Past Exhibitions

2013 Exhibits

Romantic Realism: January 7- February 16, 2013

Opening Reception and Curator Talk: Friday, January 11th from 6-8 p.m.

Artist Talk & Presentation by Mel Leipzig: Thursday, February 7th from 6-7:30 - $10 (Members free)

“Romantic Realism” is curated by renowned New Jersey painter Mel Leipzig and presents the work of painters Daniel Finaldi, Linda Pochesci and Kyle Stevenson. In his curator’s statement Leipzig explains, “Realism in painting in its purest sense can be described as an objective record of the surface of reality. When realism is used as the vehicle to express an intense subjective feeling, it enters the realm of romanticism. The three artists in this exhibition….use the structure of visual realism to express deeply felt, highly personal, emotional states.Therefore they can be called Romantic Realists.”

Daniel Finaldi lives in Highland Park, NJ and teaches Fine Art and Art History at Freehold Borough High School. He has an MFA from BrooklynCollege. Finaldi states, “I am devoted to observing people as they are and as I perceive them in their space. I wish to paint what I believe to be beautiful; space, air, color and the spark of life and the dignity that is in every soul.”

Originally from New Jersey, Linda Pochesci now lives and paints in Hyde Park, MA. She has an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and her work has been exhibited extensively. She taught at Rhode Island School of Design and most recently at WestMorrisCentralHigh School, Chester until 2011. Pochesci explains, “I am attracted to the dynamics of architectural spaces.  Light and the shadows that it casts speak to me about the poetics of space.”

Hamilton, NJ artist Kyle Stevenson is a professor at MercerCountyCollege where he has taught Drawing, painting and 2D Design since 2002. He has an MFA Painting from the University of Delaware. According to Stevenson, “It was always assumed that he would become an artist, ever since as a three year old he needed to draw in order to keep quiet in church.”

Youth Art Month Exhibits: March

Exhibit Part I: Artwork by students in grades 6 through 12
Exhibit Dates: March 1 – 10, 2013

Part II: Artwork by students in grades K through 5
Exhibit Dates: March 15 – 25, 2013

Congratulations to the following artists whose work was selected for the statewide exhibit at the State Museum in Trenton:

 

2012 Exhibits

Revisiting Landscape: Paintings by Wes Sherman 
humus redux: landscape painting across a spectrum of abstraction

January 6 – February 25, 2012

Revisiting Landscape: Paintings by Wes Sherman
Curated by Donna Gustafson, Andrew W. Mellon Liaison for Academic Programs and Curator, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

In Revisiting Landscape Sherman explores the relationship between abstraction and landscape painting in his work, often starting with a painting from the canon of painting history, for example by Constable or Courbet, and abstracting it until he discovers something new about color, space and paint.

Sherman has been painting since 1992 and studied under Thomas Nozkowski at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University where he received a Masters degree. He has shown in Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Tennessee and is represented by the Baumgartner Gallery (Salzburg, Austria), and hermanworks (Nashville,TN). He often is a visiting artist at Universities across the county, most recently at Temple University’s Tyler School of  Art.

Sherman has had 24 solo shows and has been included in numerous group shows. Over the past year he has had shows at East Tennessee State University, Austin Peay State University, Lipscomb University, and Alfa Art Gallery and was the recipient of a Fellowship for Painting from The New Jersey State University Council for the Arts.

humus redux: landscape painting across a spectrum of abstraction
Curated by Jeff Williams/hermanworks (Nashville, TN)

Humus (HYOUmus) is the organic component of soil formed by decomposing plant material, and an appropriate metaphor for a show about how 21^st century artists approach the abstraction of landscape. humus redux presents the work of Gary Stephan, Judy Simonian and Tiffany Calvert.

Tiffany Calvert

Tiffany Calvert lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received a BA with Honors from Oberlin College in1998 and an MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers where she was awarded graduate teaching fellowships and the John Bettenbender Commencement Award.Since 1998, her work has been exhibited in group and solo exhibitions including Lawrimore Project in Seattle, Visual Arts Gallery at SVA New York, and The Lab in San Francisco. She mounted three solo exhibitions with Lisa Boyle Gallery in Chicago in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

During 2006 and 2007, she was granted a Geraldine R. Dodge Fellowship and residencies at the ArtOmi International Arts Center (NY), the Artists’ Enclave at IPark (CT), and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (CA). In 2010 she was awarded a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant and was selected for a subsidized studio from the Chashama Organization, NY.

Her curatorial projects include an exhibition of abstract painting, “Some Abstraction Occurs” for the Chicago Gallery 65GRAND in 2008 and “All Things Being Equal”, an exhibition of paintings objects and photographs at Raritan Valley Community College in 2010.

