PE Pinkman: Neither Here and There, The Alcove Gallery at Drawing Rooms, 3/1/24 – 4/13/24

Response to “Neither Here and There,” an exhibition by PE Pinkman
By Mona Brody
April 4, 2024

A single self-portrait can offer a provocative glance into an artist’s private life. But when one has an opportunity to view and explore 100 portraits from 100 days, a visual cacophony occurs.  Artist PE Pinkman offers the viewer that opportunity in his series, “100 Days of a Pandemic” and “Not Who You See(m)” as part of the broader exhibition on view, “Neither Here and There” displayed in The Alcove Gallery at Drawing Rooms, 926 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, NJ, curated by Anne Trauben.

Views from “100 Days of a Pandemic” by PE Pinkman
The Alcove Gallery at The Drawing Rooms

Pinkman’s series, “100 Days of a Pandemic,” allowed me to be a voyeur of sorts, as I delved into the inner life of a man’s psyche, emotional state, and various identities. This diaristic practice began January 1, 2021, nine months after the Covid Pandemic started and concluded April 11, 2021. PE Pinkman was completely into the throes of a global pandemic, unbridled disinformation, Black Lives Matter protests, an election unlike any in history, unprecedented vaccine development, and general mistrust. 

Day 4, I Can’t Breathe, 14 x 11 in, mixed media on paper, 2021

Day 24, Fake News, 14 x 11 in, mixed media on paper, 2021

Day 1, Do You Feel the Same Way I Do, 14 x 11 in,
mixed media on paper, 2021

It was clear to me that his commitment to this daily practice of drawing one drawing a day for 100 days, while isolated in a small apartment, was a necessary process of reflection and self-healing. This practice allowed him to find the motivation and ultimately the content for this self-directed series. Begun in a time of introspection, the series morphed into an important and profound work of art. 

Francis Bacon’s self-portrait series from 1975, "I've Had Else to Paint but Myself", cries out to me in the same manner as Pinkman’s series. Both artists face solitude and fear in a delicate balance of sanity, fantasy, and response to a challenging world.

Day 48, You Mean I can Be Brave and Afraid, 14 x 11 in,
mixed media on paper, 2021

I've Had Nobody Else to Paint but Myself by Francis Bacon
14 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

Pinkman’s other series of self-portraits from birth to a futuristic view as him as an older man, "Not Who You See(m)" takes us through the stages of his life, experiences, and challenges. Materials and touch allow the memory of youth and the reality of age and wisdom to emerge. 

                                     #22, 14 x 11 in, graphite on paper                                      

                     

#60, 14 x 11 in, graphite on paper

While responding to PE Pinkman’s drawings from this series, I had the desire to revisit Rembrandt’s archive of self-portraits. Rembrandt’s self-portraits have been an important example of documenting and recording self-exploration for artists over the centuries, and they continue to this day.  I am fascinated by the psychological intensity of Rembrandt’s late self-portraits and its relationship to Pinkman’s drawing of how he sees himself now.

Self-portrait looking in a mirror, Rembrandt van Rijn, Age 63,
possibly black conte on laid paper, 1669 

#67, 14 x 11 in, graphite on paper

The last four years have changed us. It’s changed how we communicate and interact with one another, and it’s changed who we are as individuals. PE Pinkman has thoughtfully and skillfully helped us heal through a repetition of his own drawn image.  By experiencing Pinkman’s exhibition, the viewer can reflect deeply into oneself by employing humor, exploring the mysterious, the bizarre, and the uncomfortable parts of the human spirit. This self-understanding gives us permission and strength to manage the chaotic and harmful forces that lie from within and the world around us. 

"Neither Here and There" will continue on view at Drawing Rooms Alcove Gallery until April 13, 2024.

Mona Brody is an artist whose studio is at Manufacturers Village in East Orange, New Jersey. Learn more about Mona here.

