Studio Montclair is excited to launch its 20th anniversary celebration with the works of ten SMI artists professionally reproduced on 70 banners hung from poles on many of Montclair’s busiest streets.
Studio Montclair will launch its 20th anniversary celebration from September 4 to October 21, 2017 with the works of ten SMI artists professionally reproduced on 70 banners hung from poles on many of Montclair’s busiest streets.
The SMI celebration, sponsored in part by Keller Williams NJ Metro, will peak at the Saturday night, October 21st “Affair of the Art” fundraiser at 13 Label Street, Montclair. At that event, the ten original works of art displayed on the banners—selected by Montclair-based curator Kathy Imlay—will be auctioned.
The artworks run the gamut from painting and photography to carving/construction and mixed media. States Kathy Imlay, “For twenty years, Studio Montclair has made a place in the world for artists to exchange ideas with fellow creatives and to engage the public in relevant critical discussion, as well as in the pure joy of the visual arts. The ten banner artists selected showcase talent in a wide range of process, practice, and conception that reflects SMI’s pivotal role in within the community—and carries forward Montclair’s legacy as an artist colony.”
All proceeds from the banner program, will help Studio Montclair fund its new home, establish grants for emerging visual artists, and finance SMI’s ongoing projects.
CURATOR
Kathy Imlay is an independent consultant, curator, and director of Imlay Gallery. Her exhibition program and off-site projects focus on emerging and established artists whose work carries both meaning and beauty. Ms. Imlay is also the founder and director of Vessels of Things Less Ordinary, an enterprise that uses art to give voice and support to at-risk women and girls throughout the world. Recently, she also co-curated the exhibition “Janet Taylor Pickett: The Matisse Series” at the Montclair Art Museum.
BANNER ARTISTS
GWEN CHARLES gwencharles.com; Multi-disciplinary artist Gwen Charles creates site-specific, collaborative live performances and choreographed actions for and with the camera using handcrafted wearable props and sculptures. Her works have been viewed in international venues and video festivals in New York, Germany, Slovenia, and Croatia. She has participated in artist residencies in Mexico, India, and Slovenia. She completed her MFA with Transart Institute, Berlin, Germany and undergraduate studies at Parsons School of Design and The New School for Public Engagement. Her studio is in Montclair, NJ.
Glass Shards – In this portrait, the body becomes the surface for a mosaic using glass shards from gwen charles’ grandmother’s collection of vintage glass that she collected in the Bronx during the blackouts and fires of the 60’s and 70’s. Used as adornment, the translucent quality of glass is lost, but the reflective and iridescent qualities remain. Without adhesive, in the heat of summer, the glass sticks to the humid body.
ASHA GANPAT ashaganpat.com; Asha is a visual artist born in Trinidad, WI and now living and working in New Jersey. She received her B.F.A. from Mason Gross, Rutgers University and M.F.A. from Montclair State University. She has shown at institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Exit Art, The Noyes Museum, The Queens Museum, The Jersey City Museum and the Nathan Cummings Foundation. Her work was cited as one of NYC’s top 10 art installations of 2012 by Complex Magazine. She is an alumna of Aljira’s Emerge, Gaia’s Wonderwomen Program, the NJ Book Art Symposium, Chashama North and Trinidad’s Alice Yard residencies.
Marzana is from her series “Bad Bitches” in which Asha carves old record album covers of women to embody different goddesses who wield their powers, exert free will, and pursue their desires. The goddesses are selected from the world’s cultures and across time through human history. Marzana is a Baltic/Slavic goddess who personified winter and is shown in water as a symbol of her rebirth. She is known as the goddess of witchcraft, death and rebirth of winter.
SAMUEL IZTUETA samuel-iztueta.squarespace.com; Samuel was born in Argentina, and currently lives and works in NJ. He is an emerging artist working primarily in oil and acrylics. While he uses a variety of materials his methodology is consistent. Samuel believes art is the key to communication, saying “Paint is provocation, a boost to the nervous system.” His work is influenced by surrealism in the rearranging of his ideas.
In his painting Time Machine III, Samuel is interested in exploring time and memory, and depicting the human condition without a figure in the composition. By juxtaposing and compounding imagery he hopes to elicit an emotional response from the viewer.
PAUL JERVIS; As a prominent graphic designer and art director, Paul Jervis created well-known, iconic images for companies like United Airlines, Vanguard Investing, and Volkswagen. He works in both a representational and abstract mode, often using everyday objects and situations. Paul studied at the University of Maryland, The School of Visual Arts (where he also teaches), and the Art Students League in New York City.
