Hostetter Arts Center Gallery

The twenty-ninth annual Pingry Student Photography Exhibition was on view in the Hostetter Arts Center Gallery, opening February 14 through March 4, 2025. Close to two hundred photographs represent the best work of students from seven private and public high schools in the region. The work includes both digital and traditional film-based printing. The gallery is open weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. when school is in session. 
 

The annual Art Faculty Exhibition is currently on view in the Hostetter Arts Center Gallery through Tuesday, February 4, 2024. The exhibition features work in a variety of media from Pingry studio art teachers including Xiomara Babilonia, Melody Boone, Andrew Sullivan, Russell Christian, Daniel Hertzberg, Seth Goodwin, and Nan Ring.

Hostetter Arts Center Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of “Conversation”, a two-person exhibition of paintings, drawings and sculpture by New Jersey based artists Jeanne Brasile and Yvonne Duck from November 5 to December 9, 2024.

Jeanne Brasile is  an artist, curator, art writer, and yoga instructor based in Bloomfield. Her interdisciplinary practice is founded on curiosity. Brasile’s sculptures and works on paper are created with repurposed materials such as antique dictionaries, hand-written ledgers, blueprints, and library card catalogs - objects laden with cultural residue that become entry points for meaning making. She envisions the studio, gallery and world-at-large as laboratories for learning.  As a student, Brasile studied art history, studio art, communication arts, museology, and anthropology – and later, yoga and meditation.  In her work, each discipline contributes a critical counterpart for discourse. 

Brasile’s art has been exhibited in The Newark Museum, The Montclair Art Museum, The Mattatuck Art Museum, The Gwangju Biennale in South Korea, and 14C Art Fair, among other venues. Her writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, NJ Arts Daily, AS | Mag, and Art Spiel. She has curated shows at Seton Hall University, The Hunterdon Art Museum and numerous galleries in New York and New Jersey.  She can often be found hiking, collecting curiosities, practicing and teaching yoga, or peering through a microscope to find new inspiration. She attended Ramapo College of New Jersey as an undergraduate, and later earned her M.A. in Museum Professions at Seton Hall University.

Yvonne Duck is a sculptor, printmaker, and photographer. Her studio is in Manufacturers Village in East Orange, NJ. She earned her BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She began her creative career as a jewelry designer, where she owned and operated a jewelry design business for 10 years. She has shown her work with Studio Montclair and with Art Gallery 118 online. Recently she has been drawn to working with larger scale mediums that require more physicality. Duck's work is inspired and informed by her love of nature and her passion for environmentalism and social justice. Duck claims the earth is her muse, and injustice, her catalyst to create. She often works with natural found elements and juxtaposes them against readymade objects. For Duck, this stark contrast exemplifies the human condition — the struggle between our humanness and society’s artificially imposed constraints. Through her work, she hopes to evoke conversation and curiosity, while also fostering social awareness and social change. 

Duck created sculptures and pieces for nonprofits, fundraising events, and civic activism initiatives. She has also designed and executed large-scale murals, as well as sets, displays and backdrops for Montclair Public Schools.

Jeanne Brasile, Kevät tulee (Spring is Coming), watercolor and paper on panel

Yvonne Duck, Un-Earthed, Alabaster Sculpture with Natural Found Objects, 2024

“The entire endeavor begs the question - what role will our waste play in the future?”
-Kate Dodd, from her artist’s statement for her sculpture  “Overgrowth Industry”

"Overgrowth Industry" — a sculpture created specifically for our gallery from upcycled abandoned beauty packaging, September 22 through October 18. 

This is a wonderful chance to see the work of another amazing local artist. Here are just a few of her many accomplishments:

• Kate Dodd creates both temporary and permanent site-specific installations and has exhibited her artwork nationally in museums such as the Hunterdon Museum in Clinton, galleries, and colleges.  
• She was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship grant in 2020 from the New Jersey Council on the Arts, and has been awarded multiple residencies, including MacDowell and numerous schools in the tri-state area. 
• Kate has commissioned works at five NJ Transit stations, and has created three commissions for Summit Public Arts. 
• She completed a site-specific commission for the Redwood City Public Library Children’s Room in 2021, and a permanent commission for Rowan University in 2023. 
• Kate’s work will be on view at the Montclair Art Museum this fall as part of the NJ Arts Annual. 
• Her works celebrate the transformation of materials and the hidden patterns of human habits.
• For more information about Kate, visit https://www.katedodd.com/

In her work, Steinhardt contemplates the idea of “second chances.” She writes, “I believe in second chances. My work offers second chances to pushed-aside materials and objects, bearing witness to that which is useless, invisible, or for those who cannot come forward for themselves. My own loss and trauma draw me to this practice and these materials. The theft of a body of work in 2019 emotionally crippled me for a time. As I emerged in 2021 I found solace in not only resurrecting objects from the past but seriously addressing my own history in an open and honest manner. I resonate with these pushed aside and discarded items because I understand useless; a creator without creations, in the end stages of early onset menopause, addressing long-term unresolved damage. They are me, but they are also a bit of everyone who has struggled."