Tiffany is currently Full Time Instructor of Visual Arts and Head of Foundations at Raritan Valley Community College in NJ. Her work is housed in private collections throughout the US.

Judy Simonian

Judith Simonian was born in Los Angeles CA and received her B.A. and M.A. at California State University. She lives and works in New York City where this year she had a solo exhibit at the Edward Thorp Gallery. She exhibits regularly in museums and galleries throughout the United States and internationally.

Grants and awards she has received include two Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Grants, and NEA Fellowship, California Confederation for The Arts Grant, MacDowell Residency Fellowship as well as residency fellowships at Blue Mountain Center, Virginia Center for The Arts and Foundation Valparaiso in Spain. She was nominated for an Anonymous Was A Woman Award and in 2011 and was Artist in Residence for 6 months as a part of Artists Alliance Lower East Side Rotating Studio Program, NYC.

Simonian has a permanent installation at PS1 Contemporary Art Center/Museum of Modern Art and is represented in many other private and public collections. She has taught in California at Otis/Parsons,Claremont Graduate School, the University of California at Long Beach, St. Michael’s College in Vermont, and currently at the Cooper Union in New York City.

Gary Stephan

Gary Stephan has been showing his painting and sculpture since the late sixties in theUnited StatesandEurope. He has had solo shows in this country at Bykert Gallery, Mary Boone, Hirschl and Adler, Margo Leavin, Marlboro, and Daniel Weinberg among others.

Stephan’s is in the collections of The Guggenheim, The Metropolitan, and the Museum of Modern Art in NY, as well as museums nationwide. He is the recipient of awards from the National Endowment of the Arts, Guggenheim Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Stephan teaches in the MFA program at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. He is currently represented by the Kienzle Art Foundation, Berlin. Ten of his videos are displayed on You Tube.

Youth Art Month: March 2012

 

Through You Into Action: April 16 – June 9, 2012

The Center for Contemporary Art and Gallery Aferro were excited to present Through You Into Action, a major multi-site exhibition and accompanying publication of the same name, commemorating the first 5 years of Gallery Aferro’s award-winning studio residency program. The exhibitions, curated by gallery co-founders Evonne M. Davis and Emma Wilcox, presented an expansive and highly diverse cross-section of contemporary art practice, encompassing sculpture, printmaking, painting, installation, video and performance by 30 alumni of the program, which takes place in Gallery Aferro’s 20,000 sq ft building.

Connecting Bedminster (Somerset County) and Newark (Essex County) and featuring site-specific installations, Through You Into Action presented the artistic vibrancy of the region, and the important role that workspace programs and art centers play in placemaking and the free exchange of ideas.

Exhibiting artists: Anonda Bell, Katrina Bello, Gianluca Bianchino, Patricia Cazorla,Marcy Chevali, Lane Cooper, Kevin Darmanie, Don Edler, Dahlia Elsayed, Nadja Frank, Jerry Gant, Tai Hwa Goh, Hiroshi Kumagai, Norene Leddy, Ann LePore, Caroline Mak, Vikki Michalios, Margaret Murphy, Kathryn Okeson, Alison Owen, Peter Owen, Nell Painter, Ryan Roa, Steve Rossi, Irys Schenker, Ryan Schroeder, Jomar Statkun, Calla Thompson, Barbara Wallace, Ken Weathersby, Sara Wolfe.

The residency program brings together 10-12 local, national and international artists each year to work on ambitious projects. Each artist receives 24/7 access to a large studio, career support, studio visits from curators, the opportunity to participate in public events such as artist talks and open studios, a culminating solo exhibition, inclusion in a publication and the chance to document their experiences on the studio blog. With an ever-expanding alumni network of almost 60 artists, there are ongoing opportunities for collaboration and fellowship.

Gallery Aferro and the Center for Contemporary Art are both creative hubs where art is not only shown but made. The exhibitions as well as the accompanying publication allowed the public to learn much about process: how and why each piece was conceived, worked upon, and fully realized. The fully illustrated catalog, No. 19 in Gallery Aferro’s publication line of artist books, catalogs, essays and sound art CD’s, features writing from each artist illuminating their concepts as well as their experiences in the program.

2012 Members’ Non-Juried Show & Sale

Exhibit: June 22 – July 28

This show is eagerly anticipated and is a great exhibition opportunity for artists at all levels of expertise. It is also a chance for The Center to show off its very talented artist members!

Three cash prizes and three honorable mentions were awarded by this year’s judge, W. Carl Burger. Congratulations to all winners and to all ninety-one entrants on an impressive show!

 

November 9 – December 15, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday, November 9th from 6-8 p.m.

