Short Take: refract at Albany Center Gallery

Works by, from left, Royal Brown, Naomi Lewis, and Benjamin Jose
are part of refract at Albany Center Gallery.

photos provided

The five artists in Albany Center Gallery's current show, refract, don't appear at first glance to belong together. Their media vary from video to watercolor to cast iron; their imagery from space-age to delicacy on the page. But a theme does emerge from the selection, which was organized by the gallery's associate curator, Jennie Tang. It has to do with the approach these artists take to their subjects.

Owen Barensfeld's Is It big Enough?
combines images to make a statement

This concept is best explained by the gallery's written material, which states that the five artists employ "different methods of repetitions, patterns, juxtapositions and distortions" to broaden our understanding and experience of everyday visuals. Here, those visuals have become abstracted and transformed, built of mere suggestions, or created directly out of the simplicity of a grid.

The show, like many at this venue, is spare, featuring just 29 works in all. Nine of those works are by Naomi  Lewis, whose whisper-soft graphite drawings pull you in close, and whose patterned images of bees fill their surfaces expansively, often emphasizing negative space to great effect. Equally wed to overall pattern, Trevor Wilson painstakingly builds large images out of tiny squares in grids of graphite or colored pencil, the results feeling almost equal parts human and machine.

Owen Barensfeld and Royal Brown come from opposite positions to meet in a middle zone of spaceships and technology. While Brown creates colorful models of imaginary craft out of the most mundane of found objects (empty spray cans and such), Barensfeld transforms mass-media images of bomb blasts and moonshots into objects of contemplation. Both have something to say: In Brown's case, it's a literal message of love amid fantasy; Barensfeld's seems to be more about the mesmerizing terror of industrial power.

From left, works by Trevor Wilson, Owen Barensfeld,
Benjamin Jose, and Royal Brown are part of refract

Benjamin Jose seems to be the odd man out in this group. His constructions of mismatched materials struck me as being more in the realm of formalism and surrealism than anything else here, and his messages less clearly stated than the others'. That said, his highly refined use of such disparate substances as wood, steel, and leather holds its own kind of fascination.

refract will remain on view through Friday, March 4, so it's now or never if you want to catch a look. I'm glad I did.

Catch these while you can ...

What better way to start the new year than to catch up with an art show or two that you meant to see but got too busy to get to during the holidays.

There are a few good choices in the region that will end soon, including a great opportunity to take advantage of free admission at a world-renowned museum.

Return 2 Earth 2017, mixed media
by Alisa Sikellianos-Carter

First up, in order of ending date, would be the Annual Members Show at Saratoga Arts in Saratoga Springs, set to close on Jan. 8, closely followed by the annual Upstate Artists show at The Laffer Gallery in Schuylerville, which ends on Jan. 9. Both include a large cross-section of regional artists and are located not too far apart, providing a good opportunity to double up.

Two shows that will end on Jan. 14 also feature a great many regional artists: Gallery Mixtape, Vol. 1 at Collectiveffort in Troy, where a selection of BIPOC artists are showcased, and the Annual Members' Show at Albany Center Gallery. Well over 100 artists (myself among them) present one piece each at ACG, making for a super-eclectic viewing experience that is always popular with viewers.

An example of 20th-century Japanese
printmaking at The Clark

A solo show by one of the region's outstanding mid-career artists, Alisa Sikellianos-Carter, will re-open on Jan. 9 and run through Jan. 16 at Union College's Mandeville Gallery in Schenectady. Sikellianos-Carter, who was one of the three jurors of the 2021 Mohawk-Hudson Regional, works in large-scale mixed media with a healthy and entertaining nod toward Afrofuturism.

Perhaps most intriguing, an exhibition of 20th-century Japanese prints from the museum's collection will remain on view at The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., through Jan. 30 - and admission to the museum will be free for the entire month. Competing Currents promises to be a highly pleasurable lesson on a unique corner of recent art history.

So, go forth and see some art! It will make a great beginning to your 2022.

Add note: This just in from the Albany Institute of History & Art - Fashionable Frocks of the 1920s, a fancy and fun romp among the clothing styles of the flapper era, has been extended through Jan. 9.

