This Winter, Alfa Art Gallery is hosting the New Brunswick Art Salon’s All-Media Exhibition. For ten years the New Brunswick Art Salon at the Alfa Art Gallery has been a vital part of the local art scene and culture. This seasons exhibition includes several locally renowned artists including Carol Radsprecher and Allison Lewis, along with international artists Jung Gun Park and Ogunlesi Paul, among others. Several different mediums will be on display, such as painting, photography, drawing, and sculpture.
As per our new normal as a nation, the Alfa Art Gallery is also proud to include a virtual version of our exhibition. This fully interactive online experience will allow visitors to view and be involved with the works just as they would in person at the gallery. International artists will be displayed exclusively in the virtual version of the exhibition, so be sure not to miss it! Hosted by artsteps.com, the virtual exhibition will be available from December 4th through January 30th, 2021.
Exhibition Duration: December 1st, 2020 – January 30th 2021
Gallery Opening Reception: Unfortunately, due to the recent increase in COVID-19 cases and Governor Phil Murphy’s subsequent increase in limitations of indoor gatherings with Executive Order No. 196, Alfa Art Gallery has decided to postpone our in-person gallery opening for the NBAS All-Media Exhibition: “Configured Personas.” We will be supplementing this event with artist interviews and potential virtual open studios with our featured artists. We apologize for this sudden change and we hope you are all staying safe in these times.
Virtual Opening Reception: Thursday, December 3rd, 2020 @ 6:00 PM
Featured Artists:
Jamie Greenfield works in this exhibition reflect an ecosystem that encompasses nature, cosmology, and the connection between the inner mind and the outer natural world. The objects in her works seem to have a tenuous relation to one another, yet they are anchored in a structured space. Some of these relations are provided to the viewer while others are more ambiguous, and may be the result of memory or longing. Greenfield draws upon personal history in combination with observation of light and form, and often does not have a preconceived plan for a work, allowing the piece to evolve and process as it is created. She views the moth as a potent metaphor: beautiful and dangerous, the brevity of its life coupled with its incessant movement towards the light appears to reflect the human existential dilemma.
Ogunlesi Paul is a graduate of the prestigious Yaba College of Technology in Lagos, Nigeria, where he obtained a National Diploma in General Art (majoring in Painting). He worked as an IT student at Defactori Art Studio under Akintunde O. John. He has participated in numerous art workshops, symposiums, and exhibitions–such as the OYASAF marble print workshop, The Artmiabo Art workshop, The Medallion Art workshop in honor of Kolade Oshinowo’s birthday, Art in Medicine Fellowship and Workshop 2018, and Artbridge Project Symposium–both within the country and internationally. Paul has been a member of The Beyond Borders Artists Association of Nigeria since 2017 and began working as an art instructor at THE METAPHOR in Lagos, Nigeria in 2020.
Patricia Hynes’s works are made of narratives of ordinary people in natural settings that challenge viewers to reflect upon their own lives. She believes that every reaction is unique and anyone can be a subject of her paintings. She focuses on the moments that are difficult for the eye and memory to capture, which are pivotal to revealing the dynamic of a painting. To achieve this, she takes numerous “action” photographs of subjects, then transforms these images into a montage that becomes a visual concept. The painting’s visual origins are transformed through composition and pigment, leading her studies on how people react to life situations. She paints in oils using a variety of small brushes to create expressive visuality and a reading tempo that actively engage viewers in thought and interpretation of her works.
Paul Fuentes has been directing national commercials and campaigns at his own production company with Screen Gems. His knowledge and understanding of advertising, pop culture, theater, film, and classic and modern masters have informed his paintings throughout time. After graduating from Temple University, Fuentes moved to New York where his paintings and illustrations appeared in national ads and publications including The New York Times. He worked in broadcast advertising and promotion at NBC and later HBO, where he became a creative director and then began to direct. He soon opened his own production company with Screen Gems where he directed hundreds of national commercials and campaigns.
Stephanie Deshpande is a representational painter living in northern New Jersey, and is best known for her psychological portraits and narrative paintings. Her works combine a love of realism with personal allegories and create unearth hidden emotions that capture the quiet drama of the world around her. She has showcased her paintings in several noticeable exhibitions such as Painting Today for International Women’s Day 2019 in Barcelona, Spain, and American Women Artists for the Tuscon Art Museum in Tuscon Arizona.
Allison Lewis demonstrates high levels of expressionism in her art influenced by her incredible life experiences. Being a philanthropic individual, Lewis has crafted art in New Brunswick for those who are homeless, as well as for those who are mentally ill. She does this out of the kindness of her heart and for the love of art. Her art is demonstrated in many different forms, by being displayed not only to loved ones, but to therapy groups and in art classes. The expressions in her drawings have a massive variety: they can express any topic, whether it be cancer, love, or anger. Her inclusiveness of individuals is incredible….. Allison is additionally passionate about showcasing her art to handicapped individuals. Her kindheartedness puts a much heavier meaning into her paintings.
Carol Radsprecher was born in Brooklyn and remained in New York City for her BFA and MFA in painting at Hunter College. Now, she has started to explore the stimulating world of photoshop and digital art. Through this medium, Radsprecher paints different layers with speed and in doing so is able to manipulate and render infinite variations of her abstracted figures. Each image contributes to a series that is both narrative and autobiographical in exploring the first landscape we see in the world– the female body. With her work published and in solo and group exhibitions, Radsprecher has shown her distorted representations at galleries in the tri-state area beyond including at the Victory Hall Drawing Rooms, Rogue Community College Gallery, Grants Pass, The Alliance Gallery, Metropolitan Community College’s Next Gallery, Pierro Gallery, Garrison Art Center, and Thompson Park Art Exhibition Series.
