THE LIONHEART GALLERY

Group Summer Exhibition The Lionheart Gallery Artists

Lionheart Gallery Launches Group Exhibition for Summer with July OpeningA Talented Showcase of Local Contemporary Artists Make This A Must See Exhibition

Pound Ridge, NY – (June, 2015) Announcing a summertime lineup that includes some of the hottest contemporary artists, Susan Grissom, director of the Lionheart Gallery at 27 Westchester Avenue in Pound Ridge, New York, said that the Gallery’s group exhibition will open on July 5 through September 27, 2015. The exhibition will feature a robust portfolio of works by 14 different area artists, including Westport artist Claudia Mengel, New Canaan painter Paul Balmer and Darien printmaker Karen Vogel; Bedford satirist Whit Conrad and Pound Ridge painters David Hutchin-son and Geoffrey Stein; North Salem abstract artist Ashley Chase Andrews; Litchfield County artists Liz Dexheimer and organic sculptor Donald Bracken; mixed media artist from Rhode Island Barbara Owen and Hamptons artist Betsy Podlach, along with visionary photographers Ann George, Emma Powell and Jennifer Schlesinger from Colorado, Louisiana and New Mexico . Sitting along a rural road between New Canaan, Connecticut, and Pound Ridge, New York, the quiet sur-rounds of the Lionheart Gallery will showcase the brightest and the best in this summer’s group exhibition, enlightening with illuminated perspectives that exude the very nature of contemporary art. Mentioning the incredible diversity of artwork and the plethora of talents in this show, Susan Grissom advised, “With organically based sculpture created by acclaimed mixed media artist Donald Bracken, stunning ethereal photog-raphy from a trio of visionary women photographers, and paintings of all subject and style by forward-thinking artists exceptionally skilled in their use of color and mixed media applications, this exhibition offers something for everyone.” Color, emotionally charged, brilliantly executed and joyous in expression, defines Claudia Mengel’s signature style in large-scale paintings that provide the focal palette for any space where they are hung. Her vision is inspired by the landscapes around her and takes shape in a kaleidoscope of imagery and colors, hand mixed, heartfelt and uniquely finessed to evoke the luminosity and spiritual beauty that characterizes her work. Paul Balmer hails from South Africa, studied art in Australia, taught drawing in Switzerland, honed his fine art talents in Paris, worked as a commercial illustrator in Boston and then moved to New York. His art is theme-based, evocative and expressed in a series of works that evolve into visual perspectives that chronicle a sense of place. Whether they are urban renderings of city skylines or pastoral settings, each is immersed in the energy and the colorful personalities of the landscapes he paints into immortality. Bedford resident Whit Conrad takes whimsy to a new level with his satirical painted commentaries of dinner

parties, goat farms, pink ladies, comedic self-portraits and more. His ability to engage viewers in animated conversa-tions about his expressive caricatures has made him a huge success at the Lionheart Gallery.West Cornwall resident Donald Bracken takes his inspiration from the Earth, literally. He incorporates vines, twigs, dirt and clay into his sculpture to honor the beauty found in nature. His three dimensional works are quiet reflections of treasured woodlands, tranquil ponds and verdant foliage, where frog love, starry nights, fireflies and plants evoke the inherent rhythm of the soil, giving life and movement to his signature art style. The summer exhibition will feature free-hanging sculptures that suggest living moments with every movement. Documenting dreamy other worlds with an imaginative mix of archival photography processes and digital enhancements, the women photographers featured in the gallery’s exhibition, Ann George, Emma Powell and Jen-nifer Schlesinger invite the public to experience people and places posed in time. Darien resident Karen Vogel is a printmaker and painter who, like Donald Bracken, finds inspiration in the natural world. Her work deftly explores the connection between patterns, textures, layers, colors, perspective and scale and plays out on canvas. An architect with a passion for embedding code in art, David Hutchinson finds inspiration in his artistic alphabet. “As a concept based abstract artist,” he explains, “my work investigates the nature of communication and the meaning of visual presentation.” Similarly motivated by abstract expression, Ashley Chase Andrews, a transplanted Californian, is a self-pro-fessed risk taker who finds freedom in mark making as she tries to “discover the balance of line, color, volume and personal strokes. She likes to work fast and big as she strives to convey the streets, architecture, museums and city near the hamlet she now calls home. Hamptons artist Betsy Podlach has an uncanny knack for hinting at her subject’s inner life, while engaging the viewer in speculation. Her work leaps off the canvas with hints of sensuality and vulnerability. She notes “people have a rich inner life existing simultaneously with our outward appearance.” Pause at her poses and find surprising artistic depth in her visual portraits. Liz Dexheimer impresses with paintings and prints inspired by natural landscapes, and Rhode Island artist Bar-bara Owen works her magic with paper and paint, presenting series of works that “ explore how color, shape, material and paint itself develop and change one’s experience of each work.”

