Recommended: MHR Invitational at ACG

Four very diverse artists are in this year's Mohawk Hudson Regional Invitational at ACG 

One of the best shows each year at Albany Center Gallery is the annual invitational drawn from the Mohawk Hudson Regional. It's a cool idea we don't see often enough: Gallery representatives visit the big juried show and make notes on whose work they'd like to see more of, then ACG organizes an exhibition of those select picks.

This year's MHRI at ACG includes four very diverse artists in terms of medium, style - even age - and that's a good thing. As I am one of the gallery's board members and the chair of the exhibits committee, I was involved in the selection process - so this won't be a review. Instead, I will simply recommend the show and suggest you include it in your 1st Friday plans on May 6, when the artists' reception will be held from 5 pm to 8 pm.

The four included artists are Fern Apfel, Jess Ayotte, Roger Bisbing and Thomas Huber.  Apfel makes works on paper that build geometrically abstract designs from black-and-white words and painted colors. Ayotte is a young photographer working in traditional silver-based media. Bisbing has long standing locally as a maker of meticulously crafted dioramas. And Huber creates free-flowing visual diaries of mixed media.

Their outstanding bodies of work will hang intermingled in this installation; though each pursues a distinct path to image making, the gallery's director, Tony Iadicicco, envisions the show as an integrated whole. The 2016 Mohawk Hudson Regional Invitational opens Friday, May 6, and will run through June 12. Go and enjoy!