From a Tree Grows a Forest: an Exhibition Honoring Professor and Artist Edward S. Eberle, The Terrarium Gallery at Drawing Rooms, 3/1/24 - 4/13/24

Response to "From a Tree Grows a Forest: an Exhibition Honoring Professor and Artist Edward S. Eberle"
By Claire McConaughy

March 21, 2024

Edward S. Eberle 1944-2023

There are many influences on an artist’s body of work, but a foundation of encouragement, sharing, nurturing and love from a teacher can be the platform from which one’s creative work can truly rise. The exhibition “From a Tree Grows a Forest: an Exhibition Honoring Professor and Artist Edward S. Eberle” has at its heart, artworks made by Ed Eberle from the 1980s to 2017, and works from six of his former students who together pay tribute to their teacher and his influence on their art and lives. There is also a touching video made by his son, JPC Eberle, of the artist as he throws and forms the clay that he spent his life following. JPC's video features many closeups of Ed's hands forming sculpture which show his deep connection to clay that was more than a material; it was an extension of himself. Ed's former students in this exhibition are a sampling of the many artistic lives he touched during his time teaching at Carnegie-Mellon University, the Philadelphia College of Art and through his ceramic studio in Pittsburgh. Curated by Anne Trauben, the group of artworks show the connections between the teacher, students and true friends who respected and enriched each other’s lives in art.

The focus of the exhibition is Eberle’s unique ceramics. The featured pieces in this review range in size from a 4.5" x 15" x 15” shallow bowl to a vessel that is three feet tall and two feet wide. Eberle’s greater body of work includes explorations with drawings and very large ceramic sculptures that are shown in the catalog as being almost human size and having the presence of visitors in his studio. Eberle’s vessels are covered with stream of consciousness drawings of which he says “… I don’t have a specific story to tell. The story, if there is a story, is only seen after the piece is finished, but it won’t be one story, it will be many stories, if there’s a story at all.”1 With or without a specifically intended story, the drawings are complex and completely captivating. They scrawl across the curves and bumps of the surfaces, many figures interlaced and overlapping as if they are simultaneously depicting the past, present, future, and a disorienting fantasy world. The scratchy black terra sigillata and stain lines on matte grey-white porcelain clay are loose and uninhibited, covering the surfaces without logical sequence, and can be picked up in any area and followed in an unfolding narrative/non-narrative. Images are of figures (some have wings, or monk’s robes, or are multi-headed), patterns, men and women’s faces (some with halos or books for hats), animals, birds, and expressive marks and brushstrokes. They are derived from this world, but the world they exist in doesn’t rely on logic. 

Edward S. Eberle, Draw A Line With A Feather, porcelain,
terra sigillata, 8.5 x 5 x 5.5, 2019

Eberle’s works in the exhibition are mysterious and metaphysical the way “Alice in Wonderland” is disorienting and magical. A special version of this disorientation is shown by the porcelain sculpture “Complex” (2017). “Complex” is a simplified head with facial features entirely covered with scratchy black drawing that reminds one of old age wrinkles, facial tattoos, or an image of what someone could look like if the stories and people of their life were visible the first time you met them. There is a hole at the top of the head surrounded by black, which could be a portal to and from the inside of the head/sculpture/person and everything else/people/nature/God/the universe and back again.

Edward S. Eberle, Complex, front, side and back views, 2017,
9.5 x 7 x 8.5, porcelain, terra sigillata and stain

His drawing is key to his ceramics and several ink drawings on paper are also on view in the exhibition. One large ink drawing, “Landscape” (1990), shows Eberle’s expressive mark making bouncing across the paper in movements like animals playing or dancers in a more abstract expressionist style.

Edward S Eberle, Landscape, 29 x 40, paper, ink, acrylic, 1990

This is an opportunity to see Eberle’s mark-making shown in the stoneware piece, “Number Two” (1990), and “an Appearance” (late 1980s), as a pre-cursor to the surreal depictions in the more recent works.

Edward S. Eberle, Number Two, stoneware, terra sigillata, stain,
35 x 24 x 13, 1990

Edward S. Eberle, an Appearance, 4.5 x 15 x 15, porcelain,
terra sigillata, stain, late 1980s

The artistic and very deep connections Eberle made are evidenced by his six students’ artworks shown alongside his masterful ceramics. Both Graham Marks and Ian Thomas work in ceramic sculpture. Marks' pieces are painterly glazed candelabras that are wonky, and delightful. The pieces are made of ribonny ropes and organic shapes that pour through each other like activated painterly lines that culminate at a flower-like blossom for the candle. They move like marine plants gently swaying under the sea. Ian Thomas’ pieces are simplified head-shaped vessels that have incised comic faces that emote quirky moods, such as “Smile” and “Indifference” (both 2022). The faces’ expressions are drawn in a lighthearted way, as if a kid grabbed a stick and, through a few quick strokes, made the clay into a live, feeling entity.  