The Annual Members' Show at Albany Center Gallery is always a crowd-pleaser

photo by Daniel Joyce

Ruminations on the Regional

The 2021 Mohawk Hudson Regional is a bit of a head-scratcher, not because it fails to represent the region’s range of outstanding artists (which is the show’s basic mission since its inception 85 years ago), but because it does so in a very cumbersome manner.

I submitted to the show this year, and so I can’t in good conscience write the critical review I’d like to, but it’s too important an event to merely pass over, so I’ll try to take an objective approach with this brief report.

First, some history. Over the past dozen years or so, the Annual Exhibition by Artists of the Mohawk Hudson Region (its formal name) has been rotating among three sponsoring organizations: The Albany Institute of History & Art (its original organizer), The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, and the University at Albany Art Museum. A prior host, the Schenectady Museum, changed its mission from art to science some years back, leaving the Regional to wander a bit every third year, until the Hyde stepped up to fill the role of a third regular host. During that time, the show landed at least once at the Albany International Airport Gallery, a fact I mention because, this year, it’s there again (in part).

With the Institute, the Hyde, and the University as regular hosts, the Regional was doing fine, until COVID-19 hit. This disrupted the University Art Museum’s schedule to the point that it had to cancel its 2021 position in the Regional’s regular rotation, after which it was decided that the show would be managed by Albany Center Gallery (ACG). Being physically too small and insufficiently staffed to host the show alone, ACG then recruited additional space and support for the venture from The Sage Colleges’ OpalkaGallery and the Airport Gallery.

This solution, though a compromise, offered additional perks. Now, rather than having just one big show with one juror (the longstanding tradition), there would be three shows, each with its own juror, with all of the art still being drawn from a single pool of entries. Each venue selected a juror: Hudson gallerist Pamela Salisbury for the Opalka, local artist Alisa Sikelianos-Carter for ACG, and Seattle-area artist and arts administrator Tommy Gregory for the Airport – and the stage was set for a unique event.

The resulting tripartite exhibition features 143 works by a record 96 artists (14 of whom were also in the 2020 Regional). Unsurprisingly, this horde includes a number of familiar names, as well as a goodly smattering of new or lesser-known artists, the diversity of which the organizers had said was a goal for this year’s exhibition. While I didn’t love the new format, as an artist I was excited to think that I had three chances to be chosen (alas, that didn’t happen); an additional decision by the organizers to reduce the entry fee to just $10 (from about $40 in past years) made it even more appealing.

Now, as an audience member, I have a couple of problems with the arrangement. First, in order to take in the entire selection as one show (like in all prior years), it’s necessary to find time and the means to go to all three venues, not to mention somehow keeping in mind what you’ve seen in each to meld it all together. Second, two of the venues have set rather short runs for their parts of the show (Sept. 7-Oct.9 at Opalka and Sept. 10-Oct. 9 at ACG), compared to prior years in which the Regional would typically run for at least two months (which the Airport segment does this year), putting further pressure on the viewer’s resources.

Worse yet, several of the included artists are featured in two locations, and one is in all three, making it even more difficult to absorb and understand their contributions as a whole. (I think all artists would agree that they’d rather not have their work scattered like this.) Even within the venues there are distribution problems. Nearly half the total artists (44 of them) have their works crammed into the confines of ACG, making for a salon-style installation where items are stacked and grouped, and where some individual artists’ have multiple included pieces separated from each other within the room.

While I find all that unfortunate, there’s a lot of energy amid the clutter at ACG, and many intriguing works to be found in the mix there.

In contrast to ACG, the Opalka’s more generous space seems rather sparsely filled. Salisbury selected mostly abstract art, a form I dearly love, but this segment of the show somehow comes off strangely flat. I think this is a consequence of the exhibition being divided – if these mostly worthy works were intermingled in a larger museum space with the other jurors’ choices, it would have created a much more stimulating conversation.

That more appropriate balance seems to have been struck at the Airport – possibly because the juror there is more experienced in putting together large exhibitions for mass consumption in his role as the curator for the Port of Seattle. If only the entire show had been mounted there as it once was, this might have been another great Regional. But that would have been impossible, as the formerly vast space of the airport's third-floor gallery was recently reduced to a much smaller one.

