Saratoga Arts - Arts Center | Arts Council

The Annual Members Show

November 17 - December 31, 2012

Decades have passed since Saratoga Arts first hosted its annual members’ show! This ever-popular, year-end show is a great opportunity for our established and emerging member artists to display their best works in a professional exhibition at The Arts Center Gallery and celebrate their many talents with fellow artists and the community.  Annually, with over 150 artists exhibiting artworks ranging from painting, drawing and printmaking to sculpture, functional fine art and photography, our Annual Members’ show promises to be a real treat!

Image:  A Break In The Clouds by Michelle Harris

Observations

Sanford Mirling and Michelle Harris

october 6 - november 10, 2012

An exhibition combining drawings, objects, light and sound to comment on the dynamics of individual perception and social observation.

Artist Statement  |  Sanford Mirling

Objects exist as characters in tableaus, performances, or on their own.  They allow fabricated memories, existing like scenes, acts or an entire play to emerge as condensed yet exhaustive visual statements where illusions become tangible.

Functioning on multiple levels simultaneously, an artwork may be about a particular memory, while addressing the act of remembering; the need for that memory; a critique of the memory; and how that memory evolved through time. Purposely conflicted, the work is the physical manifestation of a psychological process trying to make sense of itself: fraught with anxiety, exotic and yet familiar, present while ephemeral.

Sanford Mirling received his BA from Bennington College, Vermont and his MFA from the University at Albany, New York.  He is the co-founder of Collar Works: art space in Troy, NY and currently a visiting Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Middlebury College, Vermont.

Artist Statement  |  Michelle Harris

Harris encourages the experience of viewing and hearing to be like falling out of a dream or the moment in your daily commute when you can’t recall the last ten minutes of your journey, where the lines between physical and imagined spaces begin to blur. In such moments, sound serves as catalyst for the mind to trail in and out of the present. Space blurs as private memories become collective ones, distraction becomes a new form of focus as reflection becomes a new form of observation.  

With a background in photography, Harris approaches her work with a documentary footing, collecting objects from the natural and manufactured world throughout her daily travels. The collected objects serve to inspire a series of handmade objects that mimic or respond to what has been collected. These objects are combined, at times with sound, into arrangements for installation  A series of wax transfer prints are based on a photographic series destroyed in a house fire. The prints distort the original works into variations of black and white noise or static suggesting deteriorating vision, fading memories, and absence. The theme of gravity as a force is approached both in the physical sense and in describing the weight of experience. Abstract ceramic objects are combined with repeated variable elements to present the duality of a co-dependant relationship where the objects physically rely upon one another for stability.

Michelle Harris received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan.   She currently resides in Chicago, IL.

Con.struct  |  a juried exhibition

August 3 - September 29, 2012

Con.struct  |  a juried exhibition
August 3 - September 29, 2012

This year’s exhibit, titled con·struct, showcases artists who use their ideas, concepts and perceptions to build visual realities that otherwise would not exist.  This exhibition embraces the idea of art as a construct, as an object that exists only because of one’s insight, reconstruction and memory; metaphors fueled by everyday thoughts, environments, social circumstances and historical events.
Artist Reception: Friday, August 3, 6-8pm

Jurors: Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Robert ParkeHarrison, Associate Professor of Photography at Skidmore College, received a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and a MFA from the University of New Mexico. In 1999 he was the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.  Since the mid 1990’s Robert has collaborated with his partner and wife, Shana ParkeHarrison. In 2000 they began to publicly claim co-authorship of their images.  Shana ParkeHarrison received a degree in painting from William Woods College. She went on to study dance history and metalsmithing at the University of New Mexico.
The ParkeHarrisons’ collaboration has developed organically over the past eighteen years. In 2007 The ParkeHarrisons were awarded the Nancy Graves Foundation Fellowship.  The ParkeHarrisons construct fantasies in the guise of environmental performances for the protagonists of their images.   The artists combine elaborate sets within vast landscapes to address issues surrounding man’s relationship to the earth and technology, while delving into the human condition. Their works tell stories of loss, human struggle, and personal exploration within landscapes scarred by technology and over-use by metaphorically and poetically linking laborious actions, idiosyncratic rituals and strangely crude machines into tales about our modern experience.
Currently their images are included in various group exhibitions including, The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama, Imaging a Shattered Earth: Contemporary Photography and the Environmental Debate and Envisioning Change, an exhibition in conjunction with the United Nations Environment Programme’s, World Environment Day. The Architect’s Brother, a museum exhibition of 45 images has traveled throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.  Their works are included in numerous collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Art Institute of Chicago and the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House.  They have two monographs published by Twin Palms Publishers, The Architect’s Brother and Counterpoint. Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison are represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York.
 