Graham Marks, Candelabra, ceramic, 13 x 10, 2022

Ian Thomas, Smile, porcelain, woodfired, 9.5 x 7 x 7, 2022

Ed Eberle fostered his students’ art practices, whether they were working with clay or other mediums, and several of them in this exhibition present drawings, paintings, and needlepoint.

Denise Suska Green and James Pustorino share large scale abstractions filled with color, shapes, and movement. Their surface relationships differ greatly in style and material, but their underlying spiritual interests have a kinship. Suska Green uses handmade paper of nuanced color and organic forms evoking nature. “Surfsong” and “Cove” (both 2020) have references to environmental beauty while using materials sourced from repurposed domestic textiles and linen garments. Her use of recycled natural materials shows a dedication to the environment that is treasured and revered for something more than our human use of it. James Pustorino offers a large abstraction of bold, vivid color exploring narrative through space and composition in “Container for the Universe” (2023). The convoluted movements twist and turn into each other creating interlocked passages. The segmented abstract shapes pull the viewer through a speedy roller coaster ride that flips and twists without paying attention to gravity or general laws of physics. Even though he uses synthetic materials and heightened color on geometric shapes, the painting shows Pustorino’s sketchy drawing that allows the viewer to feel a human presence in the image while the overall image feels like a macro view from the eye of the universe.

Denise Suska Green, Cove, handmade paper, 69 x 41.5, 2020

James Pustorino, Container for the Universe, acrylic and pencils on dDuralar,
80 x 75, 2023

Greg Kwiatek’s square needlepoint, “Untitled II” (2021) is elusive. The mysterious object feels more like an ancient Yantra than a 21st century endeavor. The description of the piece involves geometric relationships gently, meditatively, repetitively stitched on a grid, making one assume that process is a key element in the piece. Based on its symmetry, the composition looks like the result of planning, but the artist states that decisions are made intuitively. It becomes a diagram of harmonic relationships that is clear and bright in its simple geometry, and reflects craft, precision, and dedication.

Greg Kwiatek, Untitled II, needlepoint, 15 x 15, 2021

Vast open spaces of thought and reflection can come from seemingly minimal images. Scott Vradelis’ rectangular, color relationship paintings allow for aesthetic interpretations of moments, experiences, memories or the concept of non-content. His color choices are compatible and soothing. Seeing the slate-grey/blue rectangle, overlaid with a rich burgundy rectangle of pulled brushstrokes in “Poem for Studio Cricket Variant 7” (2021), in-person is truly the only way to experience Vradelis’ work. The scale relationships between rectangles that can function as windows or frames also have impact on the experience of the work, as each one feels specifically determined, perhaps because they are based on weight of color and value in a purely visual sense, or on the weight and value of an intangible essence. 

Scott Vradelis, Poem for Studio Cricket Variant 7, pigment in acrylic binder on
prepared dibond panel with aluminum angle backing, 25.5 x 41, 2021

“From a Tree Grows a Forest…” is a perfect title to capture the extent of the beloved professor and artist Ed Eberle’s legacy, which has clearly grown to forest dimensions. 

Images from “A Drawing Thrown”, 2016 video by Edward. S Eberle and JPC Eberle

"From a Tree Grows a Forest: an Exhibition Honoring Professor and Artist Edward S. Eberle" will continue on view at Drawing Rooms Terrarium Gallery until April 13, 2024.

Claire McConaughy is an artist. While not a former student of Professor Eberle, she was aware of his influence and the admiration he received from his students, friends, and fellow artists. Learn more about Claire here.

1. Contemporary Craft, “Ed Eberle in His Studio”, Video produced by Terry Rorison and David Newbury, YouTube, August 25, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04Qqqv4J_1s

The Unbearable Lightness of the Fantastical and Unwearable Art Show at The Terrarium Gallery at Drawing Rooms, 9/29/23 - 11/11/23

A Walk-Through of Constructed Identities in “The Unbearable Lightness of the Fantastical and Unwearable Art Show”
By Mona Brody
11/8/23

"The Unbearable Lightness of the Fantastical and Unwearable Art Show", curated by Anne Trauben, is showing in the Drawing Rooms Terrarium Gallery. The artists in this group exhibition have constructed identities in the form of installation, sculpture, photography, video, mixed media, drawing, painting, and sound. Trauben’s clear curatorial vision tells a broader story of archetypes, alter egos, historical referencing, and fantastical experiences for the viewer.

