoffman and William Baziotes into his circle. He also taught Cy Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg at the famed Black Mountain College. Motherwell later coined the term the "New York School", a designation synonymous to Abstract Expressionism that loosely refers to a wide variety of non-objective work produced in New York between 1940 and 1960. He met the painter Helen Frankenthaler in 1957, whom he married three years later. During their 13 year marriage, the two artists’ mutual interest in the poetry of abstraction fueled one another’s work.
During an over five-decade-long career, Motherwell created a large and powerful body of varied work that includes paintings, drawings, prints and collages. Motherwell's work is most generally characterized by simple shapes, broad color contrasts and a dynamic interplay between restrained and gestural brushstrokes. Above all, it demonstrates his approach to art-making as a response to the complexity of lived, and importantly felt, experience. Motherwell died on July 16, 1991 at his summer residence in Provincetown, MA. Today, his works are in the collections of most contemporary art museums around the world including the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Tate Modern in London. The piece that will be on display is called Redness of Red (1985) a lithograph and screenprint with collage on Arches Cover paper, initialed in pencil and numbered. The piece is on loan from the personal collection of his daughter, artist Jeannie Motherwell. |
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Susan Schwake / February 13 - March 6, 2020Susan Schwake is an artist, art educator, and best selling author. In her artwork, she is inspired most by the natural world and the changes it goes through – both inherent and external forces. She often abstracts these interactions through simplification, distortion, heightened or changed color and viewpoint. She works with ink, acrylic, watercolor, gouache and paper on paper, panel and canvas. Her work has been exhibited on the East Coast of the US, Mexico and Europe.
Susan is also an owner and art teacher at Artstream Studios in Rollinsford NH. Her students, both children and adult have inspired her endlessly for the past 25 years. She has written six books about making art with children to date, with a seventh one being published early next year. She paints and draws most every day. Learn more at www.susanschwake.com.
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Liese Gauthier / December 7 - January 31, 2020Liese 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." "I believe that my work is best when I make the mental shift into exploration and play supported with a scaffolding of theory and technique. Letting go of expectations and creating layers enables surprises to happen in the piece. Then, on the next layer I begin by examining the elements in the piece- how the eye moves around the painting, where value shifts occur, what variety there is in shapes. Then I shift back into paint/play mode and the process continues.
I love how painting challenges me to think and create, and I hope that my work provides a glimpse into this process." |
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Mike Howat / September 14 - November 30, 2019Mike Howat is a painter working out of Concord, NH. Howat earned his B.F.A. with a painting concentration from New Hampshire Institute of Art in 2014. Since graduating, Howat has been actively engaged in the growing New England art scene and shows regularly with Kelley Stelling Contemporary, Mill Brook Gallery & Sculpture Garden and other galleries in the region. His work explores themes of Americana, urbanization, and memory. He focuses on painting, but works routinely with large-scale graphite drawing, monotype printmaking and etching.
Since 2017, Howat has been the long-term artist-in-residence at Kimball Jenkins where he teaches classes and workshops, serves on the Arts Committee, and has a studio in the historic estate of the art school. In 2018, he curated Figuratively Speaking, an abstract painting and printmaking exhibition with regionally established and emerging artists, and has plans for future curatorial projects for 2019 in collaboration with an upcoming Boston-based art publication.
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Tom Glover / May 4 - June 30, 2019Tom Glover's art is reflective of the seacoast where he lives, places he has traveled over the years and the influence of his teacher John Laurent. Passed on to Tom from Laurent were the techniques and ideas of Walt Kuhn, the influences of Marsden Hartley, Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Motherwell; and the Great Masters who Laurent urged Tom to go see "in the flesh". Glover followed the advice and traveled throughout Europe to see paintings at the Louvre, the Uffizi, the Prado, the Reina Sofia, the VanGogh museum, the National Gallery in London, the National Gallery of Ireland, the Vatican and churches of Rome.
Color is a main thrust in Glovers work and he uses techniques such as glazing and juxtaposing complimentary colors to create intense contrasts and tensions. These are the direct lessons of Laurent and the study of diverse artists such as Matisse, Bonnard, Monet, Porter, Avery, Diebenkorn and others. Glover also has gone on several retreats and residencies. He spent a week alone on White Islands of the Isles of Shoals with no potable water, electricity or communication--a time he cherished! He was part of an Arts Week on Great Spruce Head Island, the family summer home of painter Fairfield Porter and his brother Eliot Porter, the famed photographer. He was able to use Fairfield's easel and roam the island for a week. He was artist in Residence on Appledore Island recently and has made many sojourns to Europe; Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island; the jungles of Costa Rica; New Mexico and Arizona; Block Island, Monhegan Island, Acadia and many other nooks and crannies of the New England coast. Not to mention the mountains and lakes region where he has summered since birth on lake Massasecum. Visit www.tpgloverart.com for more information.
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Robert Indiana / Saturday, May 4, 2019The Rochester Museum of Fine Arts, in association with The Argh Gallery, is pleased to announce a one-day-only exhibition featuring a genuine "LOVE" screen print signed by Robert Indiana. The event will take place in the Bernier Room, at the Rochester Community Center, on Saturday, May 4th from 1-3pm. Light refreshments will be served. The public is encouraged to attend.
Robert Indiana (born Robert Clark; September 13, 1928 – May 19, 2018) was an American artist associated with the pop art movement. His "LOVE" print, first created for the Museum of Modern Art's Christmas card in 1965, was the basis for his 1970 "LOVE" sculpture and the widely distributed 1973 United States Postal Service "LOVE" stamp.
In 1994, Robert Indiana did a limited run of green “LOVE” prints to benefit the Greenpeace organization. Indiana personally gifted one of the prints to Sarah Knoy, director of the Greenpeace offices in Chicago, IL. Currently valued at $5,000, Knoy and The ARGH Gallery (Manchester, NH) are happy to display the print at the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts and offer it to collectors and art enthusiasts. |
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Matt Pidgeon / November 3 - January 4, 2019Matt Pidgeon has been a painter for most of his life and employs various mediums including acrylic, oil, and enamel on canvas. Pidgeon has been featured in numerous galleries throughout New England and New York. His work has been has been acquired by both public and private collectors, residential and commercial.
Pidgeon is heavily influenced by the works of Wassily Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock, Picasso, and Braque. He paints with great passion for music and incorporates mood evoking color and movement into his works. The process is meticulous and involves hours of painting, viewing, and reflecting.
This will be Matt’s second exhibition with the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts. His work was last showcased in a vacant store front window. This will be his first solo exhibition in the Bernier Room. |