The Gallery

Ken Ragsdale: Facts, Reality and the Truth

Originally created as 3D tableaux, these models presented in photographic form, introduce us to a fantastic world. The craftsmanship and aesthetic sensibility are a key component of these artworks.

Gallery hours: 11:00-4:00, Monday-Thursday, or by appointment (315) 498-7220.

Artist Reception: Tuesday, January 29, from 11:00-noon, in front of The Gallery in the Ann Felton Center, with a gallery talk to follow.

Juan A. Cruz: Invisible Vision

Monday, November 12 to Thursday, December 13 
Reception Thursday, November 15 from 11:00-noon in front of the gallery in Ferrante 

The paintings, sculpture and drawings of Syracuse artist Juan Cruz cover a significant period of his creative work.

Gallery hours: Monday-Thursday 11:00-4:00, or by appointment, (315) 498-7220

Abraham Ferraro: WHICH WAY

October 1 - November 8, 2018
Gallery Reception 10/2 from 11:00 - 12:00
Gallery Talks from 12:30 - 2:00

 

The artist creates playful interactive spaces, using ubiquitous packing materials and label graphics.

The Gallery is located in the Ann Felton Center, in Ferrante Hall. Gallery hours are 11:00 - 4:00, Monday-Thursday, or by appointment (315) 498-7220.

 

Jane Skafte & Peter Allen: The Unraveling - recent drawings

February 26-April 12, 2018
Reception Tuesday, February 27 from 11:00-12:00, with an Artists' talk @ 11:45

This two-person show by former residents of Syracuse, now living and working in rural Virginia, bring distinctly different styles and messages with the one unifying feature of being thought provoking on urgent issues in our culture and world through beautifully rendered images.

Jack Henry: A Clearing 

Tuesday, January 16th - Thursday, February 22nd

New York based artist jack Henry uses a variety of found objects, solidified in columns, to create "a sense of wonder from the banal byproducts of our failed but once successful modern society". This exhibition is up from Tuesday, January 16-Thursday, February 22, 2018, with a reception on January 23rd from 11:30-12:30 and artist's talk on January 23rd from 11:00-11:30.

2017 Art & Photography Faculty

Concluding on December 7th, 2017

"The Auburn System" Joe Librandi-Cowan

The 2nd Spring 2017 Exhibition opens January 27th at The Gallery in the Ann Felton Multicultural Center, Ferrante Building.

Gallery hours: Monday-Thursday, 11:00-4:00, or by appointment, call 498-7220.

Show dates: Monday, February 27-Tuesday, April 11.

Reception: Wednesday, March 1, 11:15 – noon

After studying at OCC, Joe Librandi-Cowan completed his BFA in photography at Syracuse University. As a native of Auburn, New York, he focuses this exhibition on that community and its relation to the maximum security prison that is located there, and the phenomena of the “prison industrial complex”.

OCC Faculty Exhibition

The Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
November 14 - December 8, 2016
Monday - Thursday, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Artist Reception: Wednesday, November 16, 11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Sylvia Taylor

The Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
October 3 - November 8, 2016
Monday - Thursday, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Artist Reception: Wednesday, October 5, 11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., with Artist Talk at 11:30 a.m. in the gallery

Sylvia Taylor’s relief prints are both playful and somber, with undercurrents of longing, vulnerability and ambiguity. Her images have a narrative quality, and are typically inhabited by animal characters that serve as a metaphor for the pathos and irony of the human condition.

Sylvia received her MFA in printmaking from Vermont College of Norwich University. She has been awarded Artist’s Residency status in Ireland, and is a member of Cork Printmakers. She is originally from New York State and currently resides in Ithaca, New York.