Steinhardt continues, "Each piece begins with reclaimed objects that are no longer useful for their intended purpose, discarded or buried in deep corners of closets and storage units. Presented as sculptural mixed media, each one is driven by the nature of its source material. I join each item’s history with a new future. By altering these objects, I retell their story. Discarded bed linens, pillowcases, rags, and dish towels, for example, are morphed into large scale pieces. The hand embroidery harkens to the history of women’s work."

Steinhardt holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Maine College of Art and a Bachelor of Science in Photography from Rochester Institute of Technology School of Photographic Arts and Sciences. Steinhardt's work has been exhibited at Les Moulins Gallery, Boissy-le-Châtel, France, El Barrio ArtSpace, The Equity Gallery, Carter Burden, Artsy, The Shim Network (New York) and The Tampa Museum of Art, Polk County Museum, and Covivant Gallery (Florida). She has lectured and led workshops at numerous institutions around the US and abroad, including New York University Tisch ITP, Parsons, The Garden School, The Pingry School, Harrison School for the Arts, and La Biennale del fin del Mundo in Ushuaia, Argentina. Before relocating home to NYC, Steinhardt achieved tenure in both the Art and Communication Departments at the University of Tampa where she conceived a multidisciplinary Electronic Media Art and Technology Program designed to support those interested in a self-directed academic Major combining art, communication, English, music, computer information systems, and entrepreneurship. Steinhardt lives and works in the metro New York Area.

Gardenship is an inclusive artist-led interdisciplinary makerspace founded in 2019 located in a two acre warehouse in Kearny Point, New Jersey. We provide dynamic art programming to foster creative exchange, exploration, and the creation of new artworks in Hudson County. We also offer free public events throughout the year, robust financial aid for workshops, and artist residencies. 

Gardenship is creating a space for artists to create, exhibit, and build community. Gardenship has invited a curated cohort of our Artists-In-Residence to exhibit. Our goal is to provide a space to empower our community of artists by creating a new venue to show work and foster discourse.  As always we try to cast the widest net possible so we have asked each of the 5 selected Gardenship Artists-In-Residence to invite an artist they would like to exhibit along with from outside our organization as part of this exhibition.

In the spirit of spontaneity, collaboration, and community building, this exhibition will create an enriching moment for Gardenship and bring attention to the incredibly important and growing arts communities in Hudson and Essex counties, which we sit squarely at the intersection of. 

Gianluca Bianchino - Gardenship Artist in Residence
Nora Chavooshian - Guest Artist
William Corwin - Guest Artist
Kevin Darmanie - Guest Artist (And Former Gardenship Aritst in Residence)
Mike Dominick - Gardenship Artist in Residence
Dino "Commodore" Gravato - Gardenship Artist in Residence
Serron "XploreFreedom" Green - Gardenship Artist in Residence
Phil Robinson - Guest Artist (And Former Gardenship Aritst in Residence)
Roberto Visani - Gardenship Artist in Residence
Warner Wada - Gardenship Artist in Residence
Joe Waks - Guest Artist

“Robert Lach” on view November 7 to December 8, 2023

Artist Statement

I have a deep connection to nature and fascination with how animals and organisms construct their homes or living spaces. Through my art practice, refuse becomes the building blocks to create the architecture for my sculpture. Recycled habitats are constructed from plastic, discarded materials, and nature’s debris. The overconsumption of our society's stuff poisons our land and waterways and my way of correcting some of this shameful indifference is in creating art.

My work is a ritual expression of being uprooted. It reflects the childhood memory of moving from place to place which feeds into my innate instinct to gather things that have been discarded. The overwhelming amount of trash that clutters our environment is huge and the act of removing as much as possible from local waterways and streets brings me both joy and outrage.

Scavenging is an act of regeneration and renewal channeling anger into a constructive life force turning difficulties and challenges into something positive. I see garbage and the residue of nature as beautiful and turning that abundance into art is my goal.

Robert is a multi-disciplinary artist who studied photography at the Visual Arts Center of NJ and the International Center for Photography in NYC. He received a BFA in sculpture from New Jersey City University. Born and raised in West Orange, New Jersey, it is the local landscape that fuels and inspires his art practice, which includes photography, sculpture, and installation work. The artist has participated in solo, group, site specific, and public art projects in the New York Metro area and nationally. Public art projects have included the Artlantic sculpture park in Atlantic City and The Gateway Project in Newark, NJ. Lach has attended residencies at Elsewhere, ESKFF at Mana Contemporary, Solo(s) Project House, I-Park, and Guttenberg Arts. His work has appeared and been reviewed in publications including Sculpture Magazine, Inhabitat, Art Nerd, Hyperallergic, Citizen Brooklyn, and the Star Ledger.