Cryptoecology + Transcendence
April 7 - May 26, 2012

time.space.place
an exhibition by installation artists Sterz, Jessica Houston, Claire Sherwood and Micaela De Vivero
February 4 - March 31, 2012

Time. Space. Place is a material examination of our physical, social and natural environment. Through an examination of landscape and culture, Sherwood interweaves ideas of masculinity, purity and womanhood with reclaimed and regenerated industrial material. de Vivero investigates surfaces and space through various materials to convey aspects of everyday life and the social-political sphere across the globe. Ideas of feminism and post-colonialism are explored, while boundaries, migration and displacement are analyzed. Houston records the passage of time, cycles and daily motions while investigating the inextricable relationship between people and the natural world. The process Houston takes encourages people to pause and contemplate natural phenomena. Sterz translates natural light, color and movement through the use of industrial material to explore the intersection between the corporeal and the emotional, the temporal and the ephemeral, while evoking a spontaneous response from the viewer, something he shares with his fellow exhibitors.

Claire Sherwood received her MFA from the University of Maryland. Her work has been exhibited widely across the United States in both solo and group exhibitions. Sherwood's work is included in the David C. Driskell Collection and the State of West Virginia Museum of Culture and History. She currently is an Adjunct Professor of Drawing at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY.

Micaela de Vivero received her MFA in Sculpture from Alfred University. She currently is an Associate Professor of Art at Denison University in Ohio. Her work has been exhibited in Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, the United States, Spain, Ireland, Finland, Austria and Switzerland.

Jessica Houston received an MA from Columbia University. She also attended the Istituto Lorenzo di Medici in Florence, Italy for studio art, art history and theory. Houston's work has been widely acclaimed and exhibited throughout the United States and abroad. She has taught drawing at The Metropolitan Museum in New York City and has lectured as a visiting artist at The Art Institute of Florence; Teachers College, Columbia University; Concordia University; Ontario College of Art and Design and McGill University in Montreal. Canada, where she currently resides.

Sterz began his career in photography, but by the end of the 1990's he was sculpting out of his Brooklyn studio. His widely acclaimed site specific installations have been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout North America, Europe and the Caribbean. Sterz's work has been represented in many international art fairs, including Art Basel and he has received numerous grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Sterz's work can be seen in many museum collections across the United States and Europe.

All Stars: Annual High School Exhibition
January 7 – January 28, 2011

High school art teachers throughout Saratoga County, including Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake, Saratoga Springs, Shenendehowa, South Glens Falls, The Waldorf School and WSWHE Boces selected work in all media from their strongest students to exhibit in The Arts Center Gallery. From sculpture to drawing, these wonderful artworks highlight the dedication of area art teachers together with the amazing talent of their art students. By encouraging younger generations of Saratoga County’s artists to excel in their creative work, Saratoga Arts fulfills its mission of cultivating, nourishing and sustaining the arts in all of its forms. There will be an opening reception on Saturday, January 7, 2012 from 3 pm to 5 pm. This year's exhibit is co-curated by Erica Wardell. Wardell is a graduate of Saratoga Springs High School and an All Star Show Alumna. Wardell is currently working towards a BFA in Studio Art, with a focus in painting and sculpture, and a minor in Education from the College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY.

Annual Members' Show
November 19 - December 31, 2011

Frame Story: The Narrative Within
Emma Dodge Hanson and Roy W. Stevens
October 1 - November 12

The Arts Center Gallery announces this upcoming exhibition including photographers Emma Dodge Hanson and Roy W. Stevens. Emma Dodge Hanson photographs recount the lives and stories of veterans from the battle of Stalingrad. Inspired by their strength and moved by their struggles, Hanson shows these individuals as they truly are; mothers and fathers, neighbors and friends. Seeing how the beauty and artistry of heavy industry are commonly overlooked, Roy W. Stevens captures the culture as well as the intensely personal aspects of manufacturing and construction. Frame Story: The Narrative Within, shows how both photographers use the traditional medium of black and white photography to explore how ones environment can tell a story.

