EXHIBITIONS
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Artist Reception: Sunday, 9/18/16, 3-6pm
Workshop/Talk: Saturday 9/24/16 & Sunday, 9/25/16, 3-6pm Jersey City Art & Studio Tour (JCAST): 10/8/16 & 10/9/16, 12-6pm PIN IT UP curated by Anne Trauben, features drawing by Jersey City artists Bruno Nadalin, Cheryl Gross, Deirdre Kennedy, Elizabeth Onorato, James Pustorino, Megan Klim, Peter Duffin and Sam Larson, Sky Kim, and William Stamos in 9 gallery rooms. PIN IT UP at DRAWING ROOMS is an exhibit of new works on paper by ten Jersey City artists exploring a range of paper possibilities. Paper is painted on, drawn on, imaginative worlds are created with multi-layered imagery. It is cut and reconnected with gauze, wax rust and wire. It is printed on with letterpress and reconstructed into poetry. Paper maps become a landscape covered with bold graphic forms. Gridded pages of paper are covered with intensely kinetic directional notations. Prismatic light is plotted out on white rolls of paper in thousands of marks scrawled and cross-hatched with multi-colored pencils. Blood red complex organic beings float on ethereal yellow rice paper. Big black sheets of paper are illumined with radiant phenomena. Paper is bathed in waves of sumi-e ink. Curator Anne Trauben worked with the artists of PIN IT UP to produce thoughtful, visually exciting gallery displays of these works that creatively push the limits of what a drawing can be. In Bruno Nadalin’s monotypes, he combines descriptive imagery with elements of obsessive drawing and indeterminate form, resulting in a tension between the representational and the abstract. His drawing process operates in a kind of feedback loop as one form suggests another. Cheryl Gross has been creating a large graphic novel-installation titled: The Karpland Chronicles based on our society’s situation regarding globalization and gentrification. The work consists of drawings, animation, text, collaborations and paintings depicting a recently designed race of people that are being persecuted, and will eventually be known as the third civil rights movement. Deirdre Kennedy’s sumi-e works come from a 2000 year-old tradition of Japanese brush painting that is spiritually rooted in Zen Buddhism where the sumi-e artist is said to be painting the inner spirit. Elizabeth Onorato uses expressive and varying strokes rather than large fields of color. The lines represent the environment in its simplest abstracted form: movement, velocity, rest, force, energy, sound, climate, time, and space. James Pustorino’s drawing series, “Every Second Counted” breaks light into a myriad of drawn marks of colors scattered and grouped in white space that suggest mapped forms, and recall scrolls of calligraphic landscape. Megan Klim’s “Elemental Series” speaks to simplicity, the inherent beauty of gauze, beeswax, wire and rust and their interaction with the purity of white paper. She views these materials as “elements” in their mostly basic and natural form, which work together to establish different spaces within one plane as the line travels through it. Peter Duffin and Sam Larson work together as PS Press Letterpress studio. Here, they present their individual works, both however, related to type. Peter’s inventive, engaging splay of pages of letters composed of tiny images, recreates William Carlos Williams poem Libertad! Igualdad! Fraternidad! using old images sourced from commercial printers from northern New Jersey working at the time he was writing. Using geometric form, graphic letter design and intense color, Sam turns common maps into mysterious hieroglyphic images. Sky Kim’s meticulous, labor-intensive watercolor paintings are abstract, anatomical, spiritual and sensual where she records her personal time, space and raw emotions in each moment of creation. Her work comes from a spiritual place, influenced by my philosophical belief in “reincarnation” which captures the cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth. William Stamos creates illusive apparitions of cosmic light in his Stardust Memories series. “The building blocks of life were created in the cataclysmic explosions of massive supernovas, and we would not exist without them. When we look at the stars at night, we see a part of ourselves, and our past.” The public is invited to the Artist Reception for PIN IT UP on Sunday, 9/18/16, 3-6pm, and to the free , where they can meet the artists in a small-group setting to learn about their work. Victory Hall DRAWING ROOMS is a contemporary arts center for drawing, painting, 3-dimensional works and print by emerging and mid-career artists in a former convent building in Downtown Jersey City. With 10 rooms for individual artist or group exhibitions and the TENTH ROOM GALLERY SHOP, we are dedicated to providing a space where the arts communities and the public can gather, interact and enjoy new artistic experiences. Our innovative and exciting exhibitions, public programs and publications enrich the lives of our community through an appreciation of and involvement with contemporary art. DRAWING ROOMS is operated by Victory Hall Inc. a 501c3 non-profit organization producing exhibitions, programs and public art projects in the NJ/NY area since 2001. Other projects include RAINBOW THURSDAYS* art classes for developmentally disabled adults, THIRD FLOOR ARTIST WORK SPACES, VICTORY HALL PRESS, and exhibition development for SHUSTER'S ART PROJECT* at Art House, The Oakman, Hamilton House and Gallery at 109 Columbus. James Pustorino, Director Anne Trauben, Curator / Exhibitions Director |