"Annual Spring Landscape" Exhibition
Dacia Gallery
This event has ended.
Stephanie Amato began her art education at the Parsons School of Design in NYC where she acquired the basic skills and techniques to begin her creative career. During her art education, Stephanie also obtained a degree as a Graphic Designer. This has given her the knowledge to create work that is strong in both concept and design. Stephanie works in both oil and soft pastels. Her work is created directly from life, with light as the primary factor. “A successful painting is not only about the subject matter, but how I communicate the mood and energy I feel during the creation of the piece. I know I was successful when I return to a setting and I see my painting come to life.” Stephanie has exhibited her work throughout New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and was recently juried into the 2012 American Impressionist Society’s Annual Exhibition. She is a Signature Member of the Pastel Society of New Jersey, a member of the American Impressionist Society, Oil Painters of America and the former Lead Coordinator of “The New Jersey Society of en Plein Air Painters” (2009-2011).
Dina Brodsky was born in Minsk, Belarus, in 1981. Her family immigrated to the US in 1990. She was educated at University of Massachusetts Amherst and New York Academy of Art, where she received her MFA. She lives and works in New York City. She has taught privately, and in several institutions, including the Brookline Center for the Arts and, most recently, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Janet A. Cook recently participated in a four person invitational at the Trenton City Museum, NJ and was featured on NBC's 'Dateline' program, the 'Da Vinci Code'. Her work was featured in the New York Times and reviewed in the Times of Trenton, NJ. The American Artist Magazine and The Pastel Journal, have also published featured articles on her work. Cook has also won numerous accolades and prizes in both state and national competitions including two first prizes at the National Academy Museum, School of Art, Best 2d work in show at The Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, the Silver Medal at the Allied Artists of America and the Gold Medal Master Circle Award at the International Association of Pastel Societies. Cook is an elected Resident Artist Member of the Salmagundi Club, NYC. A Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America, the Connecticut Pastel Society, Her paintings are to be found in many collections including the permanent collection of the Trenton City Museum, NJ, The Buckingham Hotel NYC, and numerous private and corporate collections through out America, Israel and Europe. She studied at the National Academy School of Art and the Art Students League in New York City, with Sharon Sprung, Mary Beth Mckenzie, and Peter Cox and holds a BA in Art History with honors from DeMonford University in England.
Casey Inch creates compositions that reference landscape, employing varied formal means to examine and describe our current relationship to the sublime in nature. Working in both oil and mixed media, the surface becomes a container for light, atmosphere, and a space that is at once built and broken down as a reflection of the fragility of the natural world and a reminder of all we have to lose. Inch received a BFA from The University of Colorado at Boulder in 2004, and an MFA from Pratt Institute in 2009. He is currently an instructor of painting at the Educational Alliance Art School and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Nikolina Kovalenko, was born in Moscow in 1987. In 1999 she was accepted to the Moscow Art Lyceum named for Surikov, where she learned the basics of painting, drawing and composition. Nikolina finished in 2005, earning the Gold Medal of the Russian Art Academy. In the same year was accepted at the Moscow State Art Institute Named for Surikov (МГАХИ) to the department of graphics. In the winter of 2008 she backpacked for the first time: to India. “That trip opened my eyes to the world and changed my life. Traveling became my passion. I tried to embody the impressions of every country in my art. In my sketches I wanted to come back to Russia with more than just a dry imprinting of facts and lines, I wanted to keep the hot breath of the wind in the Mexican desert, the gold of Italian cathedrals, the white candles of mosques looming in the Moroccan sky, the flavor of mint tea pouring from a silver teapot in a tent covered with marvelous carpets... In the summer of 2010 I lived in Cuba for 2 months, absorbing the decadence of Havana’s streets and spending hours drawing dancers of Santiago de Cuba under the rhythm of sacred drums. I tried to express the importance of dance in Cuban culture as an equivalent of absolute happiness despite everyday difficulties. I was an exchange student in UDK Berlin for several months and the city gave me a theme for my diploma work-I created 7 etchings dedicated to the history of Berlin. The project expressed the slowly healing rupture between old and new Berlin –painful because the period of history designed to be a bridge connecting those two parts completely vanished during the WWII.” In June of 2011 Nikolina defended her diploma, and received the Gold Medal of the Russian Art Academy. She now lives and paints in New York City.