Artist Statements

Emma Dodge Hanson 
When a friend approached me about photographing veterans from the battle of Stalingrad, I could never have imagined the way it would profoundly affect me. Listening to their stories, I couldn’t help but marvel at their strength. There stories were emotional, heart wrenching, and nearly reduced me to tears multiple times. Though despite these horrors, the veterans I interviewed were strong, beautiful people. With these series of black and white photos my goal was to capture these voices so they will not be forgotten. My decision to photograph them in their home was very important. I believe that the space that some inhabits speaks a lot about the person. I wanted these men and women to not be remembered as just veterans, but as fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, friends, neighbors, sons, and daughters. Emma Dodge Hanson concentrated her studies in photography at Skidmore College; she went on to study portraiture at the Maine Photographic Workshops.

Roy W. Stevens
Making photographs of construction scenes that are artistic yet authentic is challenging, exciting, and rewarding. We know that steel reinforcement is essential part of the foundations and supports for highway, bridges, and buildings. Few of us, however, consider that the fabrication and installation of these structures involves dimension and mass, as well as energy and drama, not found in other human efforts. I challenge viewers to see the visual and performance art inherent in heavy construction. I make photographs of workmen at manufacturing and construction sites, not to picture models of heroic figures, but to interpret a part of culture of builders. I present the messages in black and white to reflect the essentially monochromatic worlds of steel and concrete. Roy W. Stevens focused his studies in graphic design and computer image editing at the University at Albany and at Hudson Valley Community College. He also has refined his skills through the New England Camera Club Consortium Amherst MA, and the former Exposed Gallery Delmar NY, workshops and lectures.

In Time 

Jennifer Nuttall Ash, Warren Holzman and Tyson Skross

August 6- September 24, 2011 

The Arts Center Gallery announces this upcoming exhibition featuring artists Jennifer Nuttall, Warren Holzman, and Tyson Skross. Interested in archaic forms of storytelling and mythology, Nuttall Ashs' work is the friction between innocence and corruption. Her fictional story A Wretched Little World is a fictional story that takes child-like perceptions and introduces a dark narrative. Fearless tales question aggressive mentalities towards insider outsider political relationships. Holzman forms visual communication between decaying steel left behind from the age of the machine and childhood nostalgia establishing emotive connections with the inanimate as he recreates a time forgotten, breathing new life into child-like feelings of wonderment and bliss. Skross creating models of his own childhood, mimics our physical world through memory and history both natural and manufactured. A new method to comprehend memory is constructed; residual data builds up a network within which we live our lives through present day. There is a common theme in the investigation of the loss and gain of innocence within our social sphere. Their work traverses between conscious and unconscious thought. This imaginative exhibit invites its audience to witness journeys of the past through memories and diverse mediums. Jennifer Nuttall Ash is a Canadian born, British raised and Houston based artist who received a BFA in painting from Camberwell College of Art & Design as well as an MFA in Painting from City & Guilds of London Art School. Warren Holzman received a B.F.A. in Sculpture from Kutztown University, Kutztown PA. He is also the current owner of The Iron Studio Ltd, Philadelphia PA. Tyson Skross graduated from L’ecole Internationale de Geneve, along with The Maryland Institute College of Art. He studied under the painter Janis Pozzi- Johnson from 1993-1997.

Artist Statements

Jennifer Nuttall Ash
Jennifer Nuttall Ash is a Canadian born, British raised and Houston based artist who received a BFA in Painting from Camberwell College of Art & Design as well as an MFA in Painting from City & Guilds of London Art School. She spends most of her time hidden amongst print rooms in Houston. "My work explores the often uncomfortable and anti-social nature of being human; a proactive theme that has been continually weaved and embedded throughout humanity in the archaic form of storytelling and Mythology. I am practically fascinated by the audacious tales that compromise society’s rules of engagement often found within mythology, local folklore, childhood fables and fairytales. Often working within the traditional realm of printmaking, my work creates an uncomfortable friction between themes of innocence and corruption, introducing a childlike aesthetic to wickedly corruptive narrative. The works investigate themes of immigration, exploring the aggressive insider/outsider mentality that results from the immigrant/ citizen relationship, as well as questioning broader themes of personal and national identity. My work spawns the story of A Wretched Little World full of fantasy and horror, in which all adults have mysteriously disappeared, leaving only millions of parentless children and horse-like creates to battle amongst each other, in hope of regaining power over a disintegrating world"