“Philemona Williamson” on view September 19 to October 20, 2023

Philemona Williamson’s narrative paintings explore the tenuous bridge between adolescence and adulthood, encapsulating the intersection of innocence and experience at its most piercing and poignant moment. The metaphorical images focus on the transitional period of adolescence, when personal discovery and awareness collide with the force of worldly knowledge. The lush color palette and dreamlike positioning of the figures ensures that their vulnerabilities are seen as strengths and not as weaknesses.

Williamson has shown widely with an upcoming solo show at Galerie Semiose in Paris in November, 2023. Other recent solo shows include June Kelly Gallery in NYC; Jenkins-Johnson Gallery in San Francisco, and a mid-career retrospective at the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey in 2017. Philemona also had a one-person show at Drumthwacket, the New Jersey Governor's mansion in 2019.

In 2022, she was awarded a grant from Anonymous Was A Woman and received a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies including The Joan Mitchell Foundation, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, National Endowment For The Arts, New York Foundation For The Arts and The Millay Colony. Her work has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions such as The Queens Museum of Art, Wisconsin's Kohler Art Center, The Sheldon Museum in Nebraska, The Bass Museum in Miami, The Mint Museum in North Carolina, The Forum of Contemporary Art in St. Louis, and The International Bienal of Painting in Cuenca, Ecuador. She is represented in numerous private and public collections, including The Montclair Art Museum; The Kalamazoo Art Institute; The Mint Museum of Art; Smith College Museum of Art; Hampton University Museum; Sheldon Art Museum; Mott-Warsh Art Collection, AT&T and recently - The Baltimore Museum of Art.

Her public works include fused-glass murals created for the MTA Arts in Transit Program at the Livonia Avenue Subway Station in Brooklyn, a painting used by the MTA’s Poetry In Motion and, for the NYC School Authority, a mosaic mural in Queens. Philemona has taught Painting & Drawing at Hunter College, Pratt Institute, SVA, Bard College, RISD, Cooper Union and Parsons. She served on the advisory board of the Getty Center for Education and is currently on the board of the Visual Arts Center of NJ.

Hostetter Arts Center Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of films by alum Jeremy Teicher ’06, a writer, producer, and director of award-winning feature films, television, branded content and indie game development. The exhibition will run from May 4 through May 31, 2023. 

With expertise in storytelling, IP development and technical project management, Teicher has led projects at Netflix, Hulu, NBC, SXSW, Sony, and The Olympics. He also was a Games Writer for indie platformer Zorbit's Orbits.

Teicher's award-winning first feature film, Tall as the Baobab Tree, garnered acclaim from over 50 festivals around the world and was distributed by Sundance Artist Services in 2013. His second feature film, Tracktown, co-directed with Alexi Pappas, premiered at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Festival and was distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films, Orion Pictures, and Sony International. His third feature film, Olympic Dreams, premiered to critical acclaim at SXSW 2019 and was distributed by IFC Films. Teicher is currently in post-production on his fourth feature film, Not An Artist, a comedy with an all-star cast from shows like Veep and The Office.

Teicher is widely recognized for his accomplishments. He was named in Filmmaker Magazine's prestigious "25 New Faces of Independent Film." He graduated from Dartmouth College and lives in Los Angeles.

For more information about Teicher, visit jeremyteicher.com

April 4 to April 28, 2023

Christine Romanell’s colorful wall sculptures and installations explore non-repeating patterns informed by cosmology and physics, while rooting itself in applied design similar to Islamic patterning. Her use of rotational symmetry to generate dimensional forms allude to movement and create an event horizon, a space where the infinite tessellations of universal physics can intersect with patterns, collapsing the divide between the theoretical and the real.

Romanell lives and works in New Jersey where she’s on the board of Manufacturers Village Artists space in East Orange. She is the founder and editor of NotWhatItIs art blog. Her work has been discussed in Hyperallergic, MIT Technology Review, All She Makes,  Art and Cake, ArtFuse, ArtSpiel and WoArt. Her sculptures have been included in ArtPrize and she is a recipient of an NEA grant for her work through Chashama in NYC. Christine Romanell received a 2022 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She has lectured at Pratt University and taught at the College of St Elizabeth and Bergen Community County College. Her BFA is from the School of Visual Arts (NYC) and her MFA is from Montclair State University (Montclair NJ.)

The annual Art Faculty Exhibition, “Teachers in the Studio” was on view in the Hostetter Gallery January 10 through February 3. The exhibition features work in a variety of media from Pingry's Visual Art Faculty.