~Sylvia Taylor

Ronald Gonzalez

The Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
August 3 - September 27, 2016
Monday - Thursday, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Artist Reception: Wednesday, August 31, 11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., with Artist Talk at 11:30 a.m. in the gallery

I live in a world where objects and figures are inseparable. I have a preference for the tragic and search out the pitiful object that has endured with all the marks of desolation and ruin to create empathy. My work tries to speak to their pathos as part of what is common to all things. The object captures the found body’s possibilities of surprise and meaning through chance and discovery. My impulse is for the immediacy and urgency of expression.These blackened figures are a gesture of spirit that express a sorted tone of existential angst of a human condition. They are a staged fiction of mass, form and line, the standing darkness of a spectre, a grotesque caricature possessing the power of associations. As figures the objects cross into the boundary of the psyche and become secret shadows and symbols of deformation. My affinity is for the tradition of transformation, to seek and find is not enough. I believe in what is revealed through the process of burning, layering, and the action of destruction and regeneration. My work is rooted in metaphoric anatomies and measured by traces of presence. For me the object is connected to questions of personal identity reinvented, reconfigured and reassembled in the intimacy between image and self. The objects that I use have been ravaged by possession and loss. As entities, they conceal lived experience as commonplace and transitory. Like us, things are tempered and shaped by their environment from hands that have conducted memories, histories, analogies and resemblances into them. The object tells its tale of nostalgia requiring the constant shaping that flows from within a living person for ensouling and communication. The lessons of nature always go back to a fleeting reality. These decaying personas have been brought together in their final place as imaginary beings of real life existence in the process of being born as something else.  

~Ronald Gonzalez

"If I Could See Your Face, I Would Not Need Food" by Eric Gottesman

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
August 25 - September 29
Monday - Friday, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Artist Reception: September 2, 11:15 a.m. - Noon

In 1999, I began making portraits of people in Ethiopia with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). As a result of the stigma around the disease, subjects did not allow me to photograph their faces. Over the next five years, I made anonymous portraits of people with HIV.

In 2004, when for the first time a woman with HIV allowed me to photograph her face, the project was completed.

All names have been changed to protect the identities of the subjects. 

Eric Gottesman is a photographic artist and organizer. Central to his practice is collaboration. He uses photography, writing and film as vehicles to engage others in conversation and critical thought about the social structures that surround them, and him. He works slowly, often spending a long time in a community, and exhibits work locally first, to an audience determined by the co-creators of the work.

Since 1999 he has been working in and around the Middle East and Africa collaborating with communities to produce photographs and videos that often challenge preexisting images and perceptions of a culture and/or place as well as the concept of singular artistic authorship. Over 10 years ago, Gottesman worked with a group of Ethiopian children whose parents died of AIDS to found Sudden Flowers, an art collective that produces photographs, videos, installations, and performances in their own community. Interested in how photography functions within the social sphere as the repository for individual and collective memory and as factual and fictional documents, many of Gottesman’s projects examine the quiet, long-term, psychological impact of mass trauma.

Gottesman studied politics and economics and, later, art. In 2003, he was named one of the top 25 young American photographers. He has earned a Fulbright Fellowship in art as well as awards from the Magnum Foundation, Artadia, the Aaron Siskind Foundation, apexart, the Open Society Foundation and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. His work is in various collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His first book, Sudden Flowers, was published in 2014. He was named a 2015 Creative Capital Artist.

He is currently a Faculty Fellow at Colby College and has taught at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Amherst College, the International Center for Photography, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston and conducted workshops in Lebanon, Jordan and Ethiopia.

This exhibition is made possible by Light Work. Light Work founded in Syracuse, NY, as an artist-run, non-profit organization in 1973. Its mission is to provide direct support through residencies, publications, exhibitions, a community-access digital lab facility, and other related projects to emerging and under-represented artists working in the media of photography and digital imaging.

 

"Be the Change" by Zachary Skinner

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
October 5 - November 3, 2015
Monday - Friday, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Artist Receptions: Wednesday, October 7, 11:15 a.m. - Noon and Thursday, October 8, 5:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Windmill, 2015

Artist Statement

Inter-connection is what I cultivate in my artworks. It has led me to create a political space where a viewer is engaged, but has the freedom to draw her/his own conclusion. Expanding on that premise, I believe in an art that can function in a non-polarized, intimate political way. The evidence isn’t found within a heroic gesture on the wall by the artist (me), but rather in the inner strength and creativity of the viewer. So I invite the viewers as participants/collaborators, to draw on handmade chalkboards, incorporated within my visual cacophony of imagery, and objects.

