Exhibition duration: June 3 –24, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, June 10 @ 6:30-10:30pm
Open Studio: Thursday, June 16 @ 7 pm
Curator: Jewel Lim
Multiciplinary Event: TBA
The Alfa Art Gallery is proud to present “Abstraction and the Creative Unconscious,” the joint exhibition of Peter Arakawa and Rita Herzfeld. The works of Arakawa and Herzfeld create a world of the nonrepresentational, often conceived in moments of instinct and uncertainty. Each piece in this exhibition began as a mystery with the first brushstroke and stresses the artist’s journey to reach a conclusion. The title of this show “Abstraction and the Creative Unconscious” highlights the process in which creativity fosters and is fostered by artists from all walks of life. For Arakawa and Herzfeld, the end results of these processes are phenomenal. Arakawa, who paints from his observations of daily life, successfully combines patterns and shapes that are unlikely together. In her work, Herzfeld’s brushstrokes are dominant players, suspended in a state of movement in a stationary painting. The works in this exhibition present themselves as if conceived in the midst of fresh inspiration, whether from the moving strokes or the busy arrangements within them. What this exhibition states is that there is ultimately no conclusion to the artist’s journey: the paintings, with their uncontained “moving strokes” and busy environments, exhibit that solutions only create new mysteries so that new works can be given birth to.
About the Artists
Peter Arakawa obtained his MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. He became an artist through the influences of creative family members. Arakawa has been a professional artist for over twenty-five years. His works are held in many institutions and museums, including the Zimmerli Art Museum, Newark Public Library, Jersey City Museum, the State Museum, Hunterdon Art Museum and Johnson & Johnson Corporation.
Rita Herzfeld attended the School of Visual Arts and City College of N.Y. and obtained her BA from Rutgers University. Inspired by her artistic mother, Herzfeld became an artist who grew up believing in the power that comes with creation and its processes from simple tools such as pencil and paper. Her works are held in the Hunterdon Museum of Art, the Zimmerli Art Museum and various private collections.