On the plus side, that space is open from 8 am to 10 pm daily, and that segment of the show runs through Nov. 8, so there’s no excuse for missing it.

Viewers peruse a corner of the 2021 Mohawk Hudson Regional at the Airport Gallery

In Brief: Fence Select at ACCR

Michael Oatman - American Spring (after Wallace Bergman), collage

Part all-inclusive members' show, part juried regional, the longstanding Fence Show at the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy is a unique annual event. Like many other exhibitions this year, Fence was delayed a few months due to the pandemic, and so it is still on view in December, though it would normally be a summer show (historically, the show got its name because it was hung outdoors on a wrought-iron fence that surrounds a private park associated with the former location of the ACCR).

Victoria van der Laan - To Dash Against Darkness
sewn and quilted cotton

This year's Fence Select was chosen by Tang Museum Director Ian Berry, with additions selected by ACCR staff (possibly a first) and, if memory serves, this was the first time the show restricted entrants to just one submission each. Naturally, this would lead to a far less comprehensive presentation than a juried show with the typical three or more entries per participant, but it still resulted in a representative cross-section of many of the region's most interesting artists.

In this way, despite its limitations, Fence Select serves as a handy augmentation of the Annual Exhibition by Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region (aka the Regional), currently on view at the Albany Institute of History & Art through Jan. 3. Coincidentally, this year's Regional also features just one work by many of the participating artists, and several of those artists are in Fence Select - so a careful observer can actually combine those in their minds' eye to develop a fuller understanding of each of those artists.

Fern Apfel - The Yellow Envelope

For example, Fern Apfel, whose acrylic and pen on wood panel received the Best in Show award at Fence, has two related pieces in the Regional; and Victoria van der Laan, who was named runner-up at Fence for her lyrically graphic quilt, has another outstanding quilted work in the Regional.

Other important artists represented in both shows include Niki Haynes, Michael Oatman, John Hampshire, Mandi Coburn, Jeff Wigman, and Dorothea Osborn. I also noticed a few favorite photographers in Fence Select, such as Chris DeMarco, Ray Felix, and Jennifer Duke Anstey, bringing to mind the recent annual Photography Regional at Albany Center Gallery, where some of them were also represented.

Apart from these various associations, Fence Select stands alone reasonably well, but it is a bit thin, due to the relatively large space it inhabits at the ACCR. I suspect this underfilling may be the reason that five staff picks were added (making for a total of 28), and I'm glad they were, as they include some of the better works in the selection.

Fence Select remains on view only through this week, with open hours Tuesday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. - so , if you want to catch it, be sure to act now.

John Hampshire - Labyrinth 623, ink on polypropylene

Regionals, regionals ...

Juror Karen Davis peruses the Photo Regional Salon at Albany Center Gallery

Thanks in part to the coronavirus pandemic, we now have a perfect storm of regional exhibitions that are all on view simultaneously. With three annual juried shows having been rescheduled, and a new lockdown-themed juried show now open at a prominent college gallery, it’s a boon to regional artists and their fans.

Laura Brodsky's fatherhood 2 won one
of four top prizes at the Photo Regional

First up, the 42nd Annual Photography Regional at Albany Center Gallery began on Sept. 8 with a salon-style installation of 200-plus submissions by more than 80 photographers. Karen Davis, co-owner of Davis-Orton Gallery in Hudson, then culled those submissions into a Select show that re-opened on Sept 18. It features 43 photographers (of which I am one) and includes 49 pieces, with 11 of those works receiving special recognition. Heads-up: The Photo Regional will close this Friday (Oct. 2), so you’ll have to hurry if you want to take a look. I recommend that you do.

Jill Baucom's Blackberries won one of
four top prizes in the Photo Regional

Also recently opened, on Sept. 19 (through Jan. 3, 2021), is the 2020 Exhibition by Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region (aka the Regional), which is the most significant show in the annual calendar locally and, now in its 84th year, one of the longest-standing shows of its kind in the nation. The Regional rotates among three venues, and is hosted this year by the Albany Institute of History & Art, which tapped MASS MoCA Senior Curator Susan Cross as juror. In keeping with Regional tradition, an accompanying catalog with an essay by Cross is planned by the Institute and will be available in a few weeks.