Juror Edwin Ramoran selected forty-five pieces for inclusion in the exhibition from over 600 entries from the U.S. and abroad. The Center’s Exhibition Committee chose New Jersey artist Kasey Ramirez (see above)  as the recipient of the special committee award of a solo exhibit which will take place in 2013. Ramirez received an MFA in Printmaking from Indiana University this year. In addition, three artists were selected by the Juror for cash prizes that were awarded at the reception. First prize is $500 contributed by Investors Bank, second prize is $250, and third prize is $100 donated by the Bedminster Business Association.

1st Prize: Kasey Ramirez
2nd Prize: Abrahim Ahmed
3rd Prize: Erin Paulson

ABOUT THE JUROR: Edwin Ramoran
Edwin Ramoran is is Curator-at-Large for the Bronx Council on the Arts and Guest Lead Curator for the performance and public art festival titled Art in Odd Places 2012: MODEL which will take place in October along 14th Street. He is a recipient of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ Curatorial Fellowship Grant and the apexart Outbound Residency. Previous positions include Assistant Curator at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Director/Curator at Longwood Arts Project/Bronx Council on the Arts, Director of Exhibitions and Programs at Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art, and Program Director of Arkipelago, a Filipino arts collective. He has been a guest curator in New York at the P.S. 1/MoMA, Museum of Chinese in the Americas, PERFORMA 05 at Artists Space, Center for Book Arts, Corridor Gallery, Dixon Place, Dieu Donné Papermill and Gallery, Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning, South Asian Women’s Creative Collective, The LGBT Center, and Visual AIDS. Edwin serves on the board of PEPATIÁN, a South Bronx-based organization dedicated to creating, producing and supporting contemporary multi-disciplinary art by Latino and Bronx-based artists.

IMPORTANT DATES & DEADLINES FOR EXHIBITING ARTISTS:
Exhibit Opening Reception: Friday, November 9, 2012 from 6-8 p.m. - new date!
Exhibit Closes: Saturday, December 15, 2012
Artwork Return: Week of December 17, 2012
Artwork In-Person Pick-Up: Tuesday, December 18, 2012 from 2-6 p.m.

  

2011 Exhibits

Water/Line: Mark Stockton and Cindy Stockton Moore: October 16 – December 3, 2012

The Center for Contemporary Art is pleased to present “Water/Line”, an exhibition of the work of Philadelphia artists Mark Stockton and Cindy Stockton Moore opening on Sunday, October 16, 2011 from 3-6 p.m. with an Artist Talk at 3 p.m. The exhibition runs through December 3, 2011 and is curated by well-known New Jersey artist Mel Leipzig.

Cindy Stockton Moore’s painted work explores the liminal landscape in a variety of media including encaustic, watercolor and gouache. Swimmers trespass in isolated bodies of water – restricted reservoirs, wetlands, and rivers- creating a sense of both playfulness and potential for disaster. Themes of unease within nature, impending danger, and vulnerability also run through Stockton Moore’s Actum Agere series.  Here paintings are repeated and abbreviated resulting in shifts and alterations from piece to piece and creating a narrative series that references cinematic story-telling. The imagery is inspired by cult films and staged photographs, resulting in a related but evasive narrative.

Mark Stockton works with traditional materials and techniques to reference a range of historical portraiture. Through a time-intensive and rigorous process, he reproduces the synthetic product of celebrity through hand-drawn and intimately human means. Through his drawings, Stockton reexamines familiar images of famous and infamous archetypes in an exaggerated size and with painstaking detail.  Working from memory, found images and Internet sources, his work reflects a collective consciousness that is shaped by our media-saturated culture.“Water/Line” speaks to the underlying themes connecting the work on view and the very different ways that these two, married artists work in their shared studio. Both artists are interested in saturation, Stockton with media-generated saturation of images, and Stockton Moore with the physical sensation of saturation.  Both seek out the implied spaces around figurative images, but their methods differ dramatically in revealing them.  Mark Stockton’s carefully rendered compositions introduce complex connections between iconic figures, while Cindy Stockton Moore’s looser, more intuitive approach to painting allows the media to obscure and reveal simultaneously.

Members’ Non-Juried Show: June 9 – August 25, 2011

The Members’ Non-Juried Show is an opportunity for The Center’s members to submit work in any media for this summer exhibition. Christopher B. Koep, Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing at Raritan Valley Community College, was the judge for this year’s exhibition. Koep has taught at the College for 23 years and has been the recipient of two New Jersey State Council on the Arts fellowship grants as well as McDowell, Yaddo and Millay fellowships. This year seventy-seven of The Center’s members participated, submitting works in painting, pencil and charcoal, pastel, photography, mixed media and sculpture.