The Lionheart Gallery, located at 27 Westchester Avenue in Pound Ridge, New York, is open Wednesday through Saturday from 11 am to 5 pm and Sunday from 12 pm to 4 pm. For more information, visit www.thelionheartgallery.com or call 914-764-8689.

ASHLEY CHASE ANDREWS

Ashley Chase Andrews paints a timeline of markmaking, symbols, and cultural colors, linking the past to the future. She minimalizes shapes to their abstract form, reducing images to the primative, again thinking about blending history and culture and time.

“I think growing up in Santa Monica, California set me free; for life, and for painting. In a family of five, there was lots of time to explore; the mountains, riding bareback on a horse; the surf, hours on a raft riding the wave; the streets on a bike, freedom. I was never afraid. No fear. I was a risk taker. I survived. Painting for me is the freedom of making marks, trying to discover the balance of line, color, volume, personal strokes, and trying to compete with and absorb the soul of the greats: Raushenberg, Dekooning, Miro, Deibenkorn, Cy Twombly, Picasso, etc.

Now living in New York and having gone to art school, I have learned two lessons. First: Art school is only for the basics and one has to go way beyond. There are no secrets imparted in school. This lesson unleashed the ability to put school behind me. Second: New York City provides me with such a platter of ideas- the streets, the architecture, the museums, etc. One only has to open their eyes for inspiration to wash over them. I like to work on brown gesso coated transparent linen, tacked to a wall. I like to work big. I work fast and respond to whatever color or mark I make, breaking up the shapes with charcoal or pastel and paint. I rework constantly and build up layers, which allow for a history. I like to write on the canvas, I like to use symbols, shapes and typography, always acting as my own harshest critic.”

Libro Aperto, Ashley Chase AndrewsAcrylic on Linen, 41” x 53.5”

Yellow Abstract, Ashley Chase AndrewsAcrylic on Linen, 62” x 53”

PAUL BALMER

Paul Balmer is an internationally represented painter who grew up in South Africa and moved to Australia at the age of 17. As a student, he pulled from his experiences on both continents; primitive wood carvings and tribal masks of Africa, and Aboriginal paintings and the warm, ruddy colors of the Australian landscape.The earthy tones and emotional spectrum of dawn and dusk continue to permeate his color schemes, while the rough, sanded surfaces, mark making, and etchings evoke a sense of primal naiveté.

Balmer’s bold canvases and textural use of paint play between the lines of direct representation. Art critic David Cleveland describes Balmer as, “a classic case of an artist seemingly born to his craft,” and writes evocatively of Balmer’s style. “Paul Balmer works diligently with obsessive attention and then lets go. The right balance requires a never-ending struggle between the consummate craftsman with full control of his materials and the experimentalist compelled to take risks.”

He has been featured in Vanity Fair, ARTnews, Interview Magazine, Belle, New England Home, Marin Magazine and various other publications. Balmer’s work has been shown in exhibitions in the United States, England, the Netherlands, South Africa, South Korea and Australia. His work has been purchased by art collectors and institutions around the world.