Amy Silberkleit - 1918 stone lithograph

Perhaps due to Cross’s high profile as a curator in the region, the show attracted more than 700 entries by nearly 250 artists across all media. Cross whittled these down to 108 works by 73 artists (of which – you guessed it – I am one), also selecting 19 among them for special awards that range from $1,000 cash to $100 gift certificates. She then planned the installation of the show in five contiguous spaces within the museum, using the variously sized galleries as venues for thematic groupings.

Deborah Zlotsky - Yours, Mine, Ours
vintage scarves

The largest of those galleries contains vast splashes of bright colors provided by works in many media – painting, sculpture, photography, collage, and textiles among them – with a large portion of those pieces being abstract. In a nearby, somewhat smaller room, again featuring the full array of media, the theme is landscape.

Yet another medium-sized gallery includes works that mostly engage in political or social commentary, again with many media represented but, in this case, weighted much more toward photography (not including my own, which are abstract, and hang in the larger gallery).

One feels the effects of 2020’s global and national upheavals in Cross’s selection of prizes, many of which went to the more topical works in the show, yet the overall effect of this Regional is what it should be: a well-distributed cross-section of the region’s best art, organized - but not dominated - by theme.

Jeff Wigman's oil on panel Arrival in Hell is included in Infinite Uncertainty.
Wigman also has work in the Mohawk-Hudson Regional and the Fence Salon.

Fortunately, another local gallery took up that thematic challenge by specifically requesting topical work for an open-call show juried by Sharon Bates, Stacey Robinson, Ellen Letcher and Julie Torres. Infinite Uncertainty opened at Sage College of Albany’s Opalka Gallery on Sept. 1 and includes approximately 100 works selected from over 250 total submissions. It closes on Oct. 10 so, again, you’ll have to hurry if you want to see it - and I recommend that you do.

It’s worth noting that seven of the 33 regional artists included in Infinite Uncertainty are also included in the Mohawk-Hudson Regional (in which four of them received awards), an overlap that underscores the meaningful relationship between the two shows. Like the Regional, Infinite Uncertainty features work across many media, a good bit of it colorfully or monochromatically abstract, but much more of it representing interpretive responses to our current social issues.

Tatana Kellner - Scream
collage, acrylic, and charcoal on paper

Each artist’s work is accompanied by statements that explain the impetus for the selected pieces, ranging from technical adaptation to using available quotidian materials during art-supply-chain shutdowns to direct commentaries on hot topics like the pandemic and BLM protests. The writings provide a telling window into the interior lives of artists, and make a strong statement about both their resilience and the power of art to buoy the human spirit in hard times.

Altogether, Infinite Uncertainty is a relatively rare instance of a carefully curated large group show at an urban Capital Region gallery featuring only regional artists. Though 33 seems like a lot of participants, the spacious gallery has enough room to accommodate multiple pieces by most of them, and numerous pieces by many, making for a great degree of depth in this presentation.

This mixed-media collage by Paula
Drysdale Frazell is in the Fence Salon

Finally, the Fence Salon show opened on Sept. 11 at the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy and will remain on view there through Nov. 7, after which it will be rehung as the Fence Select, which will be juried by Tang Museum Director Ian Berry. Please note that the Arts Center is operating on a modified schedule – open Tuesday to Thursday, 10 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. or by appointment.

Here, too, there is significant overlap with artists who are also in the Mohawk-Hudson Regional (I counted nine), which comes as no surprise considering the prestige of the juror and the longstanding tradition of this show, which I have often referred to as “the other Regional.” There’s also some artist overlap between Fence and the Opalka show, as well as between Fence and the Photo-Regional. I can only begin to imagine the thought processes that went on with these artists as they tried to determine which works to submit where. 

I will revisit the Fence show on this blog after it has been juried and re-hung as Fence Select.

In the meantime, please do yourself a favor and get out to see these treasure troves of high-quality, current regional art while you can.

Mike Glier's oil on canvas Swallows Hunting is part of the Mohawk-Hudson Regional.
Glier is one of three former Regional jurors who have work in this year's show.

Galleries are re-opening! (Part I)

Nurse Patricia (Nurse Patti)
gouache on paper

Whether by appointment only, masked and sanitized, or take a number and wait, greater Capital Region galleries are starting to re-open with fresh shows, and it feels good to be let in the door.

