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.

Ani Rosskam and Bill Leech: A Wonderful World, 9/29/22 - 1/13/23, The Terrarium Gallery and The Alcove Gallery at Drawing Rooms

by Bruce Halpin

Ani Rosskam left and middle
Bill Leech right

Ani Rosskam and Bill Leech have provided a fascinating look into a world of serious whimsy; full of magic and humor, as well as viscerally impressive color. A substantial portion of the show is comprised of large scale works hugely ambitious and yet touchingly intimate and personal.  

Ani Rosskam’s work, while quite different from Leech’s work, compliments his ideas. The large  painting “Plop” is like an unlikely collision of color field painting and some sort of surrealism  that really defies any categorical attempt to be defined. Another large work, “Old Black Painting“, displays a sort of dream logic that disappears when you get too close to its meaning. In addition to the large works, Rosskam’s smaller works, mostly collage, invoke a similar undefinable unease combined with a sharp wit and undeniable humor. You are not going to be able to put a finger on what’s happening here. The work is disquieting, yet familiar, almost like an X-ray of a really complicated sensibility with which you mistakenly believe you’re familiar.  

Bill Leech’s large paintings employ an astonishing variety of painterly strategies that often seem to be at odds with each other but ultimately combine as a coherent statement. And it’s fun to see.  

Leech’s command of painting techniques brings an authoritative completeness to what otherwise might be just too disparate to coexist in a painting wherein the magic lies. Leech’s use of color is equally impressive. He has included some drawings and prints that further augment his vision and provide other avenues of wonder. There’s a private intuitive logic that makes it all work. 

When considering that these two artists live together, it’s hard to believe there’s enough room in any finite place for these huge imaginations. Sometimes it seems as if they are in a dialogue exchanging oblique messages about a shared universe. Of course each body of work stands on its own strength, but together they provide a powerful experience for the viewer and a glimpse into what is indeed a wonderful world.

Ani Rosskam and Bill Leech: A Wonderful World, curated by Anne Trauben, runs from 9/29/22 - 1/13/23.

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

David & Beatrice: Hands and Other Symbols. The Work of David W. Cummings and Beatrice M. Mady, 3/13/20 - 5/3/20, at Drawing Rooms

Drawing Rooms celebrates the life and work of David W. Cummings, and a life lived with Beatrice M. Mady. They met in 1977 and began a relationship as artists and a romance that would span four decades. David passed from us last year. Drawing Rooms is pleased to show much of his work in this retrospective, which includes Beatrice’s work as well.
by Peter Delman
3/13/20

David & Beatrice: Hands and Other Symbols. The Work of David W. Cummings and Beatrice M. Mady, is a show about duality, primarily a tension between Modernist tradition and Romantic freedom. The joy of the work asserts that you can have your cake and, after all, eat it too.
David’s roots were in an orthodox allegiance to a Classical style loyal to the majesty of the grid and the primacy of flatness and the picture plane. But he also harbored an unruly urge to Rococo exuberance. His muse was Cezanne, who loved stable structure above all, but lit an iconoclastic fire that radically engulfed the world of art. 
David’s work follows a stately trajectory from pure color field abstraction toward a hybrid of formalism and image-making.

"Fire in the Hole" by David W. Cummings

In Fire in the Hole (1988), a phalanx of shapes threaten a color riot that in lesser hands would jostle for attention but here suggest a well-orchestrated symphony.

"Eastern Breeze" by David W. Cummings

In an earlier work, Eastern Breeze (1974), we glimpse the genesis of these signature “cloud” shapes. This seminal work has a pointillist buzz and manic energy that is harnessed and brought to heel in subsequent paintings.

"Montauk" by David W. Cummings

"In Harm's Way" by David W. Cummings

In Montauk and In Harm’s Way (1993), the once-sacrosanct picture plan is fragmented, no doubt in homage to the beloved Cezanne and Cubism’s coming storm.
With the advent of the hand paintings in the 1990s, David moved decisively from a flirtation with figuration to an embrace.  Abstraction still ruled the roost, mind you, but the hand shapes can no longer claim anonymity. They are “portraits” of specific people, though often that person is the artist himself. The hand image refers to a symbol of human self-expression ubiquitous from paleolithic times to the children’s art rooms of today, and to the hand-eye relationship essential to the artist.  

hand paintings on paper installation by David W. Cummings

The large wall installation made up of hand paintings on paper showcases David’s mastery of rhythm, harmony, and radiant color. A number of paintings pair male and female hands— duality again.

"Witch Hunter" by David W. Cummings

The central image of Witch Hunter (2015) with its wild tapestry of color and explosive mandala exemplifies David at his delightful and daring best.
David is a master of many media. Whether pastels, markers, watercolor, or oil, every work dances joyfully.
In Beatrice’s paintings and digital prints, she explores Modernist ideas with emphases on evocative shapes and interlocking lines and, just as with David, luminous color is supreme. There is a clear division between the upper and lower sectors in each oil painting. This demarcation is straight and level and mostly painted black. In most cases, the palette of the lower region is more somber, as befitting a quasi-underworld. The space is often populated by a trio or trios of shapes recruited from the artist’s personal iconography.  
Though some of her recurring images have their origins in representational sources, Beatrice thinks of them as purely abstract shapes.

