“Liquid Layers”

New Brunswick, NJ – Alfa Art Gallery proudly presents the 2026 NBAS Watercolor and Mixed Media Exhibition: ‘Liquid Layers.’ The Exhibition is open from October 27, 2026, until January 9, 2027.

Exhibition Duration: October 27, 2026 – January 9, 2027
Virtual Opening Reception: Thursday, November 12th, 2026, starting at 6:30pm
In-Person Opening Reception: Friday, November 6th, 2026 @6:30pm – 9:30pm

Location: Alfa Art Gallery, 108 Church Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901

Featured Artists: Alexis Rodefer, Manman Huang, J. Jie Li, Daniella Toscanini, Denise Shaw, Joel Popadics, Michelle Vargas, Neal Korn, Sharon Pitts, Gail Wood Miller, Jeffrey Weiss/McCredie, Hana Aviv, Peggy Dressel

Introducing “Liquid Layers,” A Watercolor and Mixed Media Exhibition:

From October 27, 2026, until January 9, 2027, the community at Alfa Art Gallery in New Brunswick, NJ will be presenting “Liquid Layers”, a New Brunswick Watercolor and Mixed Media Exhibition. This ten-week exhibition, which will be available to the public both in-person and virtually, presents a thoughtfully curated selection of watercolor and mixed media artworks that explore architecture, landscapes, emotions, and identities through a range of mediums and techniques. Uniting the featured artists with distinct perspectives and approaches, the exhibition celebrates both artistic expression and interpretation, showcasing the many ways artists engage with their subjects and surroundings.

Throughout the exhibition, artists explore their subjects through both realist and abstract approaches, offering works that range from landscapes and architectural scenes to portraiture and more expressive pieces. The diversity of techniques and artistic perspectives creates a dialogue between realism, abstraction, observation, and personal interpretation. Together, these works offer viewers a range of ways to experience subjects through differences in medium, color, form, and artistic perspective.

Alfa Art Gallery invites viewers to engage with these varied artistic perspectives and consider how each artist’s individual approach influences their interpretation of the world. Through the intersection of watercolor, mixed media, subject, and technique, ‘Liquid Layers’ offers an opportunity to experience the many different ways art can transform observation into personal expression.

About the New Brunswick Art Salon Initiative:

Alfa Art Gallery utilizes the New Brunswick Art Salons to unify the local art community and beyond. Since starting the program in 2010, Alfa has made a point to include a salon dedicated to showcasing pieces in watercolor, oil, photography, and various mixed media. Over the years, the series has only exhibited works from both established and emerging artists, but has made fruitful connections locally and internationally through its successful programs. As a non-profit, Alfa Art Gallery maintains its mission to uplift artists by providing an open and innovative environment that is dedicated to fostering va ibrant and diverse cultural community

About Alfa Art Gallery:

Founded in 2007, Alfa Art Gallery has established itself as a cultural cornerstone in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The gallery’s mission is to support both emerging and established artists by providing meaningful exposure and cultivating engagement within the broader art community.

Since 2010, the Alfa Art Gallery has organized the New Brunswick Art Salon (NBAS), a non-profit initiative dedicated to uniting the local art community and fostering connections both locally and internationally. The salon presents a diverse range of mediums, including oil, watercolor, mixed media, sculpture, photography, crafts, and glasswork. Alfa Art Gallery remains committed to demonstrating how the study and practice of art can enrich and strengthen communities.

2026 NBAS Featured Artists in Watercolor and Mixed Media:

Alexis Rodefer is a watercolor artist who takes the visuals of the Northeast American ecosystem, celebrates the wildlife that is housed within it, and tells lively stories that help us realize that, in reality, we are not so different from animals. While earning her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts (BFA) from the Art Institute of Chicago, Rodefer became familiar with the concept of scientific illustrations, which influenced her to spend a lot of time researching the lifestyles, histories, and behaviors of the different species, which play a distinctive role in the work she creates.  Her most recent series, Domestic Absurdity, is a delightful example of that, where she “imagines native species through an anthropomorphic lens”. By using her titles to add context to a piece, she creates scenes that make the animals feel more “human”, forming a relationship between the works and the people who see them and can relate to those universal moments of the human experience.

Manman Huang (born in Chengdu, China) is a New Jersey-based contemporary painter who has a focus of depicting everyday city life. She uses her degrees in sociology and history to influence her unique perspective of the world through her artwork. Her passion for painting comes from her studies in 19th-century Chinese-American trade, in which she learned about the teaching of language and culture between nations. Huang came to the United States as an immigrant, which sparked her search for belonging. She found this through her expressive brushwork, vivid color palettes, and her depiction of everyday town life in New Jersey. These themes are especially present in significant bodies of work such as her Maplewood Town and Gardens projects. Huang has exhibited her work at many different museums and events, such as the Newark Museum of Art, the NJ Arts Annual 2023, Rutgers University, and the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey. She also involves herself in her community by teaching watercolor painting classes in Maplewood and by contributing artwork to the Lunar Fest of  New Jersey from 2023 to 2025.