Marsha Goldberg focuses in her art on the marks she makes with the emphasis on gestural line to create abstraction. She is engaged with the geometry provided by the grid and her tools, balancing that exactness with the imprecision of applying paint by hand. Throughout, the artist is concerned with the relationships of color and shape and resulting emotional resonance. The works themselves are in constant conversation, as Goldberg frequently looks back to earlier work to remember and restate an idea or visual solution. Many of the exhibition works are created with the method of filling in dots with a circle template, applying it to cyanotype prints as well as her most recent acrylic paintings. Traveling has often provided her with experiences integral to her work as a visual artist. In early 2020 she was living in Marseille, France. Her latest series of acrylic paintings began as a response to the light and architecture of that city.

Goldberg was born in Boston, MA. She attended Brandeis University, Boston University and the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, later receiving an MFA from Rutgers’s Mason Gross School of the Arts. Her current studio is at her home in Highland Park, New Jersey. Goldberg’s work is in several public and private collections, including the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, the Boston Public Library and Capital One in Washington, DC, and she has been awarded artist residencies at Millay Arts and Ucross Foundation, among others. In addition to her studio practice and raising two daughters, Marsha Goldberg has taught at Kean University and Douglass College at Rutgers University.

The Pingry School Hostetter Gallery is pleased to present “Everywhere Return”, by Jesse Wright, an exhibition of mixed media paintings and works related to mural projects and humanitarian aid efforts. Wright is an interdisciplinary artist based in Newark, New Jersey. His visual approach references his blended Jamaican American heritage. Frequently layered and fragmented, the works juxtapose language, reclaimed materials from the streets, abstract or gestural elements and figures such as Island notables “Nurse” and K.L. Rakine. Wright’s artworks serve as tableaux in an ongoing poetic meditation on displacement, migration and scripture. On view are a series of works using Wright’s maternal relatives as archetypes of migration. Hope, aspiration, strength and longing are all depicted giving attention to the complexity of humanity.

Wright received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and Middlesex Polytechnic in England. Selected solo and group exhibitions include Newark Historical Society, Newark, NJ; Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ; and Latchkey Gallery, New York, NY. “Everywhere Return” is on view September 20th through October 21st, 2022 when school is in session.

Pingry Alumni, Reba Tyson '12, Erica Cheung '14, Adam Present '17, Lauren Denitzio '02, Dan Greenfield '81, Isabella Barrionuevo '14, Evy Barnett '15 are currently showing their artworks in our online 3-D Hostetter gallery May 12th through June 12th, 2022.

Dan Greefield lives in Austin having migrated south and westward by way of New Jersey, Washington, DC and Atlanta. His love of photography began at Pingry where he fondly remembers learning the basics of photography from Michael Popp and getting creative encouragement from Peter Delman. He turned to video and film at Wesleyan University, and while his career is in marketing and business development, his passion remains photography.  From black and white film and color digital pixels to new forays in PhotoShop, he is still guided by his yearbook quote some 40 years ago - “Mehr Licht” (“More Light”).

Evy Barnett is a Brooklyn-based Graphic Designer. She graduated in 2019 from Pratt Institute and received a BFA in Communications Design and Minored in Art History. During her time at Pratt, she was co-captain of Pratt’s IHSA Equestrian Team and studied abroad in Venice focusing on printmaking and art history. She remains an active Pratt alumni member. In addition, she enjoys long distance running and currently sits on the Board of Directors for Prospect Park Track Club in Brooklyn. 

Adam Marshall Present is a Chicago-based filmmaker. While Present may happen to be his last name, a focus on being present is what binds his work together. Through experimenting with form, structure, and narrative, Present hopes to capture the moments in life that fill us with wonder and remind us why our experiences in this world can sometimes be so magical. Present often makes work in and about the natural world, and by using unconventional means. Present found a love for filmmaking at a young age and attended Northwestern University's Radio/TV/Film program, graduating in 2021. He quickly felt at home in Chicago and is excited by the emerging independent film community in the city. Present has since started working on the crew of the "One Chicago" franchise shows, as well as getting involved in some local independent productions. Present hopes to stay based in the Chicago area for a long time and be a part of growing the city's unique filmmaking voice, while continuing to push his own abilities as an artist.

Isabella Barionuevo (b. 1996) creates photographic work centered on the performance of gender through self-portraiture, still life, video, and the appropriation of existing images in mass media. By examining feminine tropes and iconography in art history, advertising, and contemporary culture, Barrionuevo investigates issues surrounding the male gaze and the forms of femininity that are in place to regulate the female body. Barrionuevo has earned a BFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design and currently lives and works in New Jersey.

Reba Kittredge Tyson is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA from New York University in 2016. Her work has been featured in group shows at Ground Floor Gallery, Field Projects, The Java Project, and IA & A at Hillyer. Her paintings were published in New American Paintings in 2020 in edition 146 selected by Jerry Saltz. She was listed as an ArtConnect Artist to Watch in 2021.