Warren Holzman
"In my work I search to create a child-like feeling of whimsy and wonderment; a familiar playfulness that suggests an emotive connection to the inanimate. By offering the viewer an abstract yet oddly intimate perspective on an object I seek to initiate a moment of levity within my audience. Though the use and distortion of scale and proportion I give the viewer a new way in which to see a familiar object; to breathe new life into old apparitions of childhood. The shapes and imagery I reference in my work repeatedly hearken back to a more mechanized time. The vast amount of metal work from the age of machines that lies rusting on the edges of our urban landscapes has become embedded in my subconscious. I feel that these decaying monsters communicate an evidence of past economies, priorities and lives that embody the drama ascension and decline that we experience today. By working in processes similar to the ones used to build these ancient beats, I have forged a connection with them and their method of communicating visual ideas. I use this vocabulary of visual communication along with the urge to create both entertain and inform my viewers and myself. When speaking specifically about the process of making sculpture, my attraction to the use of metal comes from its historically broad visual vocabulary. The long-standing legacy of metalwork offers to me a wide pallet or processes and techniques that I can enter into partnership with the formal concerns of creating an object. The material presence of steel and other metals also helps infuse my work with a sense of authenticity, making my sculptures appear familiar; like found objects rather than like forms wrought for sole purpose of sculpture. Though my sculpture I strive to add to the landscapes that surround me and thereby hopefully adding to the collective quality of life, present and future."

Tyson Skross
This is a world made of memory. It is at the same time gathering and dispersing. It is a composition of heres and theres. Memories are formed on a sub-atomic level by a mixture of experience, imagination, and symbolism, the real and the unreal, of truth and deception, consciousness and unconsciousness. The plants, trees and flowers, grow in this mineral mixture. Homes are made of them, livings are scratched out from them, children are born, friends die, and entire histories crystallize and dissolve. Only the bones remain, the traces. The work in its current form is comprised of sculptural objects and painted elements in various media. Skross' process takes the models of his childhood and literally re-casts and modifies them through the addition of mineral compounds. The end result alludes to the spiritual, as well as the historical and presents itself as the extension of a living organism. The installations mimic our physical world as a construction of the combined residues of history both natural and manufactured. "My work has been described as being about memory, fear and loss, and that is in part true. But I think that my real subject matter is the attempt to form a new way of understanding history, not as a sequential narrative leading from one point to the next, but as the residue of data and memory that accumulates to create the network within which we live our lives." Tyson is currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He recently received a 2009 Efroymson Contemporary Art Fellowship and has exhibited his work internationally.

Impasse & Motion Ten Photographers' Journey Through Instants in Music, curated by Andrzej Pilarczyk
June 4 – July 30, 2011

Guest Curator Andrzej “Andre” Pilarczyk joins Saratoga Arts to present Impasse & Motion, an exhibition which brings together ten regional photographers from various backgrounds, experiences and trades to approach a single subject: music. Music is a universal language that evokes curiosity and emotion and can be experienced everywhere, from concert halls to subway stations. The photographers’ range is as diverse as their subjects. These ten artists cover the entire music spectrum from journalistic documentation to fine art photography and all have captured the passion, drama and energy of a musical performance. Impasse & Motion features the work of Lawrence White, Joe Putrock, Andrzej Pilarczyk, Don McKever, Rudy Lu, Eric Jenks, Joseph Deuel, Ed Burke, Albert Brooks, and Sylvia Aronson. These artists have dedicated themselves to understanding the essence of a live musical performance. Their devotion to concert photography will captivate viewers allowing them to re-live musical experiences from the 1970s to today and translate the energy of the artists’ passions directly to the audience through this unique exhibit. Andrzej Pilarczyk studied Fine Arts at the Lake Placid School of Art, Junior College of Albany, Academy of Fine Arts (ASP), Krakow (Poland); attended Jagiellonian University, Krakow and University of Wroclaw (Poland), SUNY, Albany, N.Y. He currently is a local photojournalist and freelance photographer working for publications such as the “Lake George Mirror,” “Downbeat,” “The Saratogian,” and “The Chronicle.” His work can also be seen on Nippertown.com where he is the Chief Photographer for that on-line music and arts web-magazine. He is also a contributor to Albanyjazz.com

Curatorial Statement
My intent with this group exhibit “Impasse & Motion, Ten Photographers’ Journey Through Instants in Music,” is to show the public one subject- music, through the eyes of ten regional photographers of different ages, races, backgrounds and experiences who have centered much of their creative energy, time and passion toward photographing musicians from a wide spectrum of musical genres. Some of these participating photographers are fine-arts photographers who use the camera as a tool to create their art, while others shoot for newspapers, magazines, and organizations that present concerts. However, all have captured the musicians’ excitements, drama and nuances from world-renowned to relatively obscure performers in a variety of contexts including intimate nightclubs, coffee houses, concert halls, festivals, arenas, or even asking for spare change on a subway platform.