Southern Summer, Paul BalmerOil on Canvas, 80” x 80”

Dark Night, Paul BalmerOil on Canvas, 35” x 85”

DONALD BRACKEN

Donald Bracken, a nationally known award-winning artist, is a native San Franciscan and UC Berkeley graduate who has lived in West Cornwall, Connecticut, for 34 years. Painting and drawing have always been his primary creative focus. One of his greatest visual influences has been the windows of the World Trade Center, where he had an artist in residency fellowship in 1997 and he has used that motif as a repeated shape or format idea in many of his works since. In 2007, a series of paintings of deserted farms in the Connecticut River valley became not just about the earth but of the earth when he began to paint the landscapes using soil from the farms he was painting. The earth-polymer material he has developed has a dynamic, visceral, and visual quality that, as it dries and cracks, allows the processes of nature a role in the fluid, changing canvases they form together. Much of his focus has continued to shift toward celebrating earth materials, among them leaves, vines, and beaver sticks, as voices unto themselves.

As he has become ever more inspired by alternative materials and different ways of looking at nature, form, and structure, his means of expression, even when sculptural, are still essentially drawing and painting. Sculptural elements are a way to make 3-D paintings that he can fully inhabit. His use of vines as a material and a medium began as an element in the earth paintings and has evolved into its own approach, opening up the process of creating works that resemble calligraphy in space.

Invasive Species from My Baby, Donald BrackenBeaver Sticks, Bittersweet Maple Vine and Wire, 70” x 80”

Invasive Species II, Donald BrackenBittersweet Maple Vine, Wire and Metal Rods, 110” x 85”

Untitled (Mountain Laurel), Donald BrackenBarrel Stave, Mountain Laurel Branches and Yarn, 32” diameter

Untitled (Vines in Hoop), Donald BrackenVines, Barrel Stave, 24” diameter

Frozen Moment, Donald BrackenLeaves, Polymer and Wire, 60” x 36”

Frozen Moment in Bark No. 3, Donald BrackenMountain Laurel Root, Polymer and Wire, 64” x 36”

Survival of the Fittest, Donald BrackenJacaranda Pods, Baptisia Pods and Wire, 36” x 24”

WHIT CONRAD

Whit Conrad lives in Manhattan and works out of a stu- dio in Long Island City. He is a graduate of the New York Studio School in painting. His work has been shown at various public venues in New York City and Bedford, NY and solo shows in Portland, Maine (2014) and at Gallery Sensei in New York City (2014). He is a trustee of the Vermont Studio Center where he was board chair for 7 years. Previously a lawyer in NYC, he has degrees from Yale and Harvard Law School.

“I try to capture the poetry and mystery in what I see. My paintings are all conceived by an image that strikes me as powerful or interesting in one sense or another. The image triggers an inquiry—often emotional, often play- ful—into elements of form, color, and narrative. I nor- mally begin with the visual world: a pictorial idea. This can be something I have seen and perhaps sketched or photographed, or drawn from my collection of family photos, books and newspapers: the richly land-scaped archives of memory. Whatever its origin, the image becomes my companion in the journey through my imagination and the demands of the medium. Together we evolve, complicate, suffer, cel-ebrate, transform. Without a map and without direction, we are free to wander recklessly. Eventually, the painting itself takes over as guide, steering us toward some unexpected destination. As a result, the finished work bears little resemblance to the original visual idea. And while my paintings are not heavily theoretical or conceptualized, they all do share this same unfolding.”

“Such juxtaposition is of interest to me. My ongoing study of it offers a sometimes insightful, sometimes baffling education into my own art process and practice. Imagination plays a larger role than perception. Natural elements and geographic features – trees, water, clouds, sky – often become active forces in the life of the painting, forming mood and sentiment. The characters are often at the mercy of these forces. The act of painting—the act of discovery—leaves me feeling similarly. It can be emotional and cathartic. The paintings themselves, as artifacts of this catharsis, become like specimens in a sort of personal, imaginary museum. Whit’s Museum. Welcome. As is the case with all museums, it’s best to wander aimlessly. I hope you enjoy your visit.”