Lauren Denitzio is an artist and musician based in Los Angeles, CA. They received their BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and their MFA at Parsons The New School for Design. Their work looks at queer history, activism and pop culture to highlight small moments of domestic life and potential futures.Their work has been exhibited in New York at The Kitchen, Recession Art Culturefix, Storefront, Rush Arts Gallery, and Wayfarers as well as a The University of Maryland Stamp Gallery. They have toured internationally with their band Worriers alongside such artists as Against Me!, John K Samson, Anti Flag, Julien Baker, The Wonder Years, Camp Cope, and more. You or Someone You Know, their latest album, was produced by rock veteran John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Kurt Vile). Many of their projects have been featured in The Village Voice, NPR, Noisey, Thrasher, Stereogum and more. When not on tour, Lauren can be found in North Hollywood with their weird terrier, Lucy, watching Grey's Anatomy surrounded by houseplants.

Erica Cheung is a Chicago-based arts professional, writer, and artist. She is currently pursuing the Dual Degree MA Arts Administration and Policy and MA Modern and Contemporary Art History, Theory, and Criticism program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her primary areas of interest include immigrant and diasporic narratives, postcolonial theory, contemporary photography, and the structure and function (or lack thereof) of arts institutions. Prior to her tenure in Chicago, Erica served as Assistant Director of Foto Relevance in Houston, TX. She received a BA in English and Visual & Dramatic Arts with a concentration in Film/Photography from Rice University.

The Hostetter Gallery is excited to share our new two-person exhibition, “Real Lives,” a figurative show highlighting the work of Omar Lawson, Figure Painter, and Armando “Out There” Diaz, Photographer.

An alum of the Liquitex Artist In Residence program, Lawson calls himself a “painter, conversationalist, and explorer of perception.” He experiments with new colors and techniques in his portrait series, creating work that questions stereotypes vs. individuality. 

A visual artist, photographer and musician, Armando Diaz’s work is focused on people and how they interact with each other. His aim is to show the viewer what they have in common with others, creating a sense of intimacy and recognition of our shared humanity.

“Real Lives” will be on exhibit through April 29th from 8am to 4pm any day that school is in session at Hostetter Gallery in the Art Wing.

The twenty-sixth annual Pingry Student Photography Exhibition is on view in the Hostetter Gallery through March 26, 2022.  Over one hundred photographs represent the best work of students from six private and public high schools in the region. The work includes both digital and traditional film-based printing. The gallery is open weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. when school is in session. 

The annual Art Faculty Exhibition, “Making the Unknown Known”, is currently on view in the Hostetter Gallery through February 3rd. The exhibition features work in a variety of media from Pingry Visual Art Faculty.

“Peter Turnley: Selected Photos,” curated by Miles Boyd with Hostetter Gallery co-directors Nan Ring and Seth Goodwin, is on view in our Hostetter Gallery and online in our virtual 3-D Hostetter gallery November 22, 2021 through January 4, 2021. Thanks to the generosity of the Ouzounian family, Pingry is proud to present this museum quality exhibition with works by renowned international artist, Peter Turnley, who has shaped and defined contemporary photojournalism.

The information that appears here is quoted from Turnley’s website with some editing. For more information, visit https://www.peterturnley.com/about

Peter Turnley’s photography is concerned with the realities of the human condition. His photographs have been featured in numerous international publications, including Newsweek, Harper’s, LIFE, National Geographic, The London Sunday Times, and the New Yorker, among others. Peter Turnley worked for Newsweek Magazine from 1986-2001 where his work appeared on the cover 43 times, and as a contributing editor/photographer with Harper’s Magazine from 2003-2007. His work is frequently published in photo essay form in magazines, on major television networks such as CNN, ABC’s “Nightline”, and in online publications. Turnley’s photographs have won many international awards including the Overseas Press Club Award for Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad, numerous awards and citations from World Press Photo, and the University of Missouri’s Pictures of the Year competition.

Turnley has photographed most of the world’s conflicts of the last decade including the Gulf War-1991, the Balkans (Bosnia), Somalia, Rwanda, South Africa, Chechnya, Haiti, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Kosovo, the war in Iraq-2003, and also maintains an ongoing documentation of the major refugee populations of the world. 

The list of major world events he has witnessed include:

• The fall of the Berlin Wall and the revolutions in Eastern Europe in 1989, 

• The liberation of Nelson Mandela and the end of apartheid in South Africa.

• “Ground Zero” on Sept 11, 2001, 

• New Orleans during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, 

• Haiti after the tragic earthquake of 2011

• Egypt during the toppling of Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Turnley is currently working on a long-term project on daily life in Cuba. A graduate of the University of Michigan, the Sorbonne of Paris, and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques of Paris, Turnley has received Honorary Doctorate degrees from the New School of Social Research in New York and St. Francis College of Indiana. He received a Nieman Fellowship from Harvard for the academic year 2000-2001.

Peter Turnley also teaches photography workshops on street photography and the photo-essay in Paris, Cuba, New York, Mumbai, Venice, Sicily, and Lisbon.