The imagery I have been focused on relates to Activist Philosophy, non-violent resistance, mind-maps of Humanitarian Leaders, and recently of what I call “Geo-Robots” which are inspired by Survivalism, and Geo-Engineering.  In other words, I am interested in models and catalysts for social change, outside of mainstream media discourse.

Artist Bio

Zachary Skinner received his MFA degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, with a concentration in Painting and Installation Art. He graduated from Onondaga Community College in 2003 with an AS degree in Fine Art, and received his BFA from SUNY New Paltz College. In 2013, his work “Occupy Times Square” was featured as an Honorable Mention by the Dave Bown Projects, USA. His Video-Art work “Destroy” has been reviewed by NictoGlobe Magazine, Netherlands, and was archived at Medrar for Contemporary Art, Egypt. He has attended the Jentel Artist Residency Program in 2014, WY, USA, and will attend the I-Park Artist Residency.

"Skewed Perspectives" by Anne Muntges

The Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
March 9 – April 13, 2016
Monday - Friday, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Artist Reception: Wednesday, March 9, 11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., with Artist Talk at 11:30 a.m. in the gallery

 

In my work I use imagery of the home to question ideas about architectural space, the nature of our interaction with it, and our perception of it. The home is an environment that creates atmosphere and structure through its constructed elements and decorations. These elements directly inform my drawing and sculpture so that the pieces can challenge the way we think about the spaces we inhabit.

For the past 2 years I have worked slowly and methodically to build this home one room at a time. Every piece included in this project is real; furniture, cabinets, walls, decorative accouterments (silverware, books, lamps, rugs). Each object and architectural element is primed white so that every surface is the same color and then hatch marked on with black acrylic pens. Each part of every surface is covered in marks and the entire space is
black and white.

My home unfolds like a theatrical set or an accordion book. The rooms have simple dividing walls and create a space with awkward angles that force views into skewed perspectives. It becomes an enormous drawing that blurs the line between existing as a real tangible space and a flat pictorial ground.

~Anne Muntges

About the Artist:

Anne Muntges is an artist who makes highly detailed drawings, prints, and installation art based on concepts of the home. Born in Denver and based in Buffalo, her work has been exhibited in New York at the Charles A. Gallery and Lilac Museum Steamship; in Chicago at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art; in Buffalo at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, the University at Buffalo Gallery, and Indigo Gallery; and in Knoxville as a part of the Southern Graphics Council International Conference. She received a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from the University at Buffalo. Muntges completed a residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in 2013, and received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Printmaking/Drawing/Artist Books in 2014. In 2015, Muntges was awarded a fellowship and artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center and Ox-Bow.

"Overgrowing" by Homa Delvaray

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
August 25 - September 30
Monday - Friday, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Artist Reception: September 3, 11:15 a.m. - Noon

 

Artist Statement

Attempt to discover the so-called “Iranian Identity” has always been the major concern of Iranian graphic designers. Since 1970s, they have been trying to bridge the gap between their native culture and tradition and visual aesthetics of the western world.

Homa Delvaray, who breathes in a country where culture is intertwined simultaneously with history and modern technology, has successfully created a brilliant visual approach which is rooted in her sharp instincts and intensive passion. She has retained the Iranian visual tradition, disguised in a modern appearance.

Her works are characterized by the following features:

• The visual structure of her works is inspired by Iranian paintings and book decorations. This is particularly recognizable in her constructed and deconstructed works, and tables which she used to locate texts.
• Thoroughly engineered compositions provoke a new manifestation of Persian painting’s design.
• In composition, the placement of shapes alongside patterns made of various lines and motifs causes continuous eye movement from surface to depth and vice versa.

About Homa Delvaray

Homa Delvaray, born in 1980 in Karaj and residing in Tehran, Iran, is a graphic designer, typographer, and visual artist. She graduated in Visual Communication from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, in 2006 and started her activity as a freelance graphic designer. Since then, by focusing on cultural-artistic projects, Homa has developed her vocational activity to include art direction of events, typeface design, design research, lecturing, attending festivals as jury member, instruction and conducting educational workshops. 