In his oil painting Number 3 Paul controls compositional space with acumen and perceptiveness that displays a depth of concept and composition influenced by his previous métier.
JENNIFER LEVINE jlevinestudio.com; Jennifer is a self-taught artist living in Montclair who began painting as an adult during a challenging life transition. She has a B.A. in Jewish Studies and also completed a two-year Conservatory program at the San Francisco School of Circus Arts. She is the co-founder of “The Peace Garden Song and Mural Project, an arts program that combines, murals, music and mindfulness and has worked with over 1000 school children to explore peacemaking, create songs, and use the songs to paint giant murals.
Love More Think Less, like most of her work is about uplift. Jennifer believes that painting is a tool for healing. Her subjects include inclusion, love, cooperation, and peace making.
JOAN LESIKIN lesikin.com; Joan was born and raised in Rockland County, New York, and now resides in Asheville, NC. She received her BFA from Syracuse University’s School of Art, and her MFA from Rutgers University. Joan began drawing at four and studying oil painting at twelve. She is recipient of numerous awards including a Woodstock Artists Association Grant, and NYS Arts Alive Grant. Her work is in collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art Loan Collection, French & Co. Gallery in NYC, and Galería Juana Mordó in Madrid.
Her oil painting Shawangunk Ridge is from her Bodyscapes series. In this work fabric becomes a metaphoric landscape of mountains and valleys and, simultaneously, a literal covering like a coverlet or blanket. Joan wants to offer the viewer a dual experience: an exploration of hills and valleys of a landscape and of crevices and curves of the draped human form. She uses the fabrics to help complete a pictorial narrative by providing a rich background for the viewer to interpret.
YVETTE LUCAS yvettelucas.com; Yvette is a photographer and printmaker who finds her primary inspiration in nature and our interaction with it. Her formal training culminated with a BFA from The Cooper Union, in NYC. Yvette has participated in solo, curated, and juried exhibitions nationally in commercial galleries and in the community. She has served the local arts community as a board member of Studio Montclair in the roles of Communications Coordinator & President. Yvette is represented by the Sohn Fine Art Gallery in Lennox, MA and The Old Print Shop in NYC.
Mother II is a photo Intaglio, printed from Solarplates™, steel plates coated with a light sensitive polymer. The plate is exposed with a film positive using sunlight or other form of UV light to burn the image onto the plate. The processed plates are then inked, hand wiped, and printed on an etching press in small editions.
SHARON PITTS sharonpitts.com; Listed in Who’s Who in American Art, Sharon Pitts’ watercolors combine interplay between representation and abstraction with unexpected color combinations and composition, working with the natural flow and the unexpected qualities of watercolor. She teaches at the Montclair Art Museum, hosts workshops in Europe each summer, and her work is in many private and corporate collections.
Autumn Leaves, was inspired by an afternoon sitting on her porch observing leaves blowing off the tress and swirling around. Sharon made a list of words describing what she was seeing and turned it into the painting.
ELA SHAH elashah.com; Ela was born in Bombay, India, began painting at a very early age, and learned Indian miniature painting techniques as well as various Western styles. After receiving a B.A. in Psychology, and a diploma in Fine Arts from India, she traveled the world, moved to the U.S. and received her M.A. in sculpture at Montclair State University. She is known for her highly inventive wall sculpture and mobiles that explore culture by fusing her Indian heritage with Western influences. Her works have layers of personal meaning and often address deeper issues created by multiculturalism in America. Her works are in the collection of N.J. State Museum, Montclair Art Museum, Zimmerli Museum, Hunterdon Museum, Air India, and the Indian Embassy. She received fellowships from the N J State Council on the Arts, Dodge Foundation, NJ Innovative Printmaking, Amelia Peabody Memorial Award and Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation Award.
In her unique work of art, Power of Women, Ela takes a limited edition print that she made in 2002 and re-imagines it in 2017 by drawing and painting over the print, creating a new original of a former multiple.
JON TANER jontaner.com; Jon was born and raised in New Jersey. His earliest studies at the Art Students League in New York City were followed by classes at the Philadelphia College of Art. He obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts and his Master of Fine Arts from Syracuse University.
Jon is known for his mixed media and collage works that layer materials to tell stories of what lies beneath the surface. Many of his works are urban landscapes in which he addresses how we store memories and how those memories can emerge after years of being buried. He is interested in the remnants of people’s passage in places they inhabit. His work is in private and corporate collections including Intercontinental Hotels, Schering Plough, Nabisco, Passaic County Community College and the former Bergen County Museum of Art.