Born in the U.S. Turnley presently lives in both New York and Paris, and has previously published six books of his work: French Kiss – A Love Letter to Paris, Beijing Spring, Moments of Revolution, In Times of War and Peace, Parisians, and McClellan Street.

“Haunted Terrain,” curated by Pingry’s own Peter Delman P '97, '98, retired art educator, is on view in our newly reopened Hostetter Gallery and online in our virtual 3-D Hostetter Gallery through October 22, 2021. In this stunning group exhibition, eight artists reimagine the idea of “Haunted Terrain.” What is it? A landscape permeated by ghosts? A particular place? Or does it exist primarily in the imagination? The included artists tried thinking of it as a state of mind regarding the curious, the disturbing, the sublime, and the visionary. Some of the artists are inspired by the cataclysms or traumas of history. More than a hint of the Romantic spirit is embedded in these surprising and thought-provoking paintings, sculptures, and mixed media works.

Sarah Kurz '99 is a painter based in New York City.  Her work is represented by Gaa Gallery in Provincetown, MA and Cologne, Germany. This survey exhibition includes a selection of works made between 2014 and 2020. The paintings depict familiar and contemporary objects, landscapes, and human forms loosely based on the artist’s own relationships, experiences, and imagination. Kurz primarily uses personal photographs but also culls images from a variety of sources including film, the Internet, and print media. The narratives explore the power of intimacy and the personal in an increasingly digitized world.

Kurz explores the psychological and associative power of images and how they can signify a memory, moment, or feeling. She examines how an object or scene has the capacity to present an internal psychological state. Offering partial, fragmented studies, the paintings capture instants of time taken from interrupted narratives. Formally, the artist’s use of close-ups and compositional cropping and framing reflects a foundational interest in film. Kurz considers where to reveal or conceal the artist’s hand in the paint application and mark making, exemplifying touch as an integral part of the humanity and intimacy of the work.

Theda Sandiford: Foundation was on view in our virtual 3-D Hostetter Gallery through April 28, 2021. This exhibition was a survey of work from four separate series of two-dimensional mixed media pieces.

Theda Sandiford is a self-taught mixed media artist based in Jersey City, NJ. Though art is ingrained in her psyche, Theda’s first creative endeavors were in the music business as a sales & digital marketing executive. After years of groundbreaking digital work for musicians, she began applying digital and analog art processes to develop her own artistic self-expression as a means of art therapy. 

The four separate series of work that this exhibition draws from are The Big Mouth Series, Dyslexia Series, Wonder Woman Selfies, and The Wonder Women Series. This work explores themes such as empowering women, equality and inclusion, sustainability, anti-racism, skills sharing, and personal well-being.

The 25th annual Pingry Student Photography Exhibition is on view in our virtual 3D Hostetter Gallery through March 26. 150 photographs represent the best work of students from high schools in the region. The work includes both digital and traditional film-based printing.

Artist Jamie Levine is currently exhibiting her sculptures, photographs and paintings in the Hostetter Gallery. The exhibition titled 2020 Free Fall picks up where science leaves off, fusing the animal with the human. Levine’s hybrid creatures are vulnerable, whimsical, and can act as lighting rods for the viewer’s catharsis. Although grotesque, they appear utterly real. Questions seem to issue from their parted lips: “If I could talk, what would I say?” “Are you, as humans, ready to listen?” Levine has said about her own work “I make art to impact the larger world beyond the fine art world. If my art won’t in some small way change the world, then why should I make it?” Reflecting on how much has changed this year, Levine created a body of work responding to the pandemic and the anxiety and fear that has come with it. Viewers will see how real-life events can affect and redirect an artist’s work. The exhibition will be on view through January 15, 2020.

The twenty-fourth annual Pingry Student Photography Exhibition is on view in the Hostetter Gallery through March 3. Over 200 photographs represent the best work of students from eleven private and public high schools in the region. The work includes both digital and traditional film-based printing. New York-based photographer Nick Levitin is the juror for this year’s show. Levitin has had a number of solo shows and has taught photography workshops to young men and women who attended the Dream to Achieve summer camp at Bard University in upstate New York. The gallery is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. when school is in session. Everyone is invited to the reception on Friday, February 21 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. 

The annual Art Faculty Exhibition was on view in the Hostetter Gallery through January 31, 2020. The exhibition features work in a variety of media from Pingry studio art teachers including Xiomara Babilonia, Melody Boone, Miles Boyd, Russell Christian, Rebecca Feranec Sullivan, Rich Freiwald, Patti Jordan, and Nan Ring.