Seema Singh Dua has been a sculptor for the past fifteen years in India. Since then, she has been featured innumerable galleries across the globe and had the distinct honor of being commissioned by the Home Ministry for their museum in Nirman Bhawan, Delhi, India. Her artist career began with studying textile designing with a specialization in printing technologies and working as a free-lance textile designer. After many years of developing her sculptural techniques, Dua has started to emphasize the interior aspect of her pieces by connecting her audience with the inner soul of the sculpture. She considers the aesthetic exterior of art is just a small part of a larger experience. Using the concepts of interior and exterior, Dua encourages her audience to contemplate the dichotomies of the physical and the cerebral, reality and imagination, and the exposed and the hidden.
Yongshin Cho is a truly global artist who has worked both in Seoul, South Korea and Paris, France for the past forty years. Cho began his career at Hongik University with a BFA in painting which was followed by another BFA and MFA at the Université Paris. In 1995, he was invited to be a part of the International Video and Multimedia Art Festival where he garnered critical acclaim. After that, Cho continued to become involved in notable projects, artists residencies, and teaching with his particular style. He was also featured in many exhibitions in France (such as the Grand Palais, and Salon of France International Fine-art Society, Biennale d’art Contemporain), Korea (not limited to the Whanki Museum, Gwangju Biennal, and PICAF International Contemporary Art Exhibition) and United States (including the Cleveland Internation Drawing Contest & Exhibit, Queens College, and Riverside Gallery). His works have been heavily informed by the experience of living through the brutality of the Gwangju Uprising. With that context, Cho chooses to use his medium to take a critical look at social, political, and cultural structures that incur injustice and inequality.
Jung Gun Park a current professor in digital art and ceramics at Dongduk Women’s University, has been featured in exhibitions in Taiwan, China, Japan, and Korea. After earning a Ph.D. at Hong-Ik University in Seoul in ceramics, Park has been featured in both group and solo exhibitions throughout Asia and receiving many awards at the Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale Competition, the Hagi Grand Prix in Contemporary Ceramic in Japan, and Tawain Ceramic Biennale among many others. His art style is focused on the idea of creating something as his father was an architect. Since a young age, he considered buildings as things that were made versus something that was acquired transactionally. Park uses transportation as the main subject in many of his pieces as a way to critique contemporary rapid industrialization. He challenges his audience to introspect on how humans mediate between the inherent dangers and convenience with modern technology.
Marina Burana was born in Argentina but received her BFA at Taipei National University of Arts in Taiwan where she currently works and resides. Because of her dual residencies, Burana displayed her works in both Taiwan and Argentina group exhibitions. Since then, she has also extended her portfolio to Mérida, México, and Los Angeles, USA. Additionally, Burana has designed the covers of several publications including a variety of magazines, journals, and even a poetry book. She enjoys manipulating the texture of oils across surfaces, toying with the thickness. Burana recently started experimenting with different sources (such as tree bark) to make more natural, earthy pigments. Along with nature, she incorporates her own relationship with poetry and memory in her pieces. She utilizes these elements to weave a narrative that is deeply personal but also rooted in the natural world with strong, full colors.
Nick Savides started painting when he was three years old when his mother began teaching how to paint. He continued with his formal education at Brandeis University where he received his BFA with highest honors. He has been featured in many exhibits in New York City, as well as in Massachusetts, upstate New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Toronto, Canada. He was also published by Nabi Press and in 2016’s Art Voices Art Books’ in 101 Contemporary Artists as well as John Natsoulas Press. Savides started as a realist oil painter where he began to focus on representing light and its many shades. Many of his paintings use light as a way to explore the concept of space. He uses this relationship in diverse landscapes (ranging from urban to rural), depictions of architecture in diverse settings, and figures in portraits.
Deirdre Sheean Was born and raised in New Jersey surrounded by a family of artists, studied graphic design and illustration at Parsons in the 1970s and has continually renovated and updated her own style. By using stencils, Sheean reveals intrinsic repetition both in the natural and the man-made with recursive symbols. During this process, Sheean leaned into her graphic design background by using design systems to organize these motifs. Additionally, she focuses on contrast to inform the composition of her pieces, using the variety to allow the subjects to take on a life of their own. Sheean has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout New Jersey and has received many awards at the Mercer County Artist, Monmouth County Arts Council, and most recently at the Ellarslie Open 36 in Trenton, New Jersey.
The Alfa Art Gallery is a non-profit organization devoted to the discovery, growth, and support of emerging and established artists within the art community. Since establishment, Alfa Art has conducted multiple shows featuring local, national, and international artists and various materials including oil color, water color, mixed media, sculptures, photography, crafts and glass works. As an open art studio – gallery, Alfa’s exhibiting artists are welcomed to demonstrate their creative process in the space provided, while collectors and visitors are capable to learn and follow the artists’ technique, style and motivations. Additionally, Alfa plays a vital role among local to national visual arts organizations by supporting and presenting artists’ works, and functions as a space for interdisciplinary art and criticism. Each season, Alfa invites professional art curators to provide criticism and guidance to artists and artworks on display which helps collectors and visitors to identify a style of artwork that expresses their personal or company image and purpose.
NBAS’2020 is sponsored by:
With the assistance of grants from organizations such as Amboy Bank, Magyar Bank, Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick City Center, Middlesex Country Cultural and Heritage Commission, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Pfizer Inc. Alfa Art is confident that all who come to the 2020 Oil Painting New Brunswick Art Salon will leave with a greater appreciation of the arts and the gallery’s showcasing of a variety of artists.
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