Art Around the Park, Feb. 1, 2011

Trading a briefcase for an easel: Kimberly Martin shows the results at Gallery Egan in Morristown

What is it about Italy?

Kimberly Martin went there as a corporate suit in 2001 and returned 10 days later as an artist.

“There’s something about travel that opens your mind like nothing else can…I had such clarity about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life,” recounted Kimberly, who is exhibiting a dozen oil-on-canvas pieces at Morristown’s Gallery Egan this month.

When she vacationed at the Todi School of Art in Italy almost a decade ago, she was a human resources executive for a major Philadelphia company, packing an MBA degree from Vanderbilt.

She had dabbled in drawing and painting as a schoolgirl before opting for a “practical” career. Yet she could not shake thoughts of painting.

Finally, there she was, painting scenes of 700-year-old churches in the hills of Umbria.

Kimberly came home, got her financial house in order and made the leap. She took classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and the Fleischer Art Memorial, always heeding instructors’ advice: Keep painting!

She honed her skills with representational creations. But after awhile she tired of landscapes.

And so she took a deep breath and jumped again–into an intensely personal, hard-to-describe, challenging-to-sell style of fragmented human forms and sometimes- disturbing colors.

“It’s a whole canvas of chaos,” Kimberly, 43, said with a laugh. “It’s like a great Rorschach test exercise, like I’m developing my own language. Some of my marks have a certain violence to them. I don’t pre-plan my imagery. It’s really a discovery process as I go through it.”

Gallery owner Alexis Egan said she was intrigued during a visit to Kimberly’s studio in Philadelphia some months back.

“I love the figurative abstraction,” Alexis said. “You rarely see abstraction with partial figures in them. I thought it was really unique. I like her color choices and her movement. There is a lot of movement. And they have a lot of energy. You get a lot of emotion in them.”

An opening reception is scheduled for 7 pm on Friday. Kimberly also plans to return on Feb. 1 for Morristown’s second Art Around the Park gallery walk.

Pieces in Kimberly’s exhibition range from shoebox size to four-by-five-feet, with prices between $350 and $5,000.

The recession prompted her to take on some corporate consulting work–it’s fine to be a starving artist, but Bernhard, her St. Bernard/hound, has to eat. Still, Kimberly is not contemplating a full-time return to the corporate grind anytime soon.

“I don’t miss it at all,” Kimberly said. “My heart and soul is my artwork.”

Her advice to anyone else yearning to trade a briefcase for an easel?

“Plan for it as much as you can, financially. If you’re going to make the shift, make it about yourself. Don’t follow the way someone else paints or draws. Be yourself. That’s why you’re doing this.”

But if you’re the least bit apprehensive about the whole thing, well … maybe you should skip Italy.

________________________________________________________________

 

Andrea Kelly exhibition in Morristown: Abstract art, specific passion

Motherhood is wonderful. Really, it is. But after about 10 years of it, Andrea Kelly yearned to reconnect with her artistic side. “I missed it terribly, like I was missing my whole self,” recounted Andrea, whose three children now are grown.

It took a few years for the Long Valley resident to regain her stride. Now she is whole again, judging by her exhibition that officially opens Friday at Gallery Egan in Morristown. Sixteen works are on display this month. They range from $400 bookshelf-sized studies in pastels and gouache (fast-drying water-based paints) to $4,000 oil-on-canvas abstract paintings that stand four feet high.

Long Valley artist Andrea Kelly is featured through November at Gallery Egan in Morristown.
Photo by Kevin Coughlin / MorristownGreen.com

Andrea, 52, knew early that she would be an artist. Her father went to the School of Visual Arts on the G.I. Bill, and had a small graphics studio at their home in Bayside, Queens. “I would poke around with stuff in there and say, ‘You get paid to do this?’” she said.

Andrea studied at the School of Visual Arts while waitressing at the late, great Bottom Line and Max’s Kansas City in New York. At 22, she married her husband, Mike, a carpenter. Matthew, Rachel and Alex came next, along with an 1876 Victorian house in need of renovation. For about a decade she put aside her art career. When the kids no longer needed her full-time attention, Andrea decided to revive the career. There was trepidation at first. “I was kind of scared,” she remembered. “I didn’t know how I would perform.” Feeling rusty, Andrea took lessons from one of her former art school instructors, Jim Kearns, at the Somerset Art Association. Back in college, she had dabbled in sculpture, photography, painting, stained glass and drawing. Now, she needed more focus. She spent three years honing her drawing skills, then started painting.