Good Hand, Whit ConradAcrylic Ink and Acrylic on Linen, 48” x 36”

Man with a Big Nose (after Soutine), Whit ConradAcrylic Ink and Acrylic on Linen, 60” x 48”

LIZ DEXHEIMER

Liz Dexheimer’s paintings and works on paper have been exhibited widely throughout the northeast region and also in the southeast. Her work, including commissioned pieces, is in numerous private and corporate collections around the country, including those of United Peoples Bank, the Ritz Carlton Corporation, Frontier Communications and others. Most recently, a suite of her large-scale works on paper was acquired by the JW Marriott Corporation for the Essex House, its corporate headquarters in Manhattan.

She studied at Oberlin College, the School of Visual Arts and Parsons School of Design. In 2011, she was awarded a painting residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT. She is a juried member of the Silvermine Artists Guild and is affiliated with several galleries in the eastern US.

“My current body of work continues my exploration of shape, surface and pattern as they relate to the natural environment. I’m interested in the visual interplay between light and dark, motion and stillness, surface elements and what lies beneath. The work is inspired by the combinations of lin-ear and fluid elements found in some of Nature’s quieter water environments, the stilled swamps, murky koi ponds and detritus-filled wetlands. Some of the pieces are informed more directly by the structural elements, others, the more atmospheric, intangible qualities of these places. Capturing a sense of place, not simply a resemblance, is a driving motivation. I’m inspired by the distinct moods evoked by these areas, sometimes focusing on the pensive, almost elegiac stillness, sometimes celebrating the unabashedly ornamental.

My process in both painting and on paper involves creating structure by building layers of visual infor-mation to suggest form. I like to push the suggested imagery further along to the point where the mind picks up the implied idea, distilling an environment to its most basic patterning and building it back up. By adding layers and occasionally superimposing structural elements, I can play with the picture plane, challenging perspective, and creating a narrative of sorts.”

Prenatural Entanglements Gathering, Liz DexheimerOil on Canvas, 60” x 48”

Koi Series VI, Liz DexheimerOil on Canvas, 60” x 48”

ANN GEORGE

Ann George is a visual artist who melds pixels, paper, ink and paint to create compelling photographic fusions. She also prints her work using a polymer photogravure process. She has won numerous awards both nationally and internationally, participated in exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad. She has been published in multiple periodicals and books and has lectured in the United States and Canada. Critics have commented that her photographic approach is mysterious and poetic and continues a pictorial tradition important in the history of photography. She continues to create images that call to her vintage eye, propelling her to seek different approaches and techniques in the camera, in the computer, in printing, and in paint.

“I grew up with people and places that grounded my roots deep into the southern soil and my heart into Louisiana’s personality. I sense the South, within its old things that still have purpose, in its soft blanket of pine straw beneath my feet and its suffocating summer nights and in the storytelling beneath its branches of culture and history. These southern memories will always be part of who I am and the work I do. I utilize photography for more than a means l to capture a moment in time, but as a voice to capture a movement through time. I desire to describe a journey, a fairytale, a feeling of progression through and to something and it propels my artist eye to such a beginning and an end.

In an effort to create images that reflect a sense of nostalgia, I blend modern Photoshop techniques, oils, glazes, and waxes to create texture and depth. I meld pixels, paper and paint to create photographic fusions that celebrate my native Louisiana as well as people, places and stories that move me. I make a humble attempt to portray the role of inspirational storyteller through imagery and look for ways to satisfy my vintage eye in the camera, in the computer, in the printing, and in the paint.”