As I walked through the gallery, Marcel Duchamp’s alter ego, Mademoiselle Rrose Sélavy kept haunting me. Marcel Duchamp assumed the role of a seductive woman, displaying playfulness, fantasy, and the irony of Dadaism. His fellow artist and Dada collaborator, Man Ray, often photographed Duchamp’s adopted female persona dressed in a stylish 1920’s coat and hat.

Diamonds are a Queen's Best Friend by Christy E. O'Connor

A Dressing Room for Marie Antoinette, an installation by Christy E. O’Connor, achieved that transformative experience for me. The tiny white dressing room glowed in sparkling light, its scale suggestive of a child’s playhouse created an alternative world where Marie, in costume, danced to dream-like music in a video. I was transported into her fairytale of historical fiction and magic; I did not want to leave.

Changing Rooms by Bayard

Bayard, a multidisciplinary artist with a background in fashion design and costume, asks the participant to enter “Changing Rooms”, a 6’ x 9’ installation imbued with an abundance of multi-colored rags layered in this created space. The experience was reminiscent of an early 1900’s rag shop in the Lower East Side of New York. Was it a narrative of the people who might have given up tattered clothing for a fee? What was the real history behind the cloth?

Starlette by Poramit Thantapalit

Poramit Thantapalit’s figure appears with its outstretched wings, “a Phoenix” rising from the ashes. “Starlette” was created from recycled, corrugated cardboard composed of triangular cutouts,. uses staples to attach the triangular forms. This carefully assembled creature comes forward with a need for nature’s rebirth metaphorically and, literally, an imminent concern for sustainability.

Underpinnings #7 by Margery Amdur

Margery Amdur, a fiber artist, is a master at using the sewing machine. She has created a relief sculpture, “Underpinnings #7”, composed of vertical forms that are wrapped, stitched together, seemingly to protect. She brings to life through abstraction and repetition the need for human touch and support. I am reminded of a print by Henry Moore, “Tube Shelter, Perspective,”.This work was created during World War II in England; masses of people are huddled together sheltering from danger in an underground tunnel.

Are You Sure You Want to Be Mikey Mouse? by Miki Katagiri

Miki Katagiri, an expert milliner, using traditional hand craftsmanship to design, make, and trim, creates exquisite hats, but with a twist. Her hats are made from felt, fox fur, miniature toys, plants, and more; they cry out to protect nature, our environment, and pay attention to our universe. “Are You Sure You Want to Be Mikey Mouse?” is a satirical hat that has a toy meerkat sitting on fur, surrounded by Mickey Mouse ears, questioning life.

Caput by Kate Dodd

Kate Dodd’s imaginary headgear, “Caput”, is made from repurposed reference material. Keeping in mind its fragility, the work could easily be destroyed. The sculpture is meticulously assembled and painted with delicate colors resembling aged patinated metal. The materiality of the piece suggests vulnerability; curiously its structure suggests protection. The play of duality is what makes it compelling.

Lavatory Self-Portrait in the Flemish Style #7 (L) by Nina Katchadourian
Lavatory Self-Portrait in the Flemish Style #10 (R) by Nina Katchadourian

Nina Katchadourian, a photographer, videographer, and sound artist, takes witty self-portraits in which she portrays herself in a variety of ordinary settings. Utilitarian materials, such as toilet paper, which beautifully embellish the collar of her dress, and the mirror from the airplane’s bathroom are her immediate resources. These images are taken with her cell phone. “Lavatory Self-Portrait in the Flemish Style #10” is one such photograph. This fictionalized 17th century moody Dutch painting could have been a work created by Johannes Vermeer.

Braid Mask by gwen charles

gwen charles works in video, photography, sculpture, and performance. Like Nina Katchadourain, she uses her own body as an exploration of the female experience. Her photograph, “Braid Mask”, appears to emerge from a dream and historical referencing. Her evocative use of hair braids to cover parts of her face suggests fantasy and sexual promiscuity from a time gone by.

