Linda Bacon

I am intrigued by light and shadow, shapes and spaces, insides and outsides, within and without. Sometimes insides become outsides like a flower bud that was once within but then emerges out. Inside joins outside and a new within becomes. My hands transform the clay into the shape it desires, creating not only shape and space and surface for light to play with shadow, but infusing an essence of grace and spirit through the abstracted embodiment of figure and foliage.

Leslie Yolen

Leslie Yolen is a mixed media artist and educator living in the Helderberg Mountains of Albany County, New York.  She has worked predominantly in clay until recently when painting and sculpture became her favored mediums.  She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Bennington College, a Master of Science Degree in Visual Arts Education from the College of Saint Rose and continues to study with renowned artists in workshop settings. Her career in arts education has provided a broad perspective in how meaning is made from the visual experience, and what that contributes to our shared humanity.

Leslie recently retired from her position as the Arts Education Associate at the New York State Education Department. Prior to working with NYSED, Leslie taught Visual Art in the public schools. Previously, she held artist residencies in the schools and operated a successful art studio business while directing a cooperative fine arts & craft gallery. When not in her studio, she spends time in her glorious gardens, with her husband and two Great Danes.

Artist Statement

Assemblages (Marking Time series)

I am interested in creating works that are evocative rather than descriptive. My interest is in exploring the expressive potential of various media and the physicality of materials. These assemblage sculptures speak to the cycles of life, memory and the passage of time. Making assemblages allows me to combine ordinary objects in new ways. I enjoy how juxtaposition can alter meanings in surprising and provocative ways, recycling and transforming the energy within ordinary objects into works of art.

I collect organic objects that capture my imagination as metaphors for the life cycle. What attracts me about collections is the variation among similar objects, the rhythm of repetitions, and to a certain extent the classification and categorization of components.

The organic objects in this work contrast with the geometric elements and are analogies for connections, continuity, and the cycle of growth and decay. The geometric elements speak to organization, structure, endurance and the support that living things rely upon.

I hope associations for the viewers help deepen their awareness of our connections to the natural world and its precarious position today.

6″x 18″x 3″, mixed media, 2021

Christine Capuano

I live and work on a small historic farm in the shadow of the Helderberg Escarpment just outside of Altamont, New York. Natural forms whether botanical, animal or landscape populate my work in some way along with vintage, utilitarian objects or housewares that I have either inherited or found. Whether it be landscape or still-life I prefer to work in natural light and am happiest when it conveys a feeling somewhere between the subject and my own. I am always looking for the spontaneous moods of light brought about by changing seasons, time of day or passing clouds.

www.ccapuanoart.com

ccapuanoart@gmail.com

@c.capuano_art

Barb Lennox

Coming from two generations of artists, Barb has been painting for most of her adult life, exploring various mediums and styles. She attended Syracuse University, and later at SUNY Albany, majoring in Art, and has studied with Nicolas Wilton, a well-known California artist. Abstracts are now her main area of interest. She found that not focusing on the recognizable gave her great freedom. Influenced by artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Brian Rutenberg, Richard Diebenkorn and Nick Wilton, her paintings are bold, vibrant, and full of color. Using the basic art elements of shapes, contrast, design, and texture she creates abstracts that allow the viewer an opportunity to find their own meaning in the artwork. 

She has been part of many group exhibitions and solo shows, and her award-winning paintings are in private collections across the USA. 

Artist Statement

My paintings are built on a series of layers, colors, and marks along with an exploration, a search, a digging for clues, of changing course, of leaving behind and a discovery of something new. It’s a practice of distillation and finding what is essential, potent and meaningful, and letting go of what is not. It’s a series of questions and responses. 

People often ask me what inspires a piece. My work is very intuitive, and my best work happens when I’m having an active conversation with a piece, when I’m really listening, letting the piece tell me where it needs to go. Each painting takes me on a journey. It’s exciting to create a painting that’s not tied to any visual image. My paintings are meant to invoke their own persona and therefore influence the viewer in different ways. I paint without fear and without intention and my multilayered abstractions are created spontaneously and “from the heart.”  

Lori Lupe Pelish

Over the years as an artist I have had a collection of imagery and motifs that would repeatedly come to my mind. But I never seriously used them. Recently I decided one of these images, the white-tailed deer, would be my focus for a new series.

I love how I can be out driving or walking wherever, look out and there is a deer. It always seems so magical.  

I think of these deer and how they endure and adapt to an ever changing environment. I use a mixture of real and imagined since the future is so unknown for us all.

These works are mixed media. A variety of drawing tools; graphite, crayons, markers and grease pencils over acrylic and oil paintings.

I have been a studio artist my whole life and have worked in many mediums, including, fiber (art quilts), hooked rugs, woven sterling and gold filled jewelry and paintings.

I studied and received a BFA degree and have shown my work extensively around the country.

                                Website –  lorilupepelish.net

                                Contact –  lorilupepelish@gmail.com