When Pigs Fly, Ann GeorgeHandprinted Archival Pigment Ink, Oil Glazed and Varnished, 16” x 20”

Raising Georges, Ann GeorgeHandprinted Archival Pigment Ink, Oil Glazed and Varnished, 16” x 20”

DAVID HUTCHINSON

The Poetry Painting Series is a continuation of David Hutchinson’s artistic practice of blurring the lines between language and images. As in other related works, in this series Hutchinson replaces the letters of words with bars of chromatic and achromatic colors. When chromatic colors are present, the ‘alphabet’ used is a simple one where everyday English names of colors are employed as stand-ins for letters: A = Aquamarine, B = Blue, C = Crimson, D = Dove Gray, etc. When achromatic colors are used, A = White and Z = Black, and the rest of the letters are proportionally graduated gray-scale mixtures of White and Black.

The block groupings of colors in these paintings are arbitrarily selected words taken from descriptions of Jean Genet’s life as told in his NY Times obituary, and from Jean Paul Sartre’s exploration of beauty and evil found in his book, Saint Genet. The ‘words’ in each composition are layered and interwoven to create a mood of stoic solidity that teeters just outside the resolution of complete balance. They have the feeling of a seemingly stable edifice that challenges the logic of gravity. Additionally, this series recalls the Concrete Poetry from the 60’s and 70’s where individual words, selected and structured according to visually formal concerns, are transformed to create highly organized pictures that supersede their content.

As in all of Hutchinson’s work, final visual images subsume original source material, creating graphic puzzles that are as rich as our lived experience.

Poem for JG “A” Liberty, Black Sum, Pristine, First, Provoked, David HutchinsonOil on Linen, 33.5” x 25.5”

Poem for “Q” Saint, Maudit, Actor, Moralist, made, Private, David HutchinsonOil on Linen, 33.5” x 25.5”

Poem for “F” Born Outlaw Lived mentor Role Fiction, David HutchinsonOil on Linen, 33.5” x 25.5”

Poem for JG ORDER, Self, Staged, Confe$sed, Raging, Subject, David HutchinsonOil on Linen, 33.5” x 25.5”

Poem for “G” Poem, Theme, RITE, EROTIC, PIMP, MYSTIQUE, David HutchinsonOil on Linen, 33.5” x 25.5”

Poem for “J” Evil, Auto, PLAYS, CouRAGE, Ritual, David HutchinsonOil on Linen, 33.5” x 25.5”

CLAUDIA MENGEL

Claudia Mengel has been studying, instructing, and making art for many years. An accomplished painter and printmaker whose work is in many private collections in the tri-state area, is a member of Silvermine Artist Guild and the Center for Contemporary Printmaking. The artist received her degree in printmaking from the Brainerd Art School at the State University of New York at Potsdam. She has continued her studies at the Art Students League in New York, the Silvermine Art Center, the Center for Contemporary Printmaking, and the Darien Art Center.

Mengel has studied with Robert Reed, Professor of Art at Yale. She also studies and works with Hugh O’Donnell, Professor of Art at Boston University, Constance Kiermaier, a prominent New England artist, Master Printer Marina Anacona, and Master Printer Anthony Kirk. Born in New York City,Ms. Mengel now works and lives in Westport, Connecticut.

“My work comes from not looking, but experiencing the world around me, and then translating these visual and emotional perceptions. With every creation, there is a new discovery, a new problem, a new solution. Every time I approach the blank white space, I take a unique journey always unlike the last, and never like the next. It is what keeps me coming back.”

Giuseppe’s Garden, Claudia MengelMixed Media on Linen, 36” x 60”

Muller Park III, Claudia MengelMixed Media on Linen, 60” x 48”

BARBARA OWEN

“The development of this new work on paper comes from a recent decision to cut up the drawings and templates that I had previously used in the preparation of a painting. I had wanted a break from painting and started to explore making work that was unbounded by the dimensions of a traditional canvas support. This cutting up process has now become a free-form way of creating new imagery, reconfiguring my original concept to give it new meaning. What was once discarded has become the material in which I make the work.

In the paper series I repeatedly cut thin outlines of a shape until there is nothing left to cut and then assemble them into compositions. The compositions are created using all of the outlines of the original shape. I also use this same process and is repeated on a bigger scale in a series I install directly on the wall.