the visual dynamic
jennifer hunold
jason paradis
April 2 - May 28, 2011

The Arts Center Gallery is proud to announce this upcoming exhibition titled, the visual dynamic, featuring artists Jennifer Hunold and Jason Paradis. This compelling exhibit explores the dichotomy between societal relationships and our perceived environment. While reflecting on the tradition of embroidery, Hunold reinvents the medium as a drawing tool. The result is an image that successfully straddles the line between craft, kitsch and fine art, all while establishing a dialogue between the past and future by means of reflection and reinterpretation. Paradis' contemplative body of work ponders the mysteries beyond the immediate world. Searching for a moment where the past, present and future collide, Paradis' work becomes laced with memory and speculation. His installations are at once primitive, timely and forward reaching. Together, Hunold's sewn image and Paradis' layered, fabricated world, leave us contemplating the threads of our existence. Jennifer Hunold received her MFA in Studio Art from the University at Albany. She currently lives and works in Albany, NY. Jason Paradis received his MFA from Stony Brook University. He currently lives in the New York City area where he is an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University and St. Joseph's College.

Artist Statements

Jennifer Hunold
The preciousness of the hand-embroidered and drawn objects I make yield an unexpectedly symbiotic relationship with elements of technology. These works are coupled with mass-produced ephemera, architectural design, and social networking to create a new context for embroidery in today’s ready-made society. This dialogue between the slowness of the hand-made and the immediacy of modern technological advances has been realized in four separate bodies of work: the Dream Home Sweet Home series, the Daily Journaling Project and Free Form series, and the Be Nice. project. The rigidity of an architectural floor plan is transformed into a sewn image, using color and pattern to envision a visual dynamic reflective of that specific domestic environment. Additional plans are rendered in the language of embroidery with colored pencil, referencing the analog versions of both home design and embroidery templates. These various “dream homes” are planned and rendered again and again in different incarnations, vestiges of hope and wanting, each better than the last. Passing fiber through the lens of painting births forms that invigorate the familiar understandings of both mediums. Here the storytelling ability of the tapestry is appropriated and re-imagined to create images that translate quotidian events into abstracted compositions. Twitter, Facebook, blogging, brochures and postcards are paired with the matriarchal sampler to draw a response which fluctuates between sincerity and cynicism. The objects’ positive yet mildly proselytizing and instructive tone bring a range of reactions to the Be Nice. project, indicating individual relationships with our society: defensive, suspicious, receptive, symbiotic, and so on. While irony and subversion come standard in contemporary imagery and communication, here sincerity is subversive.

Jason Paradis
In my art, there is a sense of contemplation or of reverie that speculates on fundamental mysteries–this being the result of a lot of camping under an expansive sky in the northern Canadian wilderness. There, questions emerged regarding the existence of something much larger than the immediate world. I am very interested in a moment where the past, present, and future collide. Modes of my current environment, laced with reflection, memory, and speculation, filter into the development and translation of the work. This disjunction demands a layered approach in both the meaning and implementation of the artwork. The pieces end up feeling like some sort of phenomenon (either natural or supernatural) has occurred, or is occurring. They are at once primitive, timely, and futuristic.

Figment Transport
John R.G. Roth
February 5 - March 26, 2011

John R.G. Roth’s sculptures reflect a world-view that is subjected to the realm of dream and fantasy. Roth’s current body of work calls for the viewer’s co- authorship, as he explores the anthropomorphic aspects of machinery, vehicles and buildings, while reflecting upon the connection between instinct and intellect, with a sprinkle of humor. Post Star Writer, Doug Gruse states in his review of Figment Transport , "It is like Jules Verne meets the Three Stooges in John R.G. Roth's sculptural creations." The artist's "3-D political cartoons" feature fantastical contraptions inspired by Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" and H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" presented with a comic edge culled from Mad Magazine, the macabre cartoons of Charles Addams and Moe, Larry and Curly, according to the sculptor. The meticulous work balances social criticism with cerebral shtick. - The Post Star  

John R.G. Roth received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin with a concentration in painting and sculpture. Roth’s work has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums across the country. He currently resides in Norfolk, Virginia where he is an Assistant Professor at Old Dominion University.