She also opened a studio workshop, where she taught gifted and talented youths. Seven years ago, she landed a gig at the County College of Morris teaching drawing. She likes the college setting; instruction is geared more toward the process of art than to creating pre-conceived products, she said. Meanwhile, Andrea continues painting with the Green Barn Artists, a weekly group that started at her studio a decade ago. The sessions recently moved to Mendham, where members Fred Vanacore and Tracy Celetti live.

She also opened a studio workshop, where she taught gifted and talented youths. Seven years ago, she landed a gig at the County College of Morris teaching drawing. She likes the college setting; instruction is geared more toward the process of art than to creating pre-conceived products, she said. Meanwhile, Andrea continues painting with the Green Barn Artists, a weekly group that started at her studio a decade ago. The sessions recently moved to Mendham, where members Fred Vanacore and Tracy Celetti live. Although Andrea often makes a small study painting prior to embarking on a full-blown project, the before and after don’t always look similar.

“It goes where it wants to go,” she said of her art. “It leads me along or I lead it along.” She loves becoming absorbed in her work, to the point where she “doesn’t even know how much time goes by.” Indeed, Andrea’s biggest painterly challenge may be preventing her cats and year-old rescue-league Dobermans, Indy and Roxy, from romping across her abstract landscapes as they dry. Andrea is almost apologetic about the lack of melancholy in these paintings. She likes a touch of melancholy, she insists. Yet, in an apparent reflection of the balance she has found, her art seems to produce the opposite effect in viewers. “It makes people happy,” Andrea concedes. “It’s more of an uplifting kind of art than a lot of stuff out there today.”

The public is invited to a reception for Andrea Kelly’s exhibition from 7 pm to 9 pm Friday at Gallery Egan, at 20 Community Place in Morristown. Andrea also will be at the gallery from 6 pm to 8 pm on Nov. 16, for Morristown’s first “Art Around the Park” gallery tour.

________________________________________________________________

 

Architect, Musician, Painter: Brian Oschwald brings a lot to the mix in Morristown art show at Gallery Egan

Great musicians know that great performances often hinge on the notes they don’t play. What’s left out informs what remains, in other words. So how does a painter know when to put down the brush and frame the canvas? “It’s done when it pushes back,” says artist Brian Oschwald. “It’s almost like air pressure between yourself and it.”

Brian’s paintings are on display through October at Morristown’s Gallery Egan. The show is appropriately titled The Inner Landscape; this guy has thought long and hard about abstraction. His images refer to “the compost of memory, dream and pre-verbal experience from which ‘ideas’ emerge,” he writes in his show biography.

Most of Brian’s oil paintings begin at Deer Isle in Maine or on the Maryland coast, and are refined in his Mendham studio. “It doesn’t take a lot to improve one. You can remove a color or balance something. Very small things can tip the balance to make a painting lively and engaging,” says Brian, 53. What he’s striving for is “a balance of abstraction and realism, with landscape features,” he says. “It’s a personal point of view about landscape as a memory, as an interior experience as opposed to a literal record.”

Painting provides the counterpoint to a professional life steeped in literal records, as a design architect specializing in historic preservation. Brian’s projects have included restorations of the Presbyterian churches in Morristown and Madison and the Bamboo Brook mansion in Chester.

The son of an architect, Brian caught the history bug in 1971 while traveling through Europe. He helped restore an Italian village near Florence that had been bombed by the Nazis.

“The Italians take great care of old things,” he says. “They preserve the best of the old and do sensitive modern inserts.”

About 20 of Brian’s works, priced from $100 to about $9,000, will be exhibited at Gallery Egan; it’s his ninth solo show since taking up painting and found-object sculpture in 1988. He cites abstract expressionist Mark Rothko, Italian still-life painter Giorgio Morandi and contemporary Philadelphia artist Stuart Shils among his influences. This reflective, introspective life seems far removed from the sub-zero ponds near Minneapolis where Brian played hockey as a youth. Or, for that matter, from his other passion, traditional music. Brian’s instruments include mandolin, assorted flutes, digital bagpipes and the Celtic harp.