About the exhibition, Koep states, “I am impressed with the sense of beauty that all the pieces portray. The pieces selected for awards have a strong point of view and a high level of competence within their media. Sometimes the simplest of subject matter holds the most content.”

Award of Excellence: “Silver Bowl with Apples” by Letty Oratowski

Serena Bocchino: iPOP April 10- May 26, 2011

The Center for Contemporary Art is pleased to present an exhibition of the work of New Jersey-based artist Serena Bocchino opening on Sunday, April 10^th from 2-4 pm and running through May 26^th. iPOP is the term used by  Bocchino to describe her recent body of mixed media work which includes paintings, “photo-paintings,” painted figures and drawings.  Using bright enamel and her unique “pouring technique,” Bocchino creates a true wonderland in this installation.  Surrounding her vivid and lyrical paintings is a garden with ordinary lawn ornaments such as bunnies, squirrels and flamingos which she transforms into iconographic pop elements.  The result is vital and dynamic; a colorful and surprising environment which combines high art with popular culture.

Bocchino has developed her own poetic and unique visual vocabulary of rhythmic marks, lines and imagery.  The result is an exciting fusion of color, mood and atmosphere.  She continues to push the parameters of her paintings using a vibrant palette and textured imagery.  In addition to her paintings, she will exhibit her “photo-paintings,” which combine digitally manipulated photographs with acrylic plexiglass sheets on which she paints to create a “pop synergy” between the different media.  She continues to fully investigate her subject matter utilizing these and other industrial materials in bold new renderings of her visual language.

In iPOP Bocchino revisits, reinvents and reconstructs her world based on influences of the past three decades.  The philosophical contrast of combining the high art of abstraction with ordinary lawn ornaments creates a contradiction that is both provocative and humorous.  The ornaments are hand painted to match the paintings, and the integration of these figures creates an unexpected reality that spins ideas of fantasy and hope and creates a unique and personal perspective on life.  Bocchino’s mastery of cosmic color and rhythmic abstraction gives the term “pop” – an oft-used expression – an explosive new meaning for our contemporary culture.

Bocchino is also a children’s book author and illustrator. Who Am I? The Story of the Artist, is her most recent book and will be on display and for sale for the duration of the exhibition. At the opening reception Bocchino will be available to sign copies of her book and limited edition giclee prints of the illustrations that combine watercolor illustration with her abstract paintings will also be on display. The public is invited to the opening reception free of charge and refreshments will be served.

About the artist

Since 1985 galleries and museums worldwide have featured Bocchino’s work including The Morris Museum, Morristown; The New Jersey State Museum, Trenton; Tria Gallery, NYC; ArtHaus, San Francisco; Campo & Campo, Antwerp; Studio Bocchi, Rome; the Galerie du Tableau, Marseilles; and the Millennio Gallerie D’Arte, Venice among others. Bocchino and her work have also been the subject of four films, the most recent of which, A Dream of Blue, directed by Greg Smith of Down the Line Productions, received the 2009 Best Inspirational Documentary Award by the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival. The documentary, Observer Highway Revisited by filmmaker, Monica Sharf, featured Bocchino working in her studio and creating a painting from inception to completion. This documentary was screened at the International Film Festival at The Museum of Modern Art.

Bocchino has been recognized by many art institutions for her work and is the recipient of numerous awards including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, the PS 1 International Studio Residency, the Artists Space/Artists Grant, The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Art Matters Grant, the Brodsky Center Printmaking Residency and the Basil Alkazzi Award.  Her work is included in prestigious private, public and corporate collections throughout the world, including those of McKinsey & Co. Inc., Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. Bocchino has a Masters Degree in Painting from New York University.

For more information about Serena Bocchino visit www.serenabocchino.com

For information about Who Am I? The Story of an Artist visit www.theamicollection.com

 

YOUTH ART MONTH
An exhibit of student work, in partnership with Art Educators of New Jersey

Part 1: Student Work grades K through 5: March 1  -  March 13
Part 2: Student Work grades 6 through 12: March 18  -  April 3

2011 Members Juried Exhibit: January 16 – February 12, 2011
Juror David Shevlino

Best in Show

 

Award Of Excellence

Judy Balance – “Winsor and Newton” Watercolor (photo not shown)

 

Honorable Mention

2010 Exhibits

“Michael Graves,” a five panel portrait by Mel Leipizg
February 17-

Annual Youth Art Month Celebration
in partnership with the Art Educators of New Jersey
March 1 – 31

W. Carl Burger & Rhoda Yanow
“New Jersey People & Places”
April 8 – May 7

Members Non-Juried Exhibit
July 8 – August 20

Art in Architecture
The exhibit of an international juried competition
September 11 – October 30

Compact: Impact
Juried Exhibit and Sale of Small Works
November 6 – December 4