How I find my shapes and where they come from is not arbitrary. Although the shapes are simply organic figures reminiscent of circles or flower petals or the shape of a face. They are significant to me in that after several years of painting abstractly I began to notice a pattern of shapes that I liked to make or that pleased me. I started extracting or isolating these from those layers of abstraction. These shapes are present in my paintings and in my new works made from paper – they are just being used differently. In a way they emerged from chaos and became organized and now they have been abstracted again through process.

My work has evolved through the act of process: One piece leads to another. For me, the most effective way to make a painting is to find a methodology; which allows the creative process, once set into motion, to proceed as a natural force. With this allure painting offers in its most elemental simplicity, the opportunity to create imagery and is a record of it’s making.”

Perched Red, Barbara OwenMixed Media on Paper, 9” x 12”

Pinky Red on Green, Barbara OwenMixed Media on Paper, 12” x 9”

Delicate Pink Bubble, Barbara OwenMixed Media on Paper, 14” x 11”

Red Overwhelms, Barbara OwenMixed Media on Paper, 12” x 9”

BETSY PODLACH

Artist Betsy Podlach was born and raised in Bedford, NY before her artistic evolution took her from Harvard University, where she was a National Merit Scholar and a Watson Scholar, to stints as a Visiting Artist in Umbria, Italy.

At the beginning of her professional career, Betsy’s work was collected by the Princess Donnatello Borghese of Rome, who was so impressed with her work that she invited Betsy to return the following summer, and provided her with an apartment and studio within her family castle near Rome. Betsy also credits numerous scholarships from Harvard and the New York Studio School as well as the International School of Art in Umbria with allowing her to take time to develop her craft.

Podlach’s work fascinates and is both figurative and expressionistic. The artist has an uncanny knack for hinting at her subject’s inner life, while engaging the viewer in speculation. She notes that

“Each person is incredible. All of us have a rich inner life existing simultaneously with our outward appearance. We have profound thoughts; some we keep to ourselves, we are intelligent as well as sensual and vulnerable. I don’t consciously plan what I want to say, but over time, the things I believe in are reflected in my art.”

Ballerina and Bunny, Betsy PodlachOil and Egg Tempera on Linen, 50” x 44”

Lady Going to Rehearsal, Betsy PodlachOil and Egg Tempera on Linen, 34” x 34”

EMMA POWELL

Emma Powell grew up the daughter of a photographer and a photo historian. She’s always avoided sleep, even as a child growing up in Vermont. Her father would work every night in his darkroom until three in the morning, only to come home to his daughter awake and waiting. They’d wander into the fields in the darkness to look at the constellations. Then her father would tell her fantastical stories that started at home and then took her “down open drains to a dream-world of caverns, forests and oceans” fraught with danger and packed with adventure. He told her these stories every night to calm his daughter to sleep. She learned to use the camera most officially on a trip to India when she was fifteen. It wasn’t until she was introduced to historic processes that she began to find my own voice. She considers the early work she did with her father an extension of his work anda valuable learning experience. In college, she was introduced to alternative processes and really enjoyed the style and hands-on approach. Currently, Emma Powell is an artist in residence and lecturer at Iowa State University. Powell graduated from the College of Wooster in Ohio and received her MFA from Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work often examines photography’s history while incorporating historic processes and or devices within the imagery.

“From my earliest days I have had a difficult relationship with sleep. As a child I avoided it at all costs, especially at night. To get me back to bed, my father used to tell me stories. They were not traditional children’s bedtime stories, but invented tales that began on our quiet street and journeyed down open drains to a dream-world of caverns, forests, and oceans full of unexpected animals and dangers. The story would always find its way back to the real world and end where it had begun, hopefully but doubtfully with me that much closer to sleep. My work recreates this shadowy realm and allows me to explore my real-life questions, from personal dramas to romantic doubts. The cyanotype process, with its distinctive blue tones, visually traverses the distance between waking and sleeping. In Search of Sleep creates a visual lullaby that allows me to safely explore what I love, what I fear, what I remember, and what I imagine.”