Homa has so far collaborated with private clients, advertising agencies and studios such as The British Council, Ogilvy & Mather in Los Angeles, and Eps51 and NGBK in Berlin. Her works have been displayed in tens of national and international exhibitions and festivals in the US, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Poland, Slovakia, Russia, India, and China and have received several graphic design honors and awards. 

"A Day in the Garden" by James A. Ridlon

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
October 6 - November 4
Monday - Friday, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Artist Reception: October 8, 11:15 a.m. - Noon

 

Artist Statement

When constructing my college paintings, I focus on capturing the element of time by painting color and light shifts at different times of the day.

In order to record hourly atmospheric changes, I complete a vast assortment of paintings on paper during three different time periods: morning, midday, and evening. I then cut these paintings into small pieces, which I use as my pallet for each garden scene. I collage these smaller pieces into one, large cohesive work that is an all-inclusive reflection of “A Day in the Garden."

About James A. Ridlon

James A. Ridlon, artist/athlete, has achieved fame in both these pursuits. He played in the National Football League eight years - six with the San Francisco 49ers and two with the Dallas Cowboys, being named All-Pro as defensive safety with the latter team in 1964. After retiring from pro football he returned to Syracuse University, his alma mater, to complete graduate studies and coach defensive backs on the football team. He is now a professor in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse.

Ridlon has completed many sports-related commissions, including large assemblages for ABC Television to commemorate Monday Night Football and Wide World of Sports. He also fashioned the Outland Trophy, awarded each year to the premier college football lineman. He was named "Sport Artist of the Year" for 1989 by the U.S. Sports Academy.

OCC Faculty Art Exhibition

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
November 10 - December 16
Monday - Friday, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Artist Reception: November 12, 11:15 a.m. - Noon

The Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center presents the annual Onondaga Faculty Exhibition on view through December 16. The mixed media show features artwork by 15 participating Art and Photography Faculty members including: Meredith Cantor-Feller, Jill Dosher, Merilee French Freeman, Allen “Skip” Frost, Deborah Haylor-McDowell, Carmel Nicoletti, Richard Pardee, G. Stephen Ryan, Donalee Peden Wesley, Andy Schuster, Elisha Stasko, Lida Suchy, Gary Trento, Richard Williams, and Mark Zawatski.

Carving Through Borders

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
January 20 - February 24, 2015
Monday - Friday, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Artist Reception: January 28, 11:15 a.m. - Noon; Artist Talk @11:30am

Carving Through Borders is a collaboration between the Syracuse University Printmaking Program and CultureStrike, a San Francisco based non-profit whose mission is to leverage culture and the arts to raise awareness about immigration policies in the United States in support of cultural change.

 

Fifteen artists of diverse immigrant backgrounds were invited to create large-scale woodcuts depicting images and messages inspired by their experiences as documented or undocumented citizens. The themes explore deportation, justice, worker’s rights, the immigrant’s contributions to society and the freedom to move across borders. Artists worked for months carving their imagery into large wood panels, utilizing a printmaking process (some working in the medium for the very first time) that has a long history for disseminating information and rallying change.

 

In March of 2014, a team of faculty and students from the Syracuse University Printmaking program travelled to San Francisco and set up a pop-up printmaking studio on the streets of the Mission District. Working side by side, the students and artists printed the large-scale woodcuts on fabric with a two-ton steamroller. The resulting impressions are intended to be used as banners in political marches and protests across the United States where immigration policy change is currently challenged.

"Persistence of Vision" by Colleen Woolpert

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
March 2 - April 14, 2015
Monday - Friday, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Artist Reception: Monday, March 2, 11:15 a.m. - Noon; Artist Talk @11:30am

Persistence of Vision originated in late 2012 with my experiences working with visually impaired adults while living in Seattle. Moments after meeting a stranger, I was walking arm and arm with her in that trusting intimacy that develops when touch and voice stand in for sight, when she suddenly said, ‘I miss looking at the night sky most of all.’ I wondered why she yearned for blackness studded with mystery, a spectral dissonance I assumed to be the condition of those without sight. Her statement seemed a profound metaphor, leading me outdoors on many nights to glance at the enormous telescope on my neighbor’s patio and then follow it’s gaze upward, toward that “great unknown.”