J. Jie Li is a New York–based contemporary fine artist layering watercolor and mixed media. She has exhibited her works both within the United States and internationally. Her works deeply explore liminal landscapes of human existence, focusing greatly on a reverence for the natural world. J. Li’s watercolor paintings offer immense feelings of desire, loss, resilience, and spiritual awakening. Her work addresses the imperative that the destruction of the physical environment directly mirrors the quiet, systemic decay of the human soul. The traditional lightness and delicacy associated with watercolor is remodeled in J. Jie Li’s structural vehicle. She combines layers of different mediums such as pigment, soot, slate, and ink washes, pulling juxtapositions against fluid tones. Her watercolor images transform landscapes into emotionally contemplative environments. J. Li has a Bachelor’s in Fine Art from Parsons School of Design. She transitioned from a career in fashion and dedicated herself entirely to the world of fine art. In her practice, she is deeply catalyzed by Zen Buddhism, Daoist thought, and Schopenhauerian existential gravity.

Daniella Toscanini is an artist working in watercolor, gouache, and acrylic, based in Edison, New Jersey, with a love for landscapes, nature, and the serenity that comes from them. She discovered her passion for plein air painting after attending the Bermuda Plein Air Festival in 2015, seeking to capture the vibrancy found in the natural world to share with those who view her works. Toscanini graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and was trained in realism at The Art Academy in Hillsborough, New Jersey, shaping her understanding of the art world to what it has become now. Her works shown in the Liquid Layers exhibition focus on the stillness of the landscape, and the beauty of the reflections on the glassy bodies of water taking on the colors of the ever-stretching sky.

Denise Shaw is an artist inspired by a passion for human rights advocacy and ancient philosophy, and her artworks seek to bridge collective consciousness with a deep compassion for the global condition, forming what she describes as an “authentic habitat” for memory and resistance. Her interest in the complexity of the human psyche is expressed through tactile material choices, combining layers of acrylic paint, watercolor, photo transfers, and collage with pumice stone, metal leaf, and sand. Shaw uses irony and whimsy to draw viewers into her imagery, prompting greater awareness and empathy for the global themes her work confronts. Working from her studios in Tribeca, New York City, and Connecticut, Shaw has exhibited nationally and internationally since the 1980s. She earned her BFA from the School of Visual Arts and a postgraduate certificate in Film from New York University. Throughout her expansive career, her work has been exhibited at venues including the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., the Reece Museum in Tennessee, and the Copelouzos Family Art Museum in Athens, Greece.

Joel Popadics is an internationally recognized watercolor artist whose practice primarily focuses on landscapes. Rather than simply documenting their visual appearance, he seeks to capture the emotions, memories, and sensations that particular places evoke. His paintings demonstrate a mastery of the watercolor medium, with luminosity and the transparency of light serving as central elements of his work. Popadics’ received formal training at the School of Visual Arts, earning a B.F.A. in 1983. He has participated in numerous prestigious solo and group exhibitions, including exhibitions at the National Academy of Design in New York City. An experienced educator, he has lectured and taught extensively, including at Parsons School of Design and The King’s College in New York City. Deeply committed to advancing the watercolor medium, Popadics has served as President of the American Watercolor Society and previously on the Ridgewood Art Institute’s Board of Directors. 

Michelle Vargas is a Filipino watercolor artist based in New Jersey, who depicts wildlife with grace and expression. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts with a major in Advertising, and is driven by the powerful impact of storytelling through visuals. After discovering her passion for watercolor as a creative outlet, she built her skills in the medium by embracing fluidity and delicacy, utilizing this technique to give her pieces life, grace, and emotion. She appreciates nature and creates work to inspire people to stop and admire the beauty and elegance found in the natural world. Vargas explores themes of connection and growth, while “blending realism with a sense of imagination and storytelling.” Her brush clearly comes from a place of admiration, as her depiction of animals, nature, and people contains the required realism needed to bring the piece to life, while still keeping the personality and identifying qualities. Vargas’ work has been included in juried exhibitions and given recognition, including Second Place in the Associate Division of the New Jersey Watercolor Society’s 2026 Annual Juried Exhibition.

Neal Korn is a New Jersey-based artist who seeks to incorporate the spontaneity and beauty of nature in his works. Starting with ink, watercolor, and graphite, he places his renderings of figures into nature scenes. The final works combine lush, vibrant backgrounds with stylized figures. The juxtaposition between backgrounds and figures invokes curiosity and contemplation, reflecting Korn’s lifelong love of psychology and the many dimensions of the mind. He is an accomplished painter who was initially recognized for winning the ‘Shaw Award for Painting’ at Brooklyn College. Korn’s work has been recognized in prolific publications, including the Best of Painting and The New York Times. In 2024, Korn won the ‘New Jersey Fellowship’ from the New Jersey State Council of the Arts. Korn’s most recent exhibition was a one-person show at the Atrium Gallery, showcasing his paintings about the natural world. 