Robert Pillsbury, Born in the small town of Derry, New Hampshire, the surrounding landscape was permanently embraced at a very young age. In a career spanning thirty years, involving performance art, video, painting, printmaking, art instruction and a continued implementation of a large and varied body of work. He holds a BFA degree in painting and printmaking from the Maryland Institute, College of Art and began his career in the trenches of the newspaper industry, working days and painting through the night. As an artist, his passion lies in drawing, an exercise performed every day regardless of time or place. It is an unconscious function of his life, like breathing. His thoughts on his own art convey a profound and abiding respect for the natural world where he draws his inspiration. His work has been included in numerous gallery and museum exhibitions and has received many awards in the metropolitan area as well as traveling exhibitions internationally. His life in art extends beyond the studio through his deep commitment to the Salmagundi Club where he serves as First Vice President.
Victoria Selbach is a conceptual realist painter. Her passion for drawing was encouraged from an early age with Saturday classes at Carnegie Mellon Museum of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. Her early years of classes at CMU provided a range of course work including drawing from live models, studying anatomy at the Pitt Medical School Morgue and just enough information to supply the questions she will spend the rest of her life answering. Selbach moved to New York City, graduated from Parsons School of Design and continues to live and work in New York. Her paintings have been featured in numerous exhibitions in galleries across the country and at the Heckscher Museum of Art and the Butler Institute of American Art. She has been discussed in publications such as Artists Daily, LI Pulse and Poets and Artists. Victoria contributes to the next generation of artists as a guest lecturer and one on one mentor to New York High School students.
Raúl Villarreal was born in San Francisco de Paula, Havana, Cuba in 1964. Villarreal emigrated with his family to Madrid, Spain in 1972; two years later, the family moved to the United States, settling in Union City, New Jersey. Over the past 20 years Villarreal has exhibited his art in 18 one person exhibits and close to 300 group exhibits in the United States, Canada, Cuba, Costa Rica, Germany, Italy, Spain, and most recently in Suzhou, China. Villarreal’s book, Hemingway’s Cuban Son, based on his father René’s memoirs of his friendship with the famous American author was published by The Kent State University Press in March of 2009. Villarreal’s oeuvre is inspired by personal memories and experiences of growing up in Cuba, Spain and the United States, along with the assimilation of other cultures, appropriated images from mass media, and old family photographs. Utilizing personal iconography, through assemblages and a process of layering of these different elements, Villarreal attempts to convey a sense of multiple realities, time references, and existence. The works address issues of identity, multiculturalism and transculturalism.
Marlene Wiedenbaum, PSA, is a graduate of Queens College, SUNY New Paltz, attended the Arts Students League in NYC with Harvey Dinnerstein, and studied privately with St. Julien Fishburne. Her award winning landscape, figurative and still life paintings have been exhibited internationally, including the 2010 and 2012 International Pastel Artists Invitational in Taipei, Taiwan. As a result, her work will be among six International pastelists featured in a text book commissioned by the Taiwanese government. Also in 2012, Marlene was selected out of 1500 artists as one of 10 Semi-Finalists for the prestigious Basil H. Alkazzi Excellence in Painting Awards. In 2010, Marlene was awarded a residency at Platte Clove through the The Catskill Center for Conservation and Development. Wiedenbaum was a featured artist in the December ‘09 issue of American Artist. Her painting, “Downriver from Potown,” was also selected by American Artist Magazine for their 2011 calendar. She accepts commissions and teaches pastel classes & plein-air workshops through the Barrett Art Center in Poughkeepsie and in collaboration with Scenic Hudson, NY. A Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America, Marlene is also an Active Member of such prestigious arts organizations as the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum, NAPPAP, NYPAP, the Degas Pastel Society, and LongReachArts. Her work is in private collections throughout the country and is represented in the tri-state area.
[Image: Marlene Wiedenbaum "From the Tower" Pastel, 18x24 in.]
Media
Schedule
from March 20, 2013 to April 12, 2013
Opening Reception on 2013-03-21 from 18:00 to 21:00
Artist Talk and Intro @ 7:30pm