EXHIBITIONS
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Jersey City Art & Studio Tour (JCAST): 10/13/12, & 10/14/12, 12-6pm Victory Hall Inc. will open a new space for contemporary art in Jersey City this October with DRAWING ROOMS featuring large-scale works in drawing and painting in SUBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE and THE ARTISTS OF RAINBOW THURSDAYS. The three-story former convent is being transformed into an arts building with ten rooms of artist exhibition spaces, artist’s books and tea shop, and continually-developing exhibitions gathering exciting new works by artists in the New Jersey/New York area. A New Art Center for Jersey City How many people does it take to create a new art center in Jersey City? OLC Catholic Church and the OLC school are working in collaboration with Victory Hall Inc. to turn their former convent into a three-floor Contemporary Arts Center, featuring classes for children and 20 rooms of exhibitions and art-oriented services, and Jersey City artists are coming out to help make it happen. It might seem to OLC Pastor and Jersey City native, Fr. Tom Ciba, that they have been gathered from all over the world, but really these artists, coming from as far away as Senegal, West Africa, Holland, and Korea, and a former Buddhist nun from China, have been active in our city’s art scene for several years. The new center is a result of strong relationships they have built through years of exhibiting, teaching and community involvement. The new OLC Art Center is right next-door to the Victory Hall building on Grand Street where the non-profit, Victory Hall Inc., started a similar center in 2001. After six years as a popular space for classes, exhibitions and a wide variety of arts events, the building was handed over to start the OLC preschool and the art activity moved out across the city to waterfront lobby and atrium exhibitions, and murals in Greenville. For the past five years Victory Hall Inc. has been producing classes, exhibitions, and public art installations seen by thousands daily in the Jersey City area and in lower Manhattan. Now, with a new building developing, Victory Hall Inc. plans to gather visual artists from the Jersey area along with artists from Manhattan and Brooklyn into exhibitions that explore concepts and investigations that are vital and current, and to create a welcoming haven of art for the public. The OLC Art Center began classes for children this month, under the direction of OLC Principal Anna Mae Steffenelli and administrator, Joyce Cmiel. Programs in theater, language, and art will be featured. Victory Hall Inc. is working with area artists to develop the exhibition space, that they are calling DRAWING ROOMS. The top two floors are becoming exhibition areas, a tea room serving exotic Chinese teas and a reading room with art books, poetry and books of local artists’ works. A sushi restaurant has donated lounge furniture that will make the space even more welcoming. “We want DRAWING ROOMS to be a place where residents, tourists, artists and New York area art-goers can drop by often to spend an hour or more looking at art, having a cup of tea, exploring artists’ books, and socializing. As a non-profit space, we can do a lot more to serve professional artists who are innovative and creative, giving them space and an audience to present new ideas, and support their individual artistic development.” says Director, James Pustorino. “I think in our first time as a center, we proved we could create a space in Jersey City that achieved these goals. Now we are in a position to accomplish even more and build a lasting presence for contemporary visual art here.” The SUBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE, curated by James Pustorino, is DRAWING ROOMS' first exhibition for the Jersey City Art & Studio Tour featuring large-scale works in drawing and painting by many Jersey City area artists and art organizers, including Senegal-born, Ibou Ndoye, Korean-born Sky Kim, Jersey City's Cultural Affairs’ Greg Brickey, as well as Loura van der Meule, Jill Scipione, Elizabeth Onorato, Carl Vierow, Orlando Reyes, James Pustorino and Maggie Ens. Photographic prints that investigate the elusiveness of reality by Edward Fausty, Peter Emerick, Elaine Hansen and Matthew Caulfield will also be featured. THE ARTISTS OF RAINBOW THURSDAYS exhibition includes 40 artists from Victory Hall Inc's RAINBOW THURSDAYS art program for developmentally disabled adults at Windmill Center. |