From that initial inspiration, I began to research blindness, astronomy and space exploration, which opened up many more questions and associations. For instance, visualization is largely a mental process. “Persistence of vision” is a term related to cinema that describes how the mind perceives a series of successive action photographs as continuous motion. I borrow the term to suggest other ideas: for people with visual impairments, it applies to mind’s eye imaging, as well as the experience of those who see continual static as the retina attempts to form an image. Persistence of vision is also what allows “people in the dark” (to use Hellen Keller’s expression) to venture from the relative safety of home into the unknown dangers of the outside world. For astronomers who keep vigil at their telescopes on cold winter nights, it is a wish to discover that which no one else has seen before. And for artists and inventors, it is the process required to shape nebulous ideas into clarity and tangible form.  

Special Event

Reading by author Stephen Kuusisto

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
Saturday open hours: 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Reading at 2:00 p.m.

Stephen Kuusisto will give an informal reading during special gallery hours for Persistence of Vision at The Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center. Kuusisto is an author, poet, disability advocate and director of Syracuse University's Renée Crown University Honors Program. In the semi-darkened gallery space, much of Woolpert’s exhibition involves touch, including her piece "Planet of the Blind" named after Kuusisto's acclaimed memoir.  

 

Presentation

Picturing Motion: How Movies Began in Syracuse

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
Thursday, April 9, 2015, 5:30 p.m.*
Closing Reception in the Gallery: 6:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Picturing Motion: How Movies Began in Syracuse is a presentation that delves into one aspect of the Persistence of Vision project. I had a fascination with the pre-cinema device known as the Mutoscope (1894) before I moved to Syracuse in 2007 and rented a photography studio at the Gear Factory on the Near Westside. By chance, a couple years later I discovered that the Mutoscope was invented in Syracuse--in fact, on the site where my studio was located. Incredulous, I made artwork in response (Eggbeater Mutoscope, 2010). In 2014, after living in Seattle for two years, I returned to Syracuse as Artist-in-Residence at the SALTQuarters (also located on the Near Westside). During my residency, I researched the Mutoscope inventors in depth and uncovered an inspiring story of four creative minds that made Syracuse a part of film history lore. Their success inspires me to move forward with the invention of my own optical device, a patent-pending stereoscope called the TwinScope Viewer. Picturing Motion: How Movies Began in Syracuse tells the story of these Syracuse inventors who fought the odds (and Thomas Edison) to bring photographs to life. One image displacing the next is the persistent blink of light upon darkness.

This project is made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by CNY Arts. Additional funding provided by Onondaga Community College.

www.colleenwoolpert.com

28th Annual Feats of Clay

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
April 20 - April 30, 2015
Monday - Friday, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Evening Reception: Wednesday, April 22, 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

Central New York's 'Feats of Clay' was established in 1987 as a means to foster education of the ceramic arts for Syracuse area High Schools. Feats of Clay has grown to include schools from Watertown and the north country to Binghamton and the southern tier as well. On view will be a selection of 100+ ceramic works by participating Central NY high school students. 

Participating High Schools: 

Candor, Cato-Meridian, Christain Brothers Academy, Central Square, Chenango Valley, Chittenango, Corcoran, East Syracuse Minoa, Fayetteville-Manlius, Hannibal, Jamesville-Dewitt, Liverpool, Marcellus, Mexico, North Rose-Wolcott, Oswego, Phoenix, Red Creek, Skaneateles, Trumansburg, West Genesee, and Westhill.

 

For more information about the program, visit www.featsofclay.org.

 

"Structures" by David A. Ludwig

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center 
Wed., Aug. 28 - Thurs., Sept. 26
Monday - Friday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
Artist Reception: Tuesday, Sept. 3, 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

Artist Statement

David Ludwig began his career as a painter and slowly evolved from two-dimensional color field paintings on canvas to three-dimensional wall reliefs or structures constructed of plywood. His work as a model builder for an architecture firm in Philadelphia had a major impact on his working method as well as on the direction his work would take. David’s love of industry led him very early to define his three-dimensional paintings as Structures, generically titled so as not to reveal specific sources or define literal references.

