Autumn exhibits and workshops at Pelham Art Center, Pelham NY.

The Pelham Art Center, in Pelham has kindly sent me information on their upcoming programs.

First, and update:  Back in December of '08, I posted a notice about the PAC's 2009 Alexander Rutsch Painting Award.  This year's prize was awarded to Tracy Miller.   Miller's paintings are psychadelic dreams of beer, cigs and sweets, but what really caught my interest when looking at her website are her cakemaking endeavors.

In September, PAC will be hosting two concurrent exhibits of abstract works in painting and drawing.  The first is a solo show; Squared Off- Workds on Paper by Elizabeth Goldman:

This is a solo exhibition of abstract artworks that are a hybrid of painting and drawing. It is also the first exhibit to take place in the Art Center's renovated gallery. In her most recent works, Ms. Goldman introduces quasi-geometric forms superimposed onto a gestural surface. By working in layers, Ms. Goldman allows the work to evolve, creating an almost invisible history with marks and materials. The tension on the canvas comes not from what is seen but what is not seen.

The second exhibit is a group show featuring the paintings of three artists.  Same River Twice includes the work of Josh Willis, Lauren Portada and Bradley Fesmire:

Josh Willis’s miniature paintings can be viewed as either discrete works or part of a larger series of paintings. Developed from the outside-in, the artist first establishes how many canvases, and what size and shape they will take. Imagery is characterized by an impression of a figure in the landscape, as a reference to the “figure in a landscape” as represented in landscape painting and as a connection to the artist’s place of origin. Lauren Portada describes her paintings as recordings focused on the intimacy of the landscape. Inspired by travel, observation, and nature photography, they reflect her concern with the natural world and the expansion of historical landscape painting, deciphering the connection between the landscape and history, viewer and object, chronicled events and time. Bradley Fesmire’s process involves wooden panels that are carved, most often with a router, to allow for a direct relation with the material and experience. The router acts as paintbrush, eraser and in the artist’s words, a metaphor for time, engraining his ideas into the surface of the work, with a tinge of melancholy.

 

Lauren Portada: “Mountain Top,” 2008. Oil and wax on linen, 91.44 cm x 121.92 cm

Both exhibits open on September 11 and run through October 31.

On September 19th, the PAC will be hosting a Korean Folk Arts Day highlighting traditional Korean music and dance featuring performances by Minji Kim and Jung Hee Ho.  The program is will take place from 1:30 - 3:30 and is free to the general public.

The PAC will also be collaborating with the Hudson Valley Writers Center on a series of writing workshops for and a reading for adults in October and January.  Registration for thoseworkshops is open now.  Information can be found at the HV Writer's center website , and on the PAC website, along with information on the center's other art education programs.