Sunday, May 13, 2012

HGA Photographer Eric Saunders Goes National

Photographer Eric Saunders is exhibiting a piece in the "Photowork 2012" national juried show at the Barrett Art Center Galleries in Poughkeepsie, NY.  His photograph, Sanctuary, was selected by juror Susan Thompson, curatorial assistant at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.  The show runs May 12 - July 7, 2012.

Current HGA Featured Artist Show

Jeweler Arianna Bara, fiber artist Ali Givens,
wood turner Pat Lloyd, and painter Kim Wheaton
find unique ways to express their inner lives
in a new show titled

VISIONS REVEALED

April 24th through May 20th at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts.

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click on image to go to website


About the show
“As a metalsmith, creating jewelry primarily in silver and copper, I have always looked
to the natural world for rich and meaningful imagery,” says Arianna Bara. “For this
show, however, I have gone a step further, exploring inner states rather than just
outward manifestations. My inspiration comes from practicing ‘wordlessness,’ a state
of awareness that happens when I silence the thoughts in my head and become open
to the sensations of the present moment.” Bara adds, “wordlessness brings me to a
state of communion with nature and oneness with the universe. In this show I have
attempted to reflect that inner state of peace and to tap into the depth of knowing that
requires no words.”

Ali Givens, who works with hand-dyed fabrics, finds that the process of stitching her
framed fabric collages evokes cherished childhood memories of growing up on a
tropical island. Both island life and a young adulthood spent in New York City inspire
her images, she says.

Pat Lloyd works primarily with locally obtained, native species of trees that have been
felled by storms or old age. “Hillsborough’s grand old trees offer special opportunities
to turn new lives for these witnesses to history,” she says, adding, “turning the wood
reveals the beauty of the grain, the heart and soul of the tree.” Her turnings include
functional and decorative bowls, hollow forms, natural edge vessels, Ikebanas, and
ornaments.

The new show prompted Kim Wheaton to paint thoughts, ideas, and snippets of poetry.
“The ‘visions revealed’ are these ideas as image,” Wheaton explains. As an example,
her painting, "If My Boots Had Wings," was inspired by an excerpt from Mary Oliver’s
poem, Starlings in Winter:

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want
to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbably beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

Another painting, ‘A Girl Takes Aim,’ was inspired by watching girls at slingshot target
practice. “I wanted to express what might be a girl's state of mind at the moment just
before she releases the slingshot: focus, determination, calm,” says Wheaton. “Of
course this is also a metaphor for how a girl finds focus and drive in her life.
“All of my new and recent paintings use a mix of media including decorative paper,
acrylic paint in underlying or collaged layers, oil paint, and cold wax,” Wheaton
explains. “I use a combination of paint brushes, palette knives, and sometimes odd
elements like chicken wire, window screening or toothbrushes, to enhance textural
effects.”