At first glance, David Ludwig's colorful abstract structures are minimal in means. Closer observation reveals, however, each structure’s complexity. His working process was critical to the final form his work would take. Controlled completely, the artist set up a dialogue between form, light, color and texture from the very beginning. This interplay also sets up a dichotomy of opposites: hard vs. soft; light vs. dark; slow vs. fast. 

While his language remained the same throughout his career, it evolved in subtle but distinctive shifts in form, to continually create new approaches to image-making. At the time of his death, David’s work had taken on a playful quality, investigating how found objects could be transformed when attached to his geometric structures.

About David Ludwig

Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, David A. Ludwig received a Bachelor of Science, Fine Arts degree from Indiana State University and his MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia. He worked as a prototype designer for Hoosier Fiberglass Industries in Terre Haute; an industrial designer and model maker for Ewing, Cole, Cherry, Parsky Architects in Philadelphia; was a partner and chief technical designer for Exhibits Associates in Pittsburgh with James O. Loney; an independent contractor and design consultant; and for six years preceding his death, an instructor of drawing, 2D and 3D design at St. Vincent College, Latrobe, and the Westmoreland County Community College, Youngwood. His design projects include the children’s gallery, Kidspace, for the Westmoreland Museum of American Art; and two permanent exhibitions Mister Rogers: A Continuing Legacy and One Hundred Years of Education for Latrobe Senior High School. With Exhibits Associates, he assisted with design, and fabricated twelve units that comprise the History Corridor for Latrobe Area Hospital.

As a long-time member of Group A and the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, David exhibited his work frequently. He had solo shows at Sweetwater Center for the Arts; AAP’s Gallery 937 and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. His work was included in numerous group exhibitions at Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, 808 Penn Modern; Mendelson Gallery; Three Rivers Arts Festival; the State Museum, Harrisburg; Westmoreland Museum of American Art; Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art; Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts, and Tadu Contemporary Art, Santa Fe; among others. David also created Labyrinth, a site specific structure in collaboration with James Loney for the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.

"Primary Concerns" by Kevin Mullins

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center 
Wed., Oct. 2 - Tues., Nov. 5
Monday - Friday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
Artist Reception: Wed., Oct. 2., 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. and 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

Artist Statement

My work is an attempt to illustrate transcendence. I believe that repetition is the foundation of clarity. The use of repeated patterns in my work serves the same function that a mantra does in meditation. The techniques I employ, screenprinting and non-traditional paint application, give the work the appearance of mechanical reproduction. The diminished evidence of the human hand creates a visual purity.

About Kevin Mullins

Kevin Mullins was born in Oklahoma and raised in New York. He received a A.A.S. in Design from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He received a M.F.A. in Painting and Printmaking from the University of North Carolina and completed a Master’s Program in Printmaking at the Chelsea School of Art, London, England with graduate studies at Bariff School of Fine Art, Canada and the Institute Allende, Mexico. Mullins spent five years at the Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Greensboro, NC, leaving practice.

Mullins was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts/Southern Arts Federation Fellowship and grants from the Brandywine Foundation, Philadelphia, PA, the Wuritzer Foundation, Taos, NM and the New York State Arts Council. In 2003 he was an Artist-in-Residence at Nagoya City University, Nagoya, Japan. He has exhibited extensively throughout the United States, England, Canada, Mexico, Denmark and Japan.

OCC Faculty Art & Photography Exhibition

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center  
Mon., Nov. 11 - Fri., Dec. 13
Monday - Friday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
Artist Reception: Wed., Nov. 13, 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

Exhibition Statement

The Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center is pleased to present the annual Onondaga Faculty Show now on view through December 13th. On exhibition is artwork by Art + Photography Faculty including: Meredith Cantor-Feller, Jill Dosher, Merilee French Freeman, Allen “Skip” Frost, Deborah Haylor-McDowell, Paul Molesky, Carmel Nicoletti, Anne Novado, Richard Pardee, Donalee Peden Wesley, Keith Penny, Andy Schuster, Elisha Stasko, Lida Suchy, Gary Trento, Richard Williams, Mark Williamson, and Mark Zawatski.