Mother by Donna Conklin King

The artist, Donna Conklin King, tells the story of a woman’s life lived. Her work on paper, “Mother”, begins with a worn shirtwaist dress from the 1970s. The dress is a matrix for a monoprint and mixed media; charcoal, an x-ray, and chalk pastel all beautifully drawn to express the portrayal of the fictional mother without arms or a face.

When an artist, with intention or not, creates an alter ego, what is the result? An artist may need distance from their artwork to provide clarity and a true understanding of the direction their art practice is taking. The artists in this exhibition designed a fictional framework as an essential part of their art, and when combined with its creator, the total proves to be a new and meaningful whole.

"The Unbearable Lightness of the Fantastical and Unwearable Art Show" will continue on view at Drawing Rooms Terrarium Gallery until November 11, 2023.

Mona Brody is an artist whose studio is at Manufacturers Village in East Orange, New Jersey. Learn more about Mona here.

Lucy Rovetto: For the Love of the Body at The Alcove Gallery at Drawing Rooms, 9/29/23 - 11/11/23

Lucy Rovetto’s Career-Long Exploration on the Human Anatomy’s Response to Emotional Stimuli at Drawing Room's Alcove Gallery
By: Lumane Luma
11/7/23

On view at Drawing Rooms Alcove gallery, Exhibitions Director Anne Trauben curates the career-survey "Lucy Rovetto: For the Love of the Body" with works spanning from 1989 - 2022. The separations of decades within the exhibition displays Rovetto’s psychological response to the zeitgeist. Years 1989 and 1990 feature photographs of intimate encounters with the body with compositions that show the beauty of its form. From 1994 - 1996 Rovetto’s sophisticated artistic exploration began to formulate. 

Cross-Eyed by Lucy Rovetto

In her 1994 “Cross-Eyed,” small photographs of repeated images of the nude artist laid forward are collaged in a sequence of rows. The image likeness appears as a coronary examination while the composition’s top center of the overexposed photographs are juxtaposed to appear as procedure lights seen above a patient before drifting to unconsciousness.

Squeeze with Words by Lucy Rovetto

In the 2010s, Rovetto’s medium focus on drawings evoked the encroaching claustrophobia of anxiety. 2014’s “Squeeze” and “Squeeze with Words'' appears as a progression of intrusive thoughts as both works are a rendition of a figure in a fetal position, though “Squeeze with Words'' is juxtaposed with illegible writing decreasing in scale to whispers as the ink goes from black to red. Also from 2014, “Facing Myself Right” is a large ink on wood outlined profile portrait of the artist that conveys Rovetto’s self-examination stripped to subtle details, a humbling confrontation of oneself to question what is the basis of identity.

Bound by Lucy Rovetto

For the new decade, Rovetto deters from a state of introspection, instead provoking the viewer with an unsettling scenario in "Bound", "Captured," and "Moth" which depict different perspective shots of an unidentified femme figure held restraint. The figure is sat in a chair, mouth bound with hands tied behind their backs. The viewer is a helpless observer behind the serrated screen of the grim scene. Drawn in comparison is the helplessness of observing through our devices, the chaos amidst the Covid-19 outbreak and socio-political upheaval in 2020.

Rovetto then symbolically details the gravity of emotions on the body with “Hanging Series.” Suspended from wire hangers, the works on paper appear like a play on the expression, “Hang to Dry,” which is likened to the feeling of being left to suffer alone. Of the three “Hanger Series,” Girls Got Guts (see postcard image above) is most intriguing, as it is a paper collage diagram of the viscera. It functions as an emotional signifier of our internal truth.

The dedication Rovetto has for exploring the human form has opened her horizon to utilize various forms of medium seamlessly. Each method serves its purpose for conceptual exploration from documentation in photography, psychological inspection with drawings and writing, to replicating visceral stimuli with textural 3-D materials. Rovetto’s works attune the presence of the body. The viewer is assigned the role as a test subject on nonverbal transmission. This is the basis of humanity.

"Lucy Rovetto: For the Love of the Body" will continue on view at the Drawing Rooms Alcove Gallery until November 11, 2023.

Lumane Luma is a curator and the founder of Luma Art Advisory. Learn more about Luma here.