I recently visited Albany Center Gallery, where two solo shows have been mounted, each with a particularly poignant place in our current historic moment.

Steve Derrick, a video game developer by trade, took inspiration from the global coronavirus pandemic to create scores of gem-like portraits of front-line healthcare workers, many of whom have already received the portraits as gifts from the artist.

Nurse Ema
Stanford Health Care, San Francisco, CA
gouache on paper

Half the gallery space is devoted to a fine set of 30 of these works, all about 6 by 8 inches vertical, hung unframed on little clipboards in a continuous line where we can confront and examine them at eye level.

This works perfectly, as many of them feature the subject face-on, giving direct eye contact. Whether behind masks, goggles, and face shields, or uncovered, the individual faces depicted have a powerful presence. Not insignificant is the fact that, in this selection, only three of the workers depicted are men, and the majority are people of color. This is who we rely on to save our lives every day.

Derrick, a highly skilled painter in gouache, applies a masterful touch to his brushed-on colors, often creating beautiful passages of pure paint where the subjects' colorful clothing is involved, and in equally rich areas depicting skin. His doctors and nurses often bear glaringly apparent PPE marks, along with bloodshot, sometimes tear-filled eyes.

But it's not all anguishing, as many of the workers also display their fierce humanity in the form of deep, searching, compassionate stares that, when you step in closer, drill right through you.

Entitled Healing: Portraits of the Pandemic, Derrick's show is not to be missed, as much for its artistic skill as for its emotional honesty.

Duane Ivan Todman at work

Duane Ivan Todman, a young painter whose life was tragically cut short in May, is the subject of a memorial exhibition in the other half of the gallery that highlights his finished works along with many sketches or works in progress (please scroll down to see my previous post for a fuller story and two of Todman's exquisite images).

While the literal fact of this show's existence is nothing short of heartbreaking, I believe Todman would be proud of the result, which is entitled Shining Light. I knew Duane, and was deeply moved by the experience of viewing his work on display. I think you will be, too, whether you knew him or not. Both shows continue at the gallery at 488 Broadway in downtown Albany through July 18.

A celebration of Todman's life will take place in a small park outside the gallery from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, July 11. Tickets purchased here with a $10 donation to the Duane X Arts Foundation are required in order to attend.

In Memoriam: Duane Ivan Todman

A recent unfinished self-portrait by Duane Todman

It is with great sadness that I recount the death of Duane Ivan Todman, a 27-year-old multi-talented artist who was shot by an unknown assailant in Schenectady last Saturday.

Duane and I became acquainted two or three years ago when we met during a reception at Albany Center Gallery. He struck me immediately as an unusually serious person who was deeply thoughtful and very dedicated to his artistic pursuits. He showed an interest in having input from me, and we proceeded to talk from time to time about his pursuit of a career as a neo-Renaissance painter.

One of those talks took place in his studio at The Barn in Albany, where Duane also lived. Having lived in my own studio for many years when I was younger, this was a very comfortable experience, leavened with philosophical discussion and casual critique of his current work, which included portraits, still lifes, and figures.

Duane made great progress in his technique during the few years I knew him, and regularly told me he was seeking the right studio school in which to hone his skill. Apparently, he was about to realize that next step in his dream, as an obituary in today's Times Union reports that Duane had won a scholarship to the Academy of Realist Art Boston, and was set to go there next year.

Duane also was reported to have been working on a book, a screenplay, and musical recordings.

In our last email communications, which took place in March, Duane mentioned the book project and asked me if I'd be willing to read a first draft, to which I enthusiastically agreed; however, he hadn't yet followed up on that, so I never learned what the book was about.

At that time, he also sent me images of two paintings, one finished and one in progress, which I include with this post. As you can see, they are both excellent. Based on the strength of these paintings, I initiated an attempt to connect Duane with a New York City-area dealer of African American painters, but that had not yet borne fruit - perhaps stalled by the intensity of the pandemic in that area.

Now, with one brutal and senseless act, all that promise is gone, and we are left to grapple with the loss of this fine young man. One can only hope that Duane's killer is brought swiftly to justice, and that his family can temper their grief. May he forever rest in peace.

A recent figurative painting by Duane Todman