"Model American" by Meredith Cantor-Feller

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center 
Tues., Jan 21 - Tues., Feb. 25
Monday - Friday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
Artist Reception: Wed., Jan 22, 11:30 am - 12:30 pm 

Artist Statement

As an observer and artist I get my inspiration from the varied experiences of living and life. Using the mediums of photography and video allows me to put myself, if only briefly, into the experience of my subjects. Borrowing the still-life, snap-shots or momentary records of their lives. At times my subjects are aware of me and my camera yet there often remains a strong sense of invading of publicly private moments. I use these ready-made observations as the foundation for my questions about the living experience.

“Model American” is a working series of environmental portraits that examine the conflict of consumer expectations, behaviors and economics. This series features the employees of commonplace consumer environments posing as "Model Americans". The combination of environment and prop narrates the conflict between consumer want and human need, and the friction between consumer and citizen driving the Model American engine.

 

About Meredith Cantor-Feller

After completion of my BFA in photography and sculpture from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 1999, I completed the MFA program at the University of Illinois. Although admitted through the photography program, with an interdisciplinary background in studio arts, the studio-based programs at the U of I encouraged the further development of a variety of materials and methods to execute my work both technically and conceptually. Working both in sculpture and two dimensionally I have developed an approach to my work that defines my concepts without material limitations.

While researching various techniques and methods for my personal work, I have been able to continue teaching a variety of age groups and educational levels, providing me with an understanding of the varied demands and expectations of individual learning groups. I am currently the Photography Program Coordinator at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse New York. Teaching provides me with a continuous stream of experimentation and creative energy that I have found nowhere else. My work is a reflection of my creative concepts and techniques that are refined in the classroom.

 

"Realities, Dreams and Myths" by Lin Price

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center 
Mon., March 3 - Tues., April 15
Monday - Friday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
Artist Reception: Wed., March 5, 11:30 am - 12:30 pm

 

Artist Statement

These recent works are part of an ongoing series, which often features an "Everyman" character, who exists in invented painterly terrains. It is an alternate dream-like world that mirrors back to us the difficulties of daily existence and unspoken longings. And, although I’ve chosen to depict a particular model, there is an element of autobiography in many of the paintings.

Recurring themes emerge; work, isolation, stress, searching, anticipation, and caring, and I believe many people in our times can identify with them. The paintings are idiosyncratic and I attempt to execute them with empathy towards the human condition.

Through imagination, playful creation of abstracted spaces, and color composition, I attempt to show an inner world that is mysterious, somehow noble, and non-linear – as dreams and life often are.

About Lin Price

Lin Price is a painter who lives the Ithaca area. Ms. Price received her BFA from Ithaca College and an MFA in painting from Bard College/Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Annandale, New York.

Price’s paintings and drawings have been exhibited at regional and national galleries and museums. Highlights of her exhibition record are: Dowd Gallery at SUNY Cortland, Cortland, NY; Buffalo Arts Studio, Buffalo NY; XL Projects, Syracuse, NY; Munson-Proctor-Williams Art Institute Museum, Utica, NY; H.F. Johnson Museum of Art/Cornell University; Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery, NY, NY; Handwerker Gallery/Ithaca College; Memorial Art Gallery/Museum in Rochester, NY; Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA; Hartell Gallery/Cornell University; and Houghton Gallery at 171 Cedar Arts, Corning, NY.

Lin Price’s work is in the collections of the Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute and numerous private collections. She is represented by the River Fine Art Gallery, Chelsea, MI.

Feats of Clay

"Woods and Water" by Claude Freeman (1937-2012)

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
Mon., Aug. 29  - Tuesday, September 25
Monday - Friday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
Artist Receptions: Thurs., Aug. 30, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. & 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.  

