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October 11, 2007
JERSEY CITY’S ARTISTIC COMMUNITY IS FOCUS OF BEN SHAHN GALLERIES EXHIBIT
Jersey City’s artistic community, which continues to thrive in the midst of an ever-changing art and social scene and the pressures of urban renewal and replacement, is the subject of an exhibit at the Ben Shahn Galleries at William Paterson University in Wayne that continues from October 29 through November 30, 2007. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free.
“Fire and Ash” features works ranging from painting and sculpture to digital prints and collages created by 26 artists who once lived and/or still live and make art in Jersey City. The exhibit is curated by Sandy DeSando, a Jersey City artist who served on the board of directors of Pro Arts Jersey City, which worked to form Jersey City’s Powerhouse Arts District, which includes low-income living and working space for artists.
“Like a fire that burns boldly with beauty and vibrancy, and then dissolves to ashes, only to grow again, Jersey City artists have kept their creative energy in place despite many changes,” says DeSando. “Warehouse buildings long loved by artists for their open space, atmosphere, and cheap rents have been scooped up for high-end redevelopment loft-like living. For an artist, this kind of development means displacement: moving, uprooting lives, fracturing the pattern of both an individual’s and a community’s creative process. Yet, Jersey City has continued to maintain a strong, professional and focused arts community.”
Among the artists featured in the exhibit is Charles Kessler, whose new work, “Pocket Paintings,” are tiny, only two to three inches, and meant to be picked up, turned around, and experienced. “I like the intimacy of having a small object in your hand, examining it, and savoring the surprises that occur as you turn it,” he explains. “This sensation can be quite strong, possibly because the ‘Pocket Paintings’ are held up close to your eyes so they’re experienced as if they were very big.”
Iris Kufert-Rivo, who maintains a studio in the Journal Square area, exhibits her modular paintings. “As an artist, I seek to explore various iconography in relation to cultural subtext. The images chosen usually possess a mass familiarity,” she says. “By staging these images within a grid-like format these cultural symbols reference each other. Placement of these ‘tiles’ reflects a randomness and a specificity. There needs to be an intrinsic balance among the images: visually, psychologically and culturally. Through assimilation these icons produce a portrait of each viewer’s experience. The exploration of these common and merged images is what guides me to create new paintings.”
Henry Sanchez often organizes his work around themes of transformation, disguise and personal and political uncertainty. He appropriates images from political advertisements, campaign flyers, and mailings, as well as newspapers in his glitter and inkjet prints. “I use images of and about political figures as subject matter in part because it is derived from my personal background in politics and government,” he says. “When I depict, appropriate, manipulate, and obscure certain features of the images, I am attempting to expose a sense of adoration and mystery that is already present. Sometimes an ephemeral or sinister presence is revealed.” He also creates vinyl-mylar works that are often based on folk decorations, borrowing imagery and folk art techniques from Mexican-American background. “The vinyl-mylar sculpture is intended to transcend the commonplace; the pieces are conceptual sculpture in the guise of decoration. The celebratory feel of vinyl-mylar belies the more serious personal subject matter,” he explains.
Nyugen E. Smith creates works that are predominantly sculpture, composed os materials such as handmade and recycled paper, wood, rusted metal, fabric, burlap, twine, paint, leather and rubber. “The materials used are almost emtirely found objects, which derive from materials that once had a life and had become garbage, possessing no more uttttttility to whomever disposed of them,” he explains. He desdcibes his work as “a journey iinto my unconscious and conscious mind, sifting through a miasma of thoughts to find missing links and patch up a world falling apart in need of renewal with the discarded relics of the past.”
Denise Wallner presents a site-specific installation from her Hanging House Series. “I like to blur the division between interior and exterior spaces and call attention to the physical and mental constructs which divide the two,” she explains. “In my House Series I alter forms and perspective by inserting the common symbol of a home in an uncommon space, in uncommon scale, with completely common materials.”
Other artists featured in the exhibit include Christine Barney, Charles Chamot, Joe Chirchirillo, Kelly Darr, Maggie Ens, Edward Fausty, Norm Francoeur, Kay Kenny, Megan Klim, Tara Kuwajima-Unioneye, Barbara Landes, Andrzej Jerzy Lech, Kayt Hester Lent, Winifred McNeill, Ibou Ndoye, One Sea, Jim Pustorino, Jill Scipione, Ev Stone, Paul Sullivan, Ana Velasquez, and Nancy Wells.
DeSando has received Pollock-Krasner and E.D. Foundation grants and has participated in residences at YADDO and the Virginia Center for the Arts, among others. She received a Vogelstein grant to create drawings of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Her landscape drawing “Riverbank: Elegy for Booker Little,” toured with the Smithsonian’s “Seeing Jazz: Artists and Writers on Jazz” and appears in the exhibit’s accompanying book.
The exhibit is one of three shows currently on view in the Ben Shahn Galleries. On view in the South Gallery is the annual exhibit of works by the William Paterson University art faculty. “Prints and Company,” on view in the East Gallery, features an exploration of the state of various printed matter today.
The exhibit is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Ben Shahn Galleries are wheelchair-accessible. Large-print handouts are available. For additional information, please call the Ben Shahn Galleries at William Paterson University at 973-720-2654.
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