“It touches your collar bone, and turns your whole body into a tuning fork,” he says of the harp. “It’s very relaxing.”

And while he looks rather professorial with his bow tie, round tortoise-shell glasses and thick mustache, Brian once sported a “pony tail to my butt” and strummed a Gibson electric 12-string guitar as lead singer for  a band called “Post War Skyscraper” in Northfield, Minn. Asked if he has any recordings from those junior high school days, he reflects for a nanosecond or two, and seems quite pleased to reply in the negative. What’s left out informs what remains, in other words.

A reception for ‘The Inner Landscape’ is scheduled for 7 pm Friday at Gallery Egan on 12 Community Place.

'I like imposing mystery on certainty,' says artist Brian Oschwald. He also likes exhibiting his work at Gallery Egan in Morristown. 'The emergence of this gallery and the sensibility it represents is very timely. Morristown's time has arrived. It deserves the attention it's gotten.' Photo by Kevin Coughlin

________________________________________________________________

 

Morristown Native to Showcase his Art at Gallery Egan

Reflecting on his upcoming art exhibit at Gallery Egan, Timothy David Lang remembers his formative art courses at Morristown High School and the work he produced as a teenager.

"It's all come full circle at age 31," he said. "You see touches of what I was doing at 17 in my work, just more mature and sophisticated."

Growing up in Morristown, Lang took advantage of the diverse and spirited culture of the community. "I loved growing up in Morristown–everything is at your fingertips," he said. His love for art began in high school when Lang and his friends became interested in graffiti. "I had lot of fiends into hip-hop, break-dancing, and graffiti culture so I was really into that…I didn't know it would be a career, but I knew it would be a big part of my life."

After high school, Lang enrolled at Salisbury University in Salisbury, Md. He initially declared a major in Business and planned to pursue art on the side. However, his turning point came during a sophomore year Microeconomics course.

"I had no interest in Business. It wasn't something that drove me," he said. "I didn't want to be one of those people who get a high-paying job and are miserable. I wanted to do something that I love, that I would do well in, something that would be a career."

The next day, he met with his academic advisor and switched over to the Bachelor in Fine Arts (BFA) program.

Salisbury University art professor, Jinchul Kim, became Lang's mentor. Kim encouraged Lang to explore Contemporary Realism and also taught him the inner-workings of the art industry. "It was beneficial from both an art and a business standpoint," Lang said. Kim continues to guide Lang through his artistic career today, he said.

After college, Lang joined his brother on the North Carolina shoreline. "I love to surf and there is such nice climate–an 8 month summer," he said. Lang lived in a large house with plenty of studio space, so he "produced, produced, produced". Two years later, armed with a new body of work and missing home, Lang moved back to Morristown. Coming home to Morristown was natural for Lang, he said. He was drawn back to the community due to his familiarity with the area, the affordable cost of living, and proximity to New York City. He views Morristown as an emerging hot spot in New Jersey.

"I think Morristown is honestly going to be the section of New Jersey that's really going to blow up," he said. "If you look at all these new apartments, and the influx of business people that commute into the city, it is clear Morristown is becoming very cosmopolitan. I don't think of it as a town anymore—I think of it more like a small city."

Morristown's rising arts community appeals to Lang personally and professionally, he said. "In the years to come, Morristown will attract a growing clientele looking for music, art, theater and will be filled with people who truly appreciate the arts. I have an opportunity to build off this and move forward from there," Lang said.

Lang's upcoming exhibit at Gallery Egan will showcase a combination of his styles, both new and old. "My art used to be part cityscape and part landscape–tension and release," he said. "My new body of work is part minimalism, part abstract expressionism. Ideally and ultimately my work has always been about contrast."

Philosophically, Lang's art revolves around constant reinvention and exploration, he said. He is always finding innovative techniques, different ways to create and producing images that are fresh, he said. "My plan is to study every style and every subject matter so when I'm 60, I can be good at everything and have no boundaries," he said.

Lang's work will be on display at Gallery Egan, 12 Community Place in Morristown, from Sept. 1-30. Join him for the opening reception, from 7 to 9 p.m. on Sept. 3. Visit http://www.galleryegan.com, or call 973-998-4653 for more information.

