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March 11, 2007
WILLIAM PATERSON UNIVERSITY PRESENTS 2005 AND 2006 NEW JERSEY STATE COUNCIL ON THE ARTS FELLOWSHIP EXHIBITION
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Works by 33 visual artists who received New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Awards in 2005 and 2006 are on view at William Paterson University’s Ben Shahn Galleries from March 18 through April 20, 2007. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. A reception for the exhibit will be held on Sunday, March 18 from 3 to 5 p.m.
The show, in Ben Shahn’s Court and South Galleries, includes painting, sculpture, works on paper, crafts, photography, video and film. “The exhibit clearly illustrates and diversity of ideas and mediums explored by artists across the state,” says Nancy Einreinhofer, director of the Ben Shahn Galleries. “The breadth and depth of the work on view is a tribute to the support awarded New Jersey artists by the State Council on the Arts.”
Several of the participating artists have created site-specific installations for the exhibit, adding to the immediacy and vitality of the show. The installation by Nancy Cohen of Jersey City features 20 recent drawings on hand-made paper from her “Mudra” series. “The Mudra drawings reflect on how we use our hands and touch in our most basic human interactions and endeavors,” says Cohen.
Andrew Demirjian of Palisades Park presents “Discourse,” a mixed-media installation. A projected image combined with sculpture create an installation questioning the concept of whether or not the description of the art object has become more important than the object itself. Text taken from actual exhibition brochures, press releases and wall text is projected, giant-sized, behind objects on pedestals, dwarfing the objects in front. “The installation is intended to make the viewers consider how text shapes our perception and humorously destabilizes the authority of writing on art,” says Demerjian.
Ela Shah of Upper Montclair will create an installation with a selection of her mobiles created of mixed media on burnt wood. “Most of my work, dealing with issues of faith, is about search and survival,” says Shah. “In this hanging mobile sculpture, a woman has created her own individual territory in a kettle, umbrella, a pan or a hanger, believing that she has created a heaven for herself.” According to Shah, mobiles “depict women’s plight in modern America, including the struggle to balance their family life and career goals.”
Filmmaker Sam Wells of Princeton will exhibit portions of his ongoing film and digital media project, “Fragrance of Ghosts,” which are built around dream-like memories of Vietnam, and a ghostly presence of the same in places far removed from it. “I went to Vietnam following a scent—fragrance, huong—or perhaps other ghost-like traces of landscape years after battle,” Wells says. “But strangely enough I found the enigma of beauty wrapped around the sites of ghosts.”
Several artists will exhibit large-scale works, including Robert Birmelin of Fort Lee, whose acrylic on canvas diptych, “The Corner,” measures 5 feet by 12 feet. The paintings, which capture the chaos of urban life, emphasize the power of observation. “Think about the observer—the witness to the fiction of the world of painting,” says Birmelin. “Remember, we look at paintings but sometimes paintings look back at us, collapsing the separation between fiction and material fact.”
Robert Forman of Hoboken also focuses on the urban neighborhood in his yarn painting, “Chinatown.” “As a painter uses the stroke of a brush to create a swath of color or depth of field, I use the various hues, tones and thicknesses of thread, which I lay, strand by strand on board, to achieve a similar yet wholly unique result,” he says. “My goal is to meld concept and form into one seamless image.”
Giovanna Cecchetti of Paterson shows two of her recent abstract paintings. “My work is very much concerned with formal issues dealing with color, shape, line, and composition as well as with space, time, and the transcendental,” she explains.
Other artists participating in the exhibit are Laura Alexander of Hoboken; Nancy Anderson of Stockton; Nina Lola Bachhuber and Benjamin Polsky of Newark; Betty Beaumont of Oak Ridge; Ruth Borgenicht of Glen Ridge; Patricia Brentano of Westfield; Jennifer Crupi of Oceanport; Kenneth Delio of Gloucester City; David Dziemian of Bayonne; Eugneio Espinosa, Hiroshi Kumagai and Roberta Melzl of Jersey City; Sean Fitzgerald of Absecon; Tim Gaydos of Paterson; Alyce Gottesman of Montclair; Randall Greenbaum of Princeton; Karen Guancione of Bellevelle; Karl Hartman of River Edge; Curt Ikens of Cranford; Barbara Klein of Lawrenceville; William Leech of Roosevelt; Rune Olsen of Brooklyn; Sarah Petruziello of South Orange; Deborah Reichard of Hopewell; and Skeffington Thomas of Bridgeton. A catalog of the exhibit is available.
The exhibit is one of two shows on view concurrently in the Ben Shahn Galleries. The East Gallery features “More Than Meets the Eye: Insight into the Artistic Process,” which explores how artists imagine, recognize, and bring their art to fruition; the exhibit is curated by Sandy DeSando.
This 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.
Note to reporters and editors: Downloadable photographs are available at http://ww2.wpunj.edu/publicityphotos/NJSCA_exhibit_web/
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