A new Hostetter Gallery exhibition, WW11: Eye of the Storm, curated by Doris Caçoilo and Eileen Ferara of _gaia studio, opens Friday, November 8. This group exhibit addresses questions that arise out of the need to understand the artist's relationship with the changing environment. With our planet under constant assault by a seemingly endless list of dire reports and new data regarding the desecration of Mother Earth, nine women artists come together to ask, “How can we engage the community and create lasting change for the good of the earth? When are artistic practices at odds with the call for creating a less toxic planet? What are plastics and contaminates doing to our health and the health of the planet, and can we reduce our dependence on them? Can spirituality play a role in research? What does it mean to be a steward of the land?”

Glacial melt, super storms, plastics pollution, drastic changes in temperature, contaminated groundwater, invasive species, record-breaking fires, and flooding; these are some of the issues at stake. In the spirit of their environmental heroes, Wangari Maathai and Rachel Carson, the exhibiting artists contemplate how to shift our thinking, and inform and inspire people in order to spark immediate change.

The artists included in the exhibition are Amanda Thackray, Gwen Charles, Wendell Jeffrey, Jessica Demcsak, Linda Streicher, Sharon Lee De La Cruz, and Tamara Gubernat. Each artist presents an individual and engaging narrative, exploring the science, data, and future of life on the planet. The compelling works on display include a diverse variety of media including sculpture, video, paper-making, and painting.

_gaia, founded in 2002, is dedicated to fostering women's activism, art practice, and study. Wonder Women is a residency program intended to engage practicing, yet underrepresented, artists who are eager to participate in a collective dialogue about the art world and feminism.

An exhibition of drawings and constructions by Alexandra Schoenberg will be on display in the Hostetter Gallery from September 19 through October 25, 2019. Ms. Schoenberg will be meeting with students in the gallery on Monday, September 23 and Tuesday, September, 24.

Alexandra Schoenberg was born in Cali, Colombia. She pursued architecture studies at Universidad Javeriana in Bogota graduating in 1986. 

Alexandra moved to the United States in 1987. She lived north of San Francisco where she worked for Christopher Secor Architects until 1991. She moved to Philadelphia in 1991 and continued working as an architect at the firm of Susan Maxman Architects. In 1993, she moved to New Jersey where she worked for Robert Kruse and associates until 2010. Alexandra earned her MFA degree in 2014 from Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey where she embraced the techniques of architecture drafting as an art medium. Alexandra has exhibited at the CoAD gallery at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, Index Art Center, Newark, NJ First Street Gallery in New York City, The Gateway Project, Newark, NJ among others. Alexandra currently has a studio in East Orange, New Jersey and is part of an art collective called the Art Gang. 

Alexandra’s training in technical drafting and architectural rendering greatly influences her art practice and love for pencil drawing.  In her art practice, different tropes of architectural representation collide to expose the mechanics of how we observe the world.

Alexandra writes about her work, “Locating my practice within the rational systems of architectural representation, I use perspective, anamorphosis (distortion), and axonometric drawings (3-D without the use of perspective) to expose the logic and ambiguity of drawing.  Working with the materials and tools of the architect — squares, triangles, compass, pencil, ink and Mylar — I create hybrid drawings and sculptural maquettes. In my practice, different systems of architectural representation collide, mix, or are dismantled to reveal the way we observe and question how reality coheres — or not — with the present modes of thinking in our culture.”

A reception will be held at the gallery for the artist on September 24, Tuesday at 2:45 p.m.

Tyson is exhibiting metal works, drawings, wearable art and jewelry. She received her BFA from the Jewelry + Metalsmithing Department at Rhode Island School of Design in 2008 and returned to earn her MFA in 2017, attended the University of Applied Arts, Pforzheim, and holds a Certificate in Appraisal of Fine and Decorative Art. She has been an artist in residence at the Studios at Mass MoCA, Vermont Studio Center, and The Wormfarm Institute. Recent exhibitions include Non-Stick Nostalgia: Y2K Retrofuturism in Contemporary Jewelry at Museum of Arts and Design and 40 Under 40: The Next Generation of American Metal Artists at the Metal Museum, as well as solo shows Trace in Jersey City, NJ, and The Last Objects in Brooklyn, NY. Tyson’s work has been featured in Jewelry and Metals Survey and Mix Magazine, among others. Her work is centered on the relationship between people and their possessions, and makes use of unconventional casting, re-use, and record keeping. Tyson says about her work, “All material carries a past, and whether we acknowledge this lineage or not, it exists. It may be to our advantage — as a way of orienting ourselves in our world — to consider the cycles of creation and destruction intrinsic to the objects that surround us.”

Internationally published and highly collected, Dwight Hiscano has been creating photographs of the American landscape for over thirty years. His prints are held in notable collections both in the U.S. and abroad, and have been presented to governors, members of congress, and community leaders in recognition for their service. His work has been featured in numerous group and solo exhibits including the Nature's Best exhibit at the Smithsonian, the National Geographic sponsored International Mountain Summit in Italy, the Capitol Rotunda, and an exhibit at the Ross Art Museum, alongside works by Winslow Homer, Thomas Hart Benton and John Marin. Hiscano’s images have appeared in The New York Times and Outdoor Photographer, among others.