"The Dead Can Dance" by Beatrice Mady

In The Dead Can Dance (1997), Beatrice veers closest to a narrative interpretation, and this tension between symbol and abstraction is arresting. With pelican-like shapes roosting in the understory, and skeletal fragments lurking above, there is more than a hint of the dark and tragic haunting this powerful painting.

The circle is another favorite shape harkening back to Plato’s symbol of the cosmos. The backstory is that Beatrice’s engineer father gave her his compass set; her early fascination with this magical tool has influenced her work ever since. 

"Knock Out" by Beatrice Mady

In recent digital work, her love of antiquity and Matisse are pervasive. Arabesques of Tunisian architecture are overlaid with complementary lines and abstract shapes. Photo images of ethereal art from the real world are matched and conjoined with pure abstraction.
“Painting is another form of thinking,” according to Gerhard Richter. Perhaps there is an implication here of a fundamental duality in the life of an artist. The artist thinks and functions like everyone else in their everyday world, but in the studio, a transformation— possibly miraculous, can occur.
Phillip Guston described this idea in an interview with Robert Storr: In the studio, the artist is alone with Velasquez, Picasso, and all the great masters he admires. Then one by one they leave— and if he is truly engaged,“even he leaves”. 
To inhabit that zone, even if only fleetingly, is the greatest fringe benefit of a creative life. This exhibition is replete with evidence that both Beatrice and David often experienced that altered and exalted state.

David & Beatrice: Hands and Other Symbols. The Work of David W. Cummings and Beatrice M. Mady, curated by Anne Trauben, runs from 3/13/20 - 5/3/20.

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

THE BIG SHOW: All Animals Welcome, 12/14/19 - 2/8/20, at Drawing Rooms

by Bruce Halpin
1/29/20

THE BIG SHOW: All Animals Welcome at Drawing Rooms is a big (nearly 70 artists, 136 works) rambunctious offering. Curated by Anne Trauben, the works include paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, video and objects. The works in the show investigate the varied relationships humans have with animals as companions, providers of utility as well as objects of reflection and metaphor.

“Midnight Companion” by Judith Witlin

“Secret Conversation” by Judith Witlin

“Goddamn Crow” by Michael Lavorgna

“Moonlight Deer” by Michael Lavorgna 

“Anecdote of a Chiken” by Ibou Ndoye

“House Mouse” by Ibou Ndoye

The earliest figurative paintings were of animals. Their function is largely open to conjecture but seems to revolve around the hunt and suggest a spiritual connection between the animals and the hunters. This is certainly the case with paintings by the Indigenous Peoples of North America. Many works in the show convey a spiritual connection to their subjects. Among these are the monoprints “Midnight Companion” and “Secret Conversation” by Judith Witlin. Two works by Michael Lavorgna “Goddamn Crow” and “Moonlight Deer” share that dreamlike quality. Two small works by Ibou Ndoye “House Mouse” and “Anecdote of a Chiken” also suggest a shamanistic connection between artist and subject.

“Double Rainbow” by Bud McNicol

“Breakfast Surprise” by Robert Zurer 

“Flamingo” by Eileen Ferara 

Anne Trauben’s video “Indie’s Escape”

Alejandro Ruben’s video “Earthworms”

A sense of humor is a strong current which runs through the show. Bud McNicol’s “Double Rainbow” presents a camping trip gone terribly awry, it’s hilarity underscored by it’s anodyne title. Robert Zurer’s tiny painting, “Breakfast Surprise” is a goofy, yet beautifully painted, rendering of what appears to be a giraffe wearing a red surgical mask. Eileen Ferara’s “Flamingo” is reminiscent of a painting by Audubon on acid with its woefully convoluted neck. Anne Trauben’s short video “Indie’s Escape” displays a rather madcap humor (I won’t spoil it by describing it). Likewise, Alejandro Ruben’s “Earthworms” is dryly humorous, contrasting the video of the worms with a Salsa soundtrack.

"Let Sleeping Dogs Lie" by Andrea Geller

"Shadow" by Andrea Geller

"Waiting" by Andrea Geller

"Waiting II" by Andrea Geller

Tracey Kerdman’s painting “Milk Teeth”

Tracey Kerdman’s painting “The Offering”

While animals as companions comprise a substantial portion of the works here, a number of pieces exceed the documentary. Andrea Geller’s four oil paintings are really meditations on the nature of materials, color and light. These paintings are forcefully beautiful with deft handling of paint. Similarly, Tracey Kerdman’s paintings, “Milk Teeth” and “The Offering” transcend their subjects in weird, uncomfortable ways. “Milk Teeth” shows two adolescent boys flanking a German Shepard. The undercurrent of unease is not in what this painting shows, but, rather, in what is left out. “The Offering” evinces a similar displacement of normal life. The subject (a dog) is presented as a specimen or object of examination, clinically displayed as if in preparation for some sort of procedure. In both of these works there is an inversion of the “family pet” picture, with an unstated but felt menace lurking somewhere beyond the frame.