Mona Brody: Portals, Apparitions and Other Voices, solo show at Watchung Arts Center, 9/16/23 - 10/22/23

by Bruce Halpin

Mona Brody’s show “Portals, Apparitions and Other Voices" at the Watchung Arts Center presents an effulgent excursion into the Sublime. I mean this particularly in a specific formal sense as well as the more commonly understood connotation: beautiful to the point of ineffability.The beauty of the paintings is what strikes the viewer immediately and emphatically. The other sense of sublime requires some explanation. 

In her seminal text on American painting of the Nineteenth Century: “Nature and Culture", Barbara Novack identifies two distinct aspects of the sublime, what she refers to as The Grand Opera and the Still Small Voice applied variously to artists such as Fredric Edwin Church and Fitz H Lane; Church obviously representing the grand opera and Lane, the still small voice. These two aspects of the sublime play back and forth throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and now into the 21st. Examples of the two might include Pollack, Rothko, on the one hand, and say, Agnes Martin or Forrest Bess on the other. Of particular significance is Bill Jensen whose early work, much influenced by Ryder, served as a jumping off point to his current painterly explorations. Mona Brody’s work is very much of the grand opera scheme, although the influence of nature in her paintings temper that. Edmund Burke, the 18th century revivalist of the sublime emphasized “Astonishment" and the transformative potential of the experience as being central to the sublime. Ms Brody’s paintings express that sentiment to the extreme. Her use of unconventional materials (shellac and raw pigments) implies a sensibility searching for extreme expression, as if mere paint and canvas could not alone supply the super charged effects she is seeking. The application of those materials also suggests a kind of “take it to the limit" feeling of these paintings. As Burke also suggested, beauty is not the proper vehicle for extreme and mysterious experience, a sense of transcendence is needed for the sublime to operate. 

Viewers seeking a profound experience, touching on mystery and imagination, owe it to themselves to see this show. 

Mona Brody: Portals, Apparitions and Other Voices, curated by Paul Pinkman, at Watchung Arts Center, 18 Sterling Road, Watchung, NJ, runs through October 22, 2023.

Bruce Halpin is an artist living in Jersey City. Read Bruce's bio here and view his artwork here.

Anne Trauben: Step Up on a Stool to Reach the Sky at Watchung Arts Center, 9/16/23 - 10/22/23

by Winifred McNeill
10/13/23

This one-person exhibition by Anne Trauben is an immersive experience into a magical world that is not to be missed. Trauben is a multidisciplinary artist who uses her ceramic practice as a centering device for a range of ambitious artworks. This installation brings together a multitude of materials that pay homage to the night sky and the beauty of the evening song.  

 

Hand-built porcelain forms conceal electrical junctions and enfold lights which hang, wires and all, from a floating framework. Looking up, and with the help of a small flashlight and step stool, one is rewarded by the discovery of monochromatic assemblages affixed to the ceiling.

 

Within the darkened room, participants become slowly aware of being surrounded by a large array of these small, delicate compositions. These highly organized designs are arranged in loose intervals across all the walls of the exhibit. Flat planes of fired porcelain shapes are intertwined with a variety of materials including embroidery hoops, glassine, vellum, and cardboard to become monochromatic constellations of delicate beauty.

Bird songs intermixed with softly spoken words encourage the viewer to look around the space of the exhibition to discover their source.  Within the space of the installation, one becomes aware of the gentle mystery of night.  

Anne Trauben: Step Up on a Stool to Reach the Sky, curated by Paul Pinkman, at Watchung Arts Center, 18 Sterling Road, Watchung, NJ, runs through October 22, 2023.

Winifred McNeill is an artist living in Jersey City. Read Winifred's bio here and view her artwork here.

NJ & Me: Imperfect Together, 5/25/23 - 7/29/23 at The Terrarium Gallery and The Alcove Gallery at Drawing Rooms

Imperfect Impressions: NJ and Me…
by Peter Delman
6/26/23

In the climactic final scene of Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans, the young aspiring filmmaker meets the cranky legend John Ford. Ford (played by David Lynch, of course) has only patience enough to share one piece of wisdom with the neophyte: “The horizon at the bottom of the frame is interesting. The horizon at the top of the frame is interesting. The horizon in the center is boring as shit!”

The artists in NJ and Me: Imperfect Together embrace this lesson, no doubt without coaching from a cantankerous maestro. There’s hardly a middling horizon in sight, and glorious skies and evocative foregrounds are the result. Tim Daly’s low horizons and big skies give his luminous clouds room to roam. In Tim Heins’ Dusk, Jersey City, bands of enigmatic color blaze like chevrons across a banner of sky.

