Richard Gaines: Rope and Oak

Richard Gaines is a longtime Montclair resident and mixed media artist. His work includes unconventional materials that tell a story of the Black Male. He incorporates the past and present history of the Black Experience in his art. His Rope and Oak series is made from over 300 pieces of wood. Rope and oak were chosen because of their role in the murders of Black men for centuries.

Commodity made from clay, burlap, and rusted cans represents the ongoing history of Black men being bought and sold for the financial gain of others.

Mary Young

Like most things, I fall in and out of love with paintings on a daily basis. This series represents modern dramas, focusing mainly on creating ambiance and characters while exploring the everyday occurrences, emotions, dreams, and traumas of relationships. In a way I’m in the painting as a catalyst, the mover of forms, maker of gestures and builder of perspective as colors and shape intertwine, akin to body language pressing forward. It is a movement, sensual at times, more aggressive at others but the paintings are raw, because the drama of life is being there and willing to be part of the play.

Mary Young grew up in Montclair, New Jersey with two sisters. They were constantly using their imaginations to play. She can recall creating lengthy stories, and detailed characters in their own little world. These “little worlds’’ directly impact her paintings to date. Young graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2011 with a Bachelors of Fine Arts. Since returning to New Jersey,her work has been heavily influenced by cinema,  literature and contemporary conflicts. Creating narratives of self exploration, Young places her over exposed figures in stage-like settings, allowing the viewer to enter into a world of surreal familiarity. Using thick, honest brushstrokes, one is quickly seduced into exploring the various plains of color, line and raw markings. She currently works out of her studio at Manufacturer’s Village in East Orange, NJ.

Martin Dull: Bloomfield Boogie-Woogie

Bloomfield Boogie-Woogie consists of four separate works of art tied together by a gridded scaffolding and series of hanging electric lights. The languages of painting and sculpture are used to evoke my own life experiences while the conflation of personal narrative, poetry, mythology, and iconography are used to create environments that rattle the viewer’s preconceptions. Together, these elements speak to ideas of narrative, time, architecture and the possibility of finding your zen within the tumult of modern living. Much as I see our individual and collective futures, I strive to leave the work open in both content and form.

Ultimately, this work speaks as much to potential futures as it does to past traditions. The aim is to use visual language to open the viewer to new  possibilities, thereby fostering an embrace of the unbounded potential in the world around them.

Martin Dull (b. 1986) is a mixed media artist known for his large gestural paintings and unconventional use of materials. He studied at Pratt Institute, Marywood University, and the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture, where he received his MFA. He was the 2015 recipient of the Peter Rippon/Royal Academy European Travel Grant, a 2016 artist in residence at the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation, a 2017/18 Trestle Open Studio Resident and a 2020/21 NYSS Dumbo Sculpture Studio Resident.

He has been a guest speaker and critic at several institutions including Pratt Institute, Fordham University, and Hunter College. Dull has co-curated exhibitions throughout the New York metropolitan area, and is co-founder of the curatorial collaborative JMN Artists.

Dull’s artwork has been included in both group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States, most notably John Davis Gallery, Hudson, M David & Co, Brooklyn, and Rexer Contemporary, Hoboken.

Keely McCool: Impetus of Creation. site specific/time specific sculpture installation

This series is my interpretation of Evolution.

“Oracle” center round sculpture
Represents our inner truths and dreams.
I created a center vortex to depict energy moving inwards towards the center of the human body sparking ones imagination.

“Emerge” wing sculpture
From within creates New
Both pieces are made of Earth to represent Life.

“In the Clouds” corner installations
Stepping into the unknown
Handmade flax paper pulp and wire

Time specific.
I believe Humanity was giving this time to reflect on our personal lives and all other areas that call-for-change. I believe humanity’s awareness is waking up and together we can move towards what we prefer.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” – Albert Einstein

Keely McCool is a sculptress living in Montclair and has a studio at Manufactures Village in East Orange. She is a recipient of a Sculpture Fellowship from New Jersey Council on the Arts and received an International Outstanding Contemporary Student Award from International Sculpture Center. Her work has been published in the International Sculpture Magazine and has shown in several Museums, Universities, and Galleries.
To view more work by McCool or know more about her private and group classes please visit *** McCoolArtStudio.com or email at KeelyJMcCool@outlook.com