Against the Storm, Emma PowellToned Cyanotype, 16” x 20”

Farewell to Darkness, Emma PowellToned Cyanotype, 11” x 14”

ROXANNE FABER SAVAGE

Roxanne Faber Savage was born in Boston, Massachusetts and currently lives and works in Connecticut and New York.

She is an award winning multidisciplinary artist with printmaking as her primary medium. Roxanne creates works on paper and other substrates, pushing the boundaries of traditional printmaking. Her graphic imagery of swimmers, powerlines, clover, balls and birds is developed through a mix of skill and intuition, using print, photography, and drawing techniques.

Roxanne is a juried member of The Boston Printmakers, Silvermine Art Guild, and a recipient of a Weir Farm Artist Residency. She is a dynamic educator and Master Teaching Artist on the State of CT Teaching Artist roster. Her art works are held in private and corporate collections including Impala Asset Management, CT & FL,Bonanza Productions/Film & Television, NYC & CA; Ocean House, Watch Hill, R.I.; Becker & Becker Architects, OCTAGON LP, NY; Cohen and Wolf, P.C. CT; Goldman Sachs NY; RD Weis Companies USA and Unilever USA.

“I make art about basic life events- from the mundane to the seminal. I use an array of graphic images; birds, houses, boxes, powerlines, tubes and swimmers to tell my visual stories. These images act as a bridge for me to explore intangible ideas and subconscious thoughts about the world. My process is multidisciplinary and includes photography, computer, Xeroxing, drawing, painting, book arts, plaster work, and printmaking. The work is intentionally messy and tidy, clear and ephemeral, familiar and strange; perhaps reflecting a passion for continual exploration and my human need to create.”

Chatter, Roxanne Faber SavageMonoprint on Aluminum, 24” x 72”

JENNIFER SCHLESINGER

Jennifer Schlesinger is an artist, curator, and educator based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico. For the past 5 years her artistic medium of choice has been the 19th Century Albumen process and her work mostly focuses on the landscape and how humans philosophically interact with the natural world around them. Schlesinger graduated from the College of Santa Fe in 1998 with a B.A. in Photography and Journalism. Schlesinger has exhibited widely at Southwest regional institutions such as the Marion Center for Photographic Arts (SFUAD), Santa Fe Art Institute and the New Mex-ico Museum of Art, as well as national institutions such as the Southeast Museum of Photography and the Chelsea Art Museum.

Her work has been published online and in print with international publications such as Black and White Magazine (U.S and UK), the cover article for Diffusion Magazine Volume III, and Fotoritim in Turkey. Schlesinger is represented in many public collections, including the Southeast Museum of Photography, FL; The New Mexico Museum of Art, and the New Mexico History Museum / Palace of the Governors Photo Archives. She has received several honors in recognition of her work including a Golden Light Award in Landscape Photography from the Maine Photographic Workshops and the Center for Contemporary Arts Photography Award in Santa Fe, New Mexico, both in 2005. She has been awarded many distinctive nominations such as the Santa Fe Prize for Photography by the Center and the Eliot Porter Fellowship by the New Mexico Council for Photography.

In addition to her artistic career she was also the Assistant Director of Santa Fe Art Institute from 2003-2005 and has been the Director of VERVE Gallery of Photography since 2005. Schlesinger has taught Adjunct at the College of Santa Fe and continues to teach via workshops through the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops and other venues.

Object Diaspora No. 13, Jennifer SchlesingerSelenium Toned Gelatin Silver Print, 9” x 7”

Here Nor There No. 9, Jennifer SchlesingerHandcoated Albumen, Selenium Toned Print 4.5” x 8”

GEOFFREY STEIN

Jennifer Schlesinger is an artist, curator, and educator based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico. For the past 5 years her artistic medium of choice has been the 19th Century Albumen process and her work mostly focuses on the landscape and how humans philosophically interact with the natural world around them. Schlesinger graduated from the College of Santa Fe in 1998 with a B.A. in Photography and Journalism. Schlesinger has exhibited widely at Southwest regional institutions such as the Marion Center for Photographic Arts (SFUAD), Santa Fe Art Institute and the New Mex-ico Museum of Art, as well as national institutions such as the Southeast Museum of Photography and the Chelsea Art Museum.