In movies the high angle (horizon at the top) is used to express vulnerability. In Dorie Dahlberg’s stark beach scenes, Love Before COVID 2 and New Year’s Day. Will This Be the Year?, a few isolated figures brave the cold winter winds in a vast expanse of sand. In contrast, the sun shines bright in the beach paintings by John Meehan III and Sue Ellen Ley. In Meehan’s Safari Towel the looming Dad silhouette balanced by the crouching figure in shadow gives the painting an extra jolt of Baroque energy.

Lots of attention is paid here to New Jersey’s urban scene, though just about everyone wisely gives contemporary architecture a wide berth. Alan Ostrowski’s loving drawings of the Bayonne bridge sparkle. Kevin McCaffrey’s Hoodsin County is an understated send-up of historical maps. You need to pay close attention to catch all the playful humor in this and his other works. McCaffrey cites Finnegan’s Wake as a major influence on his process. His lodestar is Joycean stream of consciousness, and these images deliver unpredictable surprise—even to him. The plot thickens when he discusses his former life as a Dominican priest, and there’s the flawless rendering of the map itself, which even divine inspiration can’t account for.

Anne Trauben’s portraits of Jersey diners capture the full brilliance of their iconic neon signs. (Kudos to Trauben for curating this ambitious, intelligent exhibition.) Christopher Z. is also intrigued by signs, which flow across his drawings with the grace of water. James Pustorino’s Wildwood photographs celebrate the engineering of some of our most gonzo, loopy creative minds. It’s a pleasure to see this gem of pop culture still preserved and being enjoyed to the hilt.

In Photo Sculptura 2, Jean-Paul Picard uses a glass brick wall as a ready-made distortion filter. There are echoes of art history evident here—cubist fragmentation, surreal mystery, the grid. But in the end, thanks to the instant karma of the camera shutter, the image is an up-to-the- 
minute shining artifact of the present.

“Sign on the window says lonely” is my favorite opening lyric by Bob Dylan—an apt tag line for New Jersey, to judge by much of the work in this show. The few figures on Dahlberg’s beaches punctuate their bleak emptiness. Tim Daly’s highways are more deserted than in the first week of COVID lockdown. No one ventures out onto the spooky dollhouse streetscapes of Jessica Rohrer’s Precisionist paintings. Rohrer describes these immaculate streetscapes as “sanitized” and “disturbing,” and agrees that The Rapture might conceivably begin on her block. They are based on drone stills, which may have something to do with why they bring to mind films like Blue Velvet and The Truman Show.

Lauren H. Adams goes right for the heart of desolation. Her discarded couches are a lesson in how mute objects are capable of speaking to us with achingly poignant eloquence.

I went to college in Vermont. My freshman-year student dorm counselor was from Oklahoma. He was very impressed with lush Vermont, but took great delight in mocking New Jersey as “the armpit of the nation.” I didn’t know then that much of the Garden State is just as green as the Green Mountain State. As for Oklahoma, it’s presumably OK.

Forty percent of New Jersey is forested, and several artists here speak for the trees.  Doug Madill’s painting of Leonard Gordon Park captures, with expressively assured brush strokes, the golden light of a summer evening on urban trees. Edward Fausty’s exquisite photographs of woodlands are a moving testament to what we have and what we stand to lose—elegiac 
reliquaries for precious fragments of the true world. He describes his spherical images as evoking the experience astronauts have viewing the earth—"a living rock floating in the black void.”  Fausty knows what it is “to see the world in a grain of sand.” 

Viewing Eileen Ferara’s painting of the Hudson estuary, we imagine for a moment that the turbulent, unruly forces of nature have the power to hold at bay the “dark Satanic Mills” lurking in the background. I see Anne Percoco’s gentle installation Heap II as a riddle or koan: “when is a leaf not a leaf?” Is the pile of leaves, meticulously fashioned from paper street litter, a reproach, or something more ambivalent? So it goes in our imperfect New Jersey state of mind.

NJ & Me: Imperfect Together is curated by Anne Trauben.

Peter Delman is an artist living in Jersey City. Read Peter's bio here and view his artwork here.

Learn more about the exhibition and view images on Drawing Rooms website here.