New Brunswick Art Salon 2018 – Oil Color and Mixed Media: “An Expanse of Expressionism”
Exhibition Duration: April 24th, 2018 — June 16th, 2018
Opening Reception: Friday, April 27th, 2018 @ 6:30pm
Beginning on April 24th, Alfa Art Gallery will commence one of its flagship exhibitions, the 2018 New Brunswick Art Salon for Oil Color and Mixed Media. This display, celebrating the aesthetic mastery of gifted painters, will be initiated with a cozy and intimate opening ceremony to be held on Friday, April 27th at 6:30pm and hosted by Alfa. Attendees of this event will become familiarized with a diverse array of wondrous artworks spanning the colorfully abstract to the otherworldly and surreal.
Though expressionism is a substantial theme of our Oil Color & Mixed Media Exhibition, the featured artists at Alfa will boast a wide array of visual aesthetics ranging from the impressionistic to the abstract style that expressionism is renowned for. Charity Henderson’s body of work serves to explores various psychological states through mixed media impressionistic paintings of the human face. Similarly, Debora Thedinga utilizes impressionism in order to manipulate light, color and space thus crafting a landscape that can be viewed successfully through the small window of the canvas. In slight contrast to her fellow featured artists, Tricia Miho offers a more surrealist aesthetic with paintings reminiscent of Salvador Dalí. Her work explores the progression of images and how such progression enables the transformation of metaphysical creations.
Alfa’s Oil Color & Mixed Media Exhibition will also display artworks that are more consistent with expressionism, particularly in the realm of the abstract. Colleen Lineberry’s works celebrate natural beauty as captured through her mind’s eye resulting in in vibrantly colorful motifs presenting near otherworldly landscapes. In a fashion akin to Lineberry’s abstract aesthetic, Enrique Zaldivar utilizes color and inspiration from the natural world to illustrate issues inherent to human beings and satisfy his constant need to express himself. Kathleen Shaver’s artistry can be described as a quest for the beauty which lies within human impulse and the primal. Leona Tenebruso-Shultes similarly explores this primality by adorning her canvas with impassioned brushstrokes and expressive colors and finally. Pat Cresson utilizes multifaceted mediums of both digital and analog origin in order to craft texturally rich abstract pieces rich in complexity and exquisitely balanced hues. Incorporating drawing as a structural springboard, Maurie Brooks endeavors to embody visual thinking and simultaneously facilitate the suspension of thought. For her, this can ultimately result in a freedom from the rational, linear or observational, a freedom that allows for a more intuitive approach, even a turning toward the repetitive or meditative, sometimes with surprising results.
Devotees to the likes of Salvador Dalí, Wassily Kandinsky, and Helen Frankenthaler will especially find a great deal to love scouring Alfa’s artwork adorned walls.
Drawing inspiration from Parisian exhibitions from the Baroque era bearing the same name, Alfa Art Gallery’s New Brunswick Art Salons are held a number of times each year always with the express goal of lessening the divide between artists and the community, especially in the diverse city of New Brunswick. With the help of grants given by organizations such as Amboy Bank, the Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission, Magyar Bank and the New Brunswick City Center, Alfa is confident that all attendees and viewers of 2018 New Brunswick Art Salon for Oil Color and Mixed Media will leave with a healthier interest and appreciation for the artistic contributions of talents spanning the New Brunswick, the state of New Jersey and beyond. The exhibition and opening ceremony is free and open to the public.
Featured Artists: Charity Henderson, Colleen Lineberry, Debora Thedinga, Enrique Zaldivar, Kathleen Shaver, Leona Tenebruso-Shultes, Maurie Brooks, Pat Cresson, Tricia Miho.
About Alfa Art Gallery’s Art Salons:
Alfa Art Gallery possesses a great deal of reverence for the 18th and 19th century traditional art salons. During this era, art salons were the single greatest annual or biannual melding of the artistic and intellectual minds of their time. For ten years, Alfa has successfully emulated these momentous events in its own unique way by bridging highly esteemed and talented artists with the New Brunswick public. The Winter offers a salon with exhibitions dedicated to photography while Spring hosts oil and mixed media. The Summer brings a collective consisting of all themes and the Fall presents a watercolor and mixed media exhibition. Alfa is dedicated to the discovery, growth, and support of emerging and established artists. We believe that visual art is a universal form of expression which can bridge cultural gaps and provide a forum where diverse perspectives can be shared and appreciated. Established in 2008, Alfa Art Gallery has grown into New Brunswick’s Cultural Hub by exhibiting over five hundred artists and by hosting multidisciplinary community events in honor of the visual arts, music, poetry and dancing.
