Studio Montclair announces “Portfolio Series: Imaginary Places,” from November 2 through 29, 2016, at the Montclair Public Library Gallery, 50 S. Fullerton Ave., Montclair, NJ. Join us for an opening reception on Monday, November 7, from 6 to 8:45pm. From 7:45 to 8:45pm there will be a panel discussion featuring the exhibiting artists and moderated by the exhibit curator, Linda Streicher.
Montclair Public Library Gallery
50 S. Fullerton Ave.
Montclair, NJ 07042
HOURS: Mon-Thu 10am-8pm | Fri & Sat 10am-6pm | Sun 1-6pm
Inspired by real life or fantastical thoughts and feelings, artists have the opportunity to create imaginary places where the mind can travel and explore free of physical limitations. These imaginary worlds can be light, whimsical, and evoke joy; they can be dark, foreboding, and incite introspection or angst. The process can be the escape in and of itself, with the resulting artwork reflecting the journey.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Santiago Cohen, Julie Friedman, Joan Lesikin, Zahra Nazari, Nancy Ori, Marianne Trent
CURATOR’S STATEMENT
Imaginary places in art function much as dreams do in sleep. Untethered to reality, dreams digest real life and create a surreal world where the subconscious can explore the dreamer’s joys and angsts. Similarly, artists draw from their experiences and environments to create imaginary places where the mind can travel unencumbered by physical limitations to explore deeply personal and unresolved issues.
This exhibition focuses on the work of six artists, their individual inspirations, and the fictitious worlds they have created as a result.
Santiago Cohen and Zahra Nazari each confront unsettling emotions in regard to their bicultural identities. For Cohen, his Mexican heritage and contemporary American life unite in his art to form surreal, figurative scenes loaded with social commentary. For Nazari, her native Iranian culture conflicts with her modern New York life, a clash that finds expression through her work’s merging of archeological and modern architectural forms.
Julie Friedman and Joan Lesikin transform the landscape to investigate internal perspectives with highly emotional and mystifying results. In Friedman’s work, viewers enter a world where colors instantaneously alter mood, trees morph into emboldened figures, and scenes convey a world of emotions. Lesikin’s landscapes question the viewers’ assumptions and expectations by blanketing monumental and seemingly mountainous areas in striped fabric.
Marianne Trent’s and Nancy Ori’s work examines details of their everyday environment to express an inner spirituality. Trent’s assemblages of found and painted objects reveal a profound and intimate experience with nature. Nancy Ori’s photographs strip away any recognizable physical object to seek its underlying essence and the unexpected.
In a world fraught with havoc and stress, a place of refuge where one can escape, contemplate, and detoxify is vital. Art and dreams have that power. They alter reality and create imaginary places where the mind is offered an alternate and enlightened view of the world.
CURATOR
Linda Streicher is an oil painter and architect who currently practices in New Jersey and paints out of her studio in Morristown, NJ. She received her Masters in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, a BA degree in Fine Art and a BS degree in Business from the University of Pennsylvania. Streicher has shown her work throughout the New York metropolitan area and has won several awards. Her work is in corporate and private collections in NJ, NY, IN and FL. She co-curates art exhibits for the Hyatt at Headquarters Plaza and conducts workshops at ArtSpace in Morristown. For more information visit www.lstreicher.com
OPENING NIGHT & PANEL DISCUSSION