2016 Fall – 2017 Spring Exhibit

The Personal Portrait Head

It is with great pleasure we present New American Family, large-scale mixed media portraits by Peter Marcus.

A master print technician, Marcus has long experimented and pushed the limits of traditional printmaking, combining multiple techniques resulting in a complex monoprint, relying on mark making and collage to complete the process.

The subject of his portraits are his family members and friends. Marcus regularly uses multiple faces/heads in his compositions, evoking a family album of sorts. The subjects compel the viewer to look back and search for their histories. The faces present themselves with smiles, not unlike snapshot photographs that are familiar, triggering fond memories.

The portrait head is an iconic representation of the person. The image intends to venerate, lift, glorify the persona. Historically, early representations of the portrait-head tended to follow idealized visual conventions minimizing the individual distinctions. Through itshistoricity the contemporary representation of person has evolved to reflect individual character and appearance. Since the invention of photography, the ubiquity of the photographic portrait, through the democratization of the medium, simply enables immediate connection with the subject as person. We are familiar with and are drawn to the human face/head. Marcus presents his faces, which have undergone his artistic intervention and treatment, creating evocative portraits. In New American Family, the visage of his subjects become his super-sized family album.

Catalog Available

Visit A Decadent World

It is with great pleasure that we present Mara Trachtenberg and her world of wonder.

As young children, girls were indoctrinated with stories and myths, which range from sleeping beauties, princesses who are concealed, wicked stepmothers to defeat – usually with the assistance of some stereotypically handsome prince in tights. Myths attempt to form values and preserve the past. Trachtenberg has learned her lessons well and turned the tables on old myth-makers. She has re-fashioned and created a new world to inhabit. Not unlike other myth-making stories, there lies a complexity inherent within. She combines her interest in nature-culture and the fantastic to form new environments to explore, not unlike a visit to “Wonderland.”

Staged, fabricated, and constructed photographic work has been an essential practice for artists for the past 50 years. The rise of this contemporary practice is linked to the tumult of the mid-1960s. Society was at odds with itself, and the art world was also shifting under its feet. The rise of Pop, Op, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art set the stage for constructed photo-based narrative art practice. In the 1970s, 80s, and beyond, artists such as Barbara Kasten, Robert Cumming, Zeke Berman, Laurie Simmons, James Casebere, and Sandy Skoglund, (just to mention a few), represent historic place markers of import. The work of Mara Trachtenberg, significantly contributes to this contemporary practice.

Catalog Available

Featuring Lauren Nicole DiPillo, Danielle K. Gordon, Hillary Ina Graves, Ariana P. Manzi, Kayleigh K. Price, and Kelsie E. Shedden