Artist Statement

“Through my drawings I am creating a personal image of reality. It is not a reproduction of nature but my expression of my emotions, sensations, and feelings, how that unique place impresses me. A photographed image preserves a visual event, but a drawing can entail the experience of seeing, of understanding atmosphere and space. In my drawings I try, for a change, to see things in black and white. I believe it is the only way to explore a uniquely natural landscape. The black and white landscapes have an almost mystical charm that changes with the time of day and season.”

About Claude Freeman

Claude Freeman is a Professor Emeritus at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY, where he taught Landscape Architecture for over forty years. He now teaches drawing at the Art Department at Onondaga Community College, Syracuse, NY.

Over many years his drawings have been accepted at numerous juried Art Shows including those at the Gibson Gallery in Potsdam, NY, the Lake Placid Center of the Arts in Lake Placid, NY, the Kirkland Art Center in Clinton, NY, Shelburne’s Farm’s Art Exhibition in Shelburne, VT, and the Delavan Art Gallery, in Syracuse, NY.  Mr. Freeman has received a variety of awards and recognition for his artwork.

"Paper, Staple, String" by Brendan Rose & Michael Barletta

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center 
Mon., Oct. 1 – Tues., Nov. 6 
Monday - Friday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
Artist Reception: Wed., Oct. 17, 11 a.m. - noon & 5 - 7 p.m. 

Exhibition Statement

Paper, Staple, String is a spatial installation, transforming The Gallery @ OCC into a dynamic field of suspended objects. Educational remnants (the discarded paperwork of students) are reclaimed as monochromatic pixels of a space defining cloud. This three-dimensional form transfigures as it intersects with the gallery walls, flattening and expanding against the two-dimensional surface.

Like the clouded network of our google-selves, contemporary personal orientation belongs not in the orthogonal walled room but in the non-Euclidian field. Here, discarded class assignments* take flight in a daydream flock of abandoned knowledge. The field is the form for us to inhabit. The latent information is not for knowledge, but for swimming. 

*Note the Nutalist obsession with “as-found” material.

Artists Brendan Rose and Mike Barletta will collaborate with OCC students to create this installation during a week-long open gallery session from October 1st – October 5th, 2012.

Bio - Brendan Gabriel Rose

Born in Syracuse, NY, Brendan Rose has worked professionally across the disciplines of architecture, visual art, and construction. Brendan studied architecture at the University at Buffalo and Syracuse University, completing a master’s degree in 2010. Between degrees, Brendan worked at the architecture firm Miller/Hull, in Seattle, where he specialized in sustainable design. He has also led the construction of projects ranging in scale from a bicycle rack to a 3,000 sqft energy-efficient residence. Most recently, Brendan served as the Syracuse Public Artist in Residence from 2011-2012. In this position he worked collaboratively with community members and Syracuse University students to design and install a series of sculptures within Syracuse. Brendan’s work focuses on engaging people to take an active role in making their environments beautiful, healthy places to live through both art and architecture.

Bio – Michael Barletta

Michael began painting large canvases around 1995 and in 1998 founded a gallery/studio project called MetaPhorestry with collaborative partner Michael Swatt. He later cofounded a nonprofit arts organization in Syracuse, NY, in which he served as artistic director from 2000 to 2005. 

Since then, Michael has continued to develop his skills as an artist, photographer and designer. His talent for designing and facilitating creative contemporary spaces has greatly influenced his move into site-specific installation. Recent notable projects include live paintings at the Everson Museum’s 2009 Biennial, New York University’s Kimmel building for 5 large drawings, A Citi Corp building installation and live painting event and Syracuse University’s Warehouse Gallery. A new piece will also be featured at Syracuse University’s XL Projects Gallery for The Everson’s TONY 2012 exhibition this summer. This work will utilize the same materials chosen for Water Piece, however in a window exterior application. This installation will be observed as an extreme conditions test case for material durability and application process.

Michael’s strength is creating relatable, energetic images without direct representational elements and in vibrant color through acrylic painting and installations. Michael is currently co-owner of Daylightblue Media Group based in Syracuse, New York.

www.michaelbarletta.com 

OCC Faculty Art & Photography Exhibition

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center  
Mon., Nov. 12 – Fri., Dec. 14 
Monday - Friday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
Artist Reception: Wed., Nov. 14, 11