Her work has been published online and in print with international publications such as Black and White Magazine (U.S and UK), the cover article for Diffusion Magazine Volume III, and Fotoritim in Turkey. Schlesinger is represented in many public collections, including the Southeast Museum of Photography, FL; The New Mexico Museum of Art, and the New Mexico History Museum / Palace of the Governors Photo Archives. She has received several honors in recognition of her work including a Golden Light Award in Landscape Photography from the Maine Photographic Workshops and the Center for Contemporary Arts Photography Award in Santa Fe, New Mexico, both in 2005. She has been awarded many distinctive nominations such as the Santa Fe Prize for Photography by the Center and the Eliot Porter Fellowship by the New Mexico Council for Photography.

In addition to her artistic career she was also the Assistant Director of Santa Fe Art Institute from 2003-2005 and has been the Director of VERVE Gallery of Photography since 2005. Schlesinger has taught Adjunct at the College of Santa Fe and continues to teach via workshops through the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops and other venues.

BB Grid, Geoffrey SteinOil on Canvas, 40” x 40”

Madonna of the Pink Indian, Geoffrey SteinOil on Canvas, 40” x 30”

Belle, Geoffrey SteinAcrylic on Canvas, 24” x 18”

KAREN VOGEL

Karen Vogel is a printmaker, painter and landscape designer who lives in Darien CT and maintains a studio in Norwalk. Her work melds the influences of visual form, narrative and nature. The language of print, typography, architecture and organic forms emerge from multiple layers of a variety of printmaking and painting techniques, revealing evidence of a continual process of order and chaos. Ms. Vogel has studied painting and drawing at the Art Students League (New York City), the Corcoran College of Art and Design (Washington DC), The San Francisco Art Institute (San Francisco, CA) and with master printers at The Center for Contemporary Printmaking (Norwalk, CT). She has a Master Garden Certificate from the University of Connecticut and a Certificate in Landscape Design from New York Botanical Garden.

Karen’s prints and paintings have been featured in museums and galleries across the country. Her work has additionally been collected by numerous private and corporate patrons. She has completed commissions for the National Academy of Science (Washington, DC) and American Public TV Stations (Washington, DC). Earlier in her career, she was an Art Consultant for The Aldrich Gallery (San Francisco, CA) and served as Director of Art and Exhibition Programs at the American Institute of Architects (Washington, DC). The artist is currently an active member of the Center for Contemporary Printmaking (Norwalk, CT), where she served on the board, Westport Art Center, Silvermine Guild of Artists. She teaches printmaking classes from the studio she maintains in Norwalk, CT.

“My work utilizes the language of print, typography, architectural and organic forms to explore the monumental shifts that have emerged from the breakdown of social cohesion - the infrastructure that supports social structure and communication that links us as social beings. The core of my work revolves around juxtaposing these diverse shifts and their uncertain references. Beginning with the structure of hand-cut stencils, I layer multiple forms, textures, patterns, paper lithography, collagraph and monotype plates. Each layer involves a set of decisions and is subject to a series of actions: forms are printed or painted, removed, covered, uncovered, overlapped, deleted, repeated, built-up and broken-down. The play of positive and negative spaces generates a tension between cohesion and disorder. Within this loosely structured environment, the images agitate with a sense of sound and movement. This evidence of continual pro- cess, of order and chaos, reflects my striving to hear my voice within the ever-changing visual languages of our time.”

Off Limits, Karen VogelMixed Media on Wood Panel, 24” x 24”

D2, Karen VogelMixed Media on Wood Panel, 24” x 24”

Out of Bounds, Karen VogelMixed Media on Canvas, 18” x 18”

Curated by Susan GrissomDesigned by Erin Manion

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