Sharon Pitts is a New Jersey-based watercolorist who focuses on creating scenes of nature. She has described her attraction to the medium because of its translucent color, flowing movement, and ability to create unexpected effects. Rather than forcing a predetermined outcome, she approaches painting as a partnership with watercolor, allowing pigments to merge, layer, and move naturally across the surface. This openness to chance gives her work a sense of discovery and allows her compositions to move beyond literal representations of the natural world.  Pitts is listed in ‘Who’s Who in American Art’ and was featured in Watercolor Artist Magazine.  She has taught watercolor workshops across the globe, including in France, Croatia, and Italy.  Pitts has been teaching watercolor since 1995 at the Adult School of Montclair and the Montclair Art Museum, and currently teaches at the Van Vleck Gardens in Montclair, New Jersey.  She continues to maintain her own studio in Montclair.  Pitts has been exhibiting since 1975, in both group and solo shows.

Gail Wood Miller is a third-generation artist and retired teacher whose practice brings together watercolor, drawing, ink, and photography to explore observation, imagination, and the natural world. Influenced by her mother and grandfather, Miller began drawing at a young age, and has continued to connect art with storytelling throughout her life. She chooses nature, landscapes, and people as subjects, and is concerned with conveying their movements and emotions, though she enjoys allowing the viewer’s imagination to determine the story they perceive. Her work often involves translucent washes that emphasize organic form and subtle movement, as well as a sense of lightness and contrast. Miller’s interest in plants and her preference for working between detailed observation and abstraction allows her work to become more than a simple botanical study, encouraging viewers to notice the beauty within an everyday subject. Through her work, Miller seeks understanding and hope, inviting viewers to appreciate themselves, others, and the world around them.

Jeffrey Weiss/McCredie is a Pennsylvania-based artist whose lifelong passion for painting began in childhood after discovering Claude Monet’s work. Inspired by late nineteenth-century artists such as John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, McCredie embraces watercolor for its immediacy and portability, often completing his paintings outdoors. His bright palette and expressive handling of color capture the warmth, atmosphere, and beauty of the landscapes he encounters. Rather than simply documenting a place, his work conveys the experience of being within it: the shifting light, surrounding color, and quiet character of the natural environment. He studied art at Eastern University and later received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Germany, where he continued developing his artistic practice and exhibited throughout Europe. Following his time in Europe, McCredie moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career as an actor and an artist, where he painted and exhibited with groups such as the West Coast Artists, The Agoura Group, Old Town Gallery, and the California Plein Air groups. He has sold over 800 paintings to movie executives, actors, diplomats, government workers, and completed over 350 portrait commissions. His studio is in Chester County, PA.

Hana Aviv is a watercolorist based in New Jersey, inspired by the peace found in nature. She uses natural landscapes to communicate her emotions, and the dynamic movement of water across her canvas reflects her sense of awe. Aviv’s visual foundation was built through years of study at institutions, including the Montclair Art Museum to train in oil, pastel, life study, and watercolor theory; the Zimmerli Art Museum Drawing Society for Adults; and various outdoor plein air workshops. Her creative visual works have earned her significant recognition from regional and national art communities. Aviv holds juried Signature Memberships in the Garden State Watercolor Society, the New Jersey Watercolor Society, and the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA). Her engagement with historic arts institutions—including Associate Memberships in the Salmagundi Club, the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, and the Northeast Watercolor Society—further grounds her practice within the broader tradition of American visual arts. Through vibrant color relationships and refined mark-making, Aviv converts quiet encounters with nature and space into luminous, evocative visual experiences. She has participated in both group and solo exhibitions across New Jersey and New York, including a previous exhibition at Alfa Art Gallery. Aviv has received many awards, including “Artist of the Week” from National Arts Program Magazine.  

Peggy Dressel is a watercolor painter from Oakland, New Jersey. She studied at Pratt Institute, The National Academy of Design, and Moore College of Art. Dressel enjoys creating beautiful paintings using vibrant colors to create an illuminating glow in her works. She also values lighting in her works, as it helps to determine the mood, time, and day. Her works focus on playfulness and lightheartedness, evoking a sense of curiosity and happiness. There is also a sense of simplicity in her works, giving her viewers a sense of tranquility and softness. Dressel has received many awards at juried exhibitions, including the Lena Di Gangi Gallery, Nathan’s Gallery, the Dupre Gallery, and many others. Dressel is also a member of the Degas Pastel Society, the Oregon Pastel Society, and the Southeastern Pastel Society. She has also illustrated several children’s books, including Hoops! by Connie Turner and The Marble Jar by Sharon L. Young. 


We would like to give a special thank you to our sponsors:

Middlesex County Board of County Commissioners, Amboy Bank, New Brunswick City Center, GSK, Magyar Bank, The Bank of Princeton, Daiichi-Sankyo, Johnson&Johnson, Pfizer, and Merck.

Your generous support plays a crucial part in our success, and we are truly appreciative for your belief and commitment to our work. This support is what allows us to have an impact on and create positive experiences for our community.