An exhibition of paintings by Peter Delman was on display in the Hostetter Gallery through April 25, 2019. Peter Delman has been teaching studio art at Pingry for the last four decades. He has also curated a variety of art exhibitions in the Hostetter Gallery during that time. He is currently serving as Pingry’s first Sustainability Coordinator.

History is the theme of his recent paintings. He co-curated an exhibition of contemporary art that refers to history entitled The Persistence of History. The show was on view at New Jersey City University in the Fall of 2018.

Peter writes about his work, “History is the subject of my paintings. Most depict dramatic events in themselves and also suggest human wounds beyond the event’s specific time and place - wounds we have yet to heal. Wreck of the Essex, for example, re-imagines the sinking of a whaling ship by a whale, a historic event that inspired Moby Dick; it suggests, anthropomorphically, a revenge by all creation of human “masters.” Old West Showdown features the iconic image of Billy the Kid and also refers to the recent feud over a proposed pardon between descendants of Billy and Sherriff Pat Garrett who shot him. Standing Rock deploys symbols from past and present to represent Native American struggles to protect their land and the environmental heritage of us all. The paintings are hung in chronological order based on the events depicted.”

A reception was held on Sunday, April 7 from 3:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m. and on Thursday, April 11 from 2:40 p.m.–3:40 p.m. All are invited.

View more work by Peter Delman here.

The twenty-third annual Pingry Student Photography Exhibition is on view in the Hostetter Gallery through Tuesday, March 5. Over two hundred photographs represent the best work of students from thirteen private and public high schools in the region. The work includes both digital and traditional film-based printing. New York-based photographer and artist, Skye Tan, will judge this year’s show. The gallery is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. when school is in session. Everyone is invited to the reception on Friday, February 22 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

The annual Art Faculty Exhibition was on view in the Hostetter Gallery through February 1, 2019. The exhibition features work in a variety of media from Pingry studio art teachers including Jane Asch P '04, Xiomara Babilonia, Melody Boone, Miles Boyd, Russell Christian, Rebecca Feranec Sullivan, Rich Freiwald, Jennifer Mack-Watkins, and Nan Ring. Each faculty member displayed work that highlights the evolution of their artistic practice by showing older work alongside current work.

The show, titled "Just Clay: Porzellan to Pop," is comprised of over one hundred pieces of clay sculpture and pottery selected mostly from the Art Nouveau Period and going back 150 years.

"I get this crackling sensation imagining myself as a time-traveler walking with Athena, the goddess of pottery, or standing on the shoulders of the giants of the Ceramic Arts. They elevate me as I create, and inform me as I collect these magical objects. When I work, I feel like I’m sharing the room with the great masters represented in this show. I’ve been a collector of ceramics for over forty years. This began when I was very young; during the summer months in the Poconos, I remember shopping with my mother in a country store where there were some small collections of porcelain objects that caught my eye. With some pleading, completion of chores and being a good citizen, Mom caved and bought me the two small porcelain dogs statues that I wanted. Another clear influence was my grandmother’s collection of fine porcelain that she displayed with the respect you would expect in a museum. There is no doubt that this influenced my desire to become an art maker and collector. Historical and contemporary collecting has focused for me the importance of history, the canon and becoming an artist who teaches. This show is the culmination of a dream of mine to share my passion for collecting and my work with my students and colleagues. At the turn of the 20^th century, the “Cult of Beauty” represented through the arts emphasized a move away from manufacturing to handmade objects. I hope to “full send” this idea of a cult of beauty into our community and beyond." - Richard Freiwald

Pingry is proud to present this museum quality exhibition with works by international artists who had shaped and defined modern photography. Lucien Clergue, close friend of Pablo Picasso, received the highest honor bestowed by the French Ministry of Culture as a Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur in 2003, and was featured in a solo show at the MoMA. Harold Feinstein helped define the “New York School” of photography and Donna Ferrato ignited a national discussion about sexual violence and women’s rights. Surrealist photographer Ralph Gibson is included in important collections including the MoMA, the Whitney Museum of Modern Art, and the International Center for Creative Photography. Alen MacWeeney’s photographs are in permanent collections at the MoMA, the MET, the Philadephia Musueum of Art, and the Art Institure of Chicago, to name a few. Mary Ellen Mark is recognized as one of the most respected and influential photographers of her generation. She has published 18 books and published photo-essays and portraits in LIFE, New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and Vanity Fair. She has received worldwide attention for her work, which is included in over 50 major museum collections.

The Hostetter Gallery is exhibiting selections from Pingry’s Permanent Collection through December 9^th, 2016. The exhibition will feature photography by artists Lucien Clergue, Harold Feinstein, Donna Ferrato, Ralph Gibson, Alen MacWeeney, and Mary Ellen Mark.