________________________________________________________________

 

Marilla Palmer’s organic art, this month at Gallery Egan in Morristown
A flooded living room is a bad situation. But Marilla Palmer made the best of hers. In fact, she made a career of it.

Years of dampness in her Brooklyn home introduced Marilla to the moldy world of spores and fungi. They now are central to her collages and sculptures.


Artist Marilla Palmer found inspiration in her flooded living room. Her 'spore prints' are for sale this month at Gallery Egan in Morristown. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
“Spores are beautiful. But there’s also the symbolism of decay and rebirth. And some are hallucinogens…there’s a lot of symbolism,” she said at Morristown’s Gallery Egan. Her show, “Debauchee of Dew in a Concrete Landscape,” runs all month.

The title refers to an Emily Dickinson poem from Marilla’s school days. Feminine references abound in her pieces, from embroidery to decoupage to jewelry. She migrated to sculpture and collage after studying painting at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts.

“I had been doing all painting, and I became increasingly uncomfortable with all the baggage of men in the history of painting,” Marilla said. “No matter how you cut it, it’s the history of what men did.”
She has nothing against men per se. She is married to Peter Zaremba, lead singer of The Fleshtones rock band, and they have a guitar-shredding 13-year-old son.

It’s just that, well, spores are virgin territory, artistically speaking.
The discovery was serendipitous.

“Our house kept flooding,” Marilla said. “There were spores everywhere. Mushrooms were sprouting all over the place. I started picking them up and making mold spores out of them.”

She describes a collage titled “Sun Spore Flower” as a “spore print,” incorporating pressed sunflower petals and thread. It’s priced at $2,600, near the upper end of the show catalog.  A hanging sculpture titled “Decadent Decay Fungus Chandelier” includes–you guessed it–tree fungi.

Marilla says her spores are specially treated and won’t trigger allergies or illness. Her only occupational hazard involved potent orange spores that reminded her of Cheez Doodles.
“I was tripping,” she said. “I don’t use them anymore.”

Gallery Egan’s reception for the official opening of the show is at 7 p.m. on Friday.

http://morristowngreen.com/tag/gallery-egan/

________________________________________________________________

 

Mac has left Gallery MacEgan, but the art goes on tonight in Morristown

Quick–does anyone have a bucket of Wite-Out?
Alexis Hale Egan has to remove the “Mac” from the Gallery MacEgan sign outside her art gallery on Morristown’s Community Place.
“‘Mac means ’son of,’ and that doesn’t apply here,” explained Alexis, who said she has taken sole ownership of the rechristened Egan Gallery from her uncle, Greg Egan.

Alexis Hale Egan, owner of the rechristened Egan Gallery in Morristown, with painting by Richard Bedkowski, whose exhibit runs through June.
At first glance, it might seem like the Egan clan can’t stand close quarters. When the venture started taking shape last summer, it was a project of Greg and his brother Dave. By the official opening in September, Dave had moved on and Alexis, a 26-year-old photographer, had come aboard.
But Greg simply has decided to return to the alternative energy field, according to his niece.

“Everyone’s on good terms,” said Alexis, preparing for tonight’s opening of a month-long exhibit by painter Richard Bedkowski, a Morristown native. (You can bet that the wine will be good: Richard works at Gary’s Wine & Marketplace in Madison when he is not painting.)

Alexis said the gallery will remain focused on contemporary works, selling from $70 to $10,000, by metro-area artists with a following.
“The art world has definitely been affected by the economy,” she said. “People aren’t spending much money. But this area has been less affected than others. If you have strong artists with a following and they are collectible, their followers still are interested and willing to purchase.”
Alexis has renewed the lease on the gallery, and is moving from New York to Morristown. She majored in photography, and also studied painting and film, at the Savannah College of Art & Design. Then she spent a year running a medical clinic in a Guatemalan village, until drug lords overran the place. That experience yielded some stunning photographs that were exhibited at the gallery.

Going forward she plans to feature more paintings than photos, however.
Alexis’ tastes are a bit “more cutting-edge” than Greg’s, said Timothy Lang, an artist friend of Alexis.

Articles from morristowngreen.com

http://morristowngreen.com/tag/egan/