"Pelt 4" by Caroline Burton

"Pelt 5" by Caroline Burton

"Pelt 6" by Caroline Burton

"As Luck Would Have It" by Caroline Burton

Caroline Burton’s paintings “Pelt”, “Pelt”, “Pelt” and “As Luck Would Have It”, draw attention to the idea that our relationship to the world of animals is not always benign. Her sensitively painted pelts belie the violence, which transforms them from the skin of a living animal to an object, presumably of utility. Perhaps Ms. Burton’s intent is to disrupt the sentimentality inherent in “cute furry things”, injecting a dose of reality for our consideration.

"Keeping Us in Line" by Stephen Krasner

Many of the works I can only mention in passing but deserve appreciation. They occupy a category I can only describe as “other”. Steven Krasner’s sensitive portraits of his poodle companion have a glow that seems almost otherworldly and thoroughly transcend the “pet portrait”.

Cheryl Hochberg’s “Wool Spinner”

Robert Levy’s “Loading Zone”

Joshua Field’s “Thinking About the Many Ways We Are Bound”

Works that consider the utility of animals include Cheryl Hochberg’s “Wool Spinner”, Robert Levy’s “Loading Zone” and Joshua Field’s “Thinking About the Many Ways We Are Bound”. Mr. Field’s work seems to be based on a manual of how a horse is hobbled but expands to become metaphor.

"Wandering Cow" by Beatrice Mady

"Second Life of Limulus Polyphemus" by Milosz Koziej

"Beavers Revenge" by Casey McGarr

"Curly Rabbit" by Casey McGarr

"Squirrel Revenge" by Casey McGarr 

"Kafka's Pet" by Emily Broussard

"Long Elephant" by Cheryl Gross

"Polar Bear" by Cheryl Gross

"Small Giraffe" by Cheryl Gross

Eugenio Espinosa, "Tere con Repisa"

Eugenio Espinosa, "Abuelo, Marti, Papis"

Eugenio Espinosa, "Venados, Loma"

Lizzie Scott, "Mantaray"

Lizzie Scott, "Mantaray"

Brad Terhune's "Psychedelic Goats and Other Horned Creatures No. 2"

Brad_Terhune's "Psychedelic Goats and Other Horned Creatures No. 3"

Brad Terhune's "Psychedelic Goats and Other Horned Creatures No. 4"

Jodie Fink's "Avemhamo"

Jodie Fink's "Equusavem"

Works that defy categorization but deserve consideration are Beatrice Mady’s “Wandering Cow”, Milosz Koziej’s “Second Life of Emulous Polyphemus”, Casey McGarr’s broadly comic letterpress works, Emily Broussard’s deft painting of a roach, Cheryl Gross’s mixed media work, Eugenio Espinosa’s porcelain works, Lizzy Scott’s “Mantaray”, Brad Terhune’s pop inspired collages, and Jody Fink’s found object creatures which are just plain fun.

There are many more funny, profound, perplexing and well executed than those mentioned above, more than time permits. Anyone interested in animals, contemporary art, or are just in need of an uplift should go see the show in person. It’s well worth the trip. And bring your pet.

THE BIG SHOW: All Animals Welcome, featuring works by artists Alpana Mittal, Adriana Robertson, Alan Walker, Alejandro Rubin, Allen Strombosky, Andra Samelson, Andrea Geller, Anne Q McKeown, Anne Trauben, Beatrice M Mady, Bill Stamos, Brad Terhune, Bruno Nadalin, Bud McNichol, Caridad Kennedy, Carmen Recio, Caroline Burton, Casey McGarr, Cheryl Gross, Cheryl Hochberg, Chris Garcia, Eileen Ferara, Emily Broussard, Eugenio Espinosa, Gloria Adams, HJ Kleiber, Ibou Ndoye, Jane Dell, Jane Westrick, Jane Zweibel, Jodie Fink, Joe Lugara, Joshua Field, Joy Bush, Judith Witlin, Katharina Litchman, Katie Niewodowski, Kevin McCaffrey, Kim Wiseman, Laura Lou Levy, Laura Pawson, Linda Byrne, Linda Gottesfeld, Lizzie Scott, Lola Sandino Stanton, Lori Field, Lydia Viscardi, Lyubava Kroll, Marcia G. Yerman, Mary Beth King, Michael Lavorgna, Milosz Koziej, Mollie Thonneson, Nanette Reynolds Beachner, Pam Marchin, Rachel Aisenson, Rebecca Major, Robert Levy, Robert Zurer, Ry An, Sarah Walko, Scot Wittman, Stephen Krasner, Steven Barker, Tracy Kerdman, Vija Doks, Zewen Wang, continues until February 8 at Drawing Rooms at 926 Newark Avenue in Jersey City. A selection of works from the show can be viewed online at the Drawing Rooms website.

THE BIG SHOW: All Animals Welcome at Drawing Rooms, 12/14/19 - 2/8/20, is curated by Anne Trauben.

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