A selection of recent artworks created by 10 faculty members of the Department of Art at William Paterson University in Wayne, NJ will be featured in an exhibition at the University Galleries in the Ben Shahn Center for the Visual Arts from August 29 through September 30, 2022. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Sunday, October 16 and Saturday, November 19 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission is free. A conversation with exhibiting artists Miriam Bisceglia, Cristina de Gennaro, and Vanessa Nilsson, held in-person and streamed online, will be presented on Monday, September 12 from 2 to 3 p.m., followed by an opening reception from 3 to 4 p.m., in the Court Gallery.
On view in the Court Gallery, this exhibition features work by faculty who teach animation, drawing, digital art, graphic design, textile design, painting, photography, and sculpture. The works in the exhibit reveal the faculty’s unique artistic practices as they innovate across diverse media.
This year’s exhibition features new work from associate professor Lily Prince. Her trilogy of oil pastel and acrylic drawings from the series American Beauty chronicle her time spent immersed in landscapes near Zion National Park and the Sonora Desert shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic restricted travel. She completed the finished drawings back at home in the Hudson Valley, having worked from plein air sketches made in the field. Those scorching, vibrant days are palpable in Prince’s vibrant abstracted patterns, which the artist considers a political act, to witness and document the beauty of this country through her lens. Prince earned an MFA from Bard College and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. In 2023 she will have a solo exhibition at Windows on Hudson gallery in Hudson, NY.
Stephanie Beck creates abstract plywood and wood mosaics that suggest organic and architectural forms, combining a sense of the intimate and the monumental. Beck is interested in the space between form and language, where an object exists on its own, undefined by others. Her contribution to this year’s exhibition, Mosaic #5, is inspired by the variations in plywood edge patterns, which remind Beck of the markings of different types of birds. The mosaic collapses surface and space, implying a frontal or overhead view of familiar forms without resolving into one interpretation. Its overall shape draws from architectural and design history, suggesting arched doorways, brick walls, and buildings from above. Beck received her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, a post-baccalaureate from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and a BA in art history from the University of Virginia.
Other faculty artists included in the exhibition are Miriam Bisceglia, Cristina de Gennaro, Andrea Geller, Ashley Gerst, Julie Nagle, Vanessa Nilsson, Leslie Nobler, and Robin Schwartz.
The exhibition is one of two on view concurrently in the University Galleries. On view from August 29 to December 2, 2022 in the South Gallery and East Gallery is A Durable Thread: The Silk Road from China to America, featuring historical design, clothing, and textiles from points along the legendary trade route, reimagined with the “Silk City” of Paterson, NJ as its terminus.
Textile Arts from Guizhou, China will be on view October 17 to December 2, 2022 in Court Gallery. Guizhou textile artists are renowned for their mastery of embroidery and indigo resist dyeing, also known as batik, and over centuries they have created a distinct visual language that continues to evolve in the hands of contemporary designers. This exhibition brings together a selection of Buyi, Dong, Miao, Yao, and Zhuang traditional textiles and new artworks by Chen Mei, Guo Jing, Huang Di, Ma Li, Pan Mei, Pan Taojie, Yuan Xiaole, and Zhang Sisi. Lenders to the exhibition include Guizhou Minzu University, Guizhou University of Commerce, Qiandongnan Vocational and Technical College for Nationalities, and the Qiannan Normal University for Nationalities.
This exhibition is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. The William Paterson University Galleries are wheelchair-accessible. Large-print educational materials are available. For additional information, please call the William Paterson University Galleries at 973-720-2654.
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William Paterson University
300 Pompton Road
Wayne, New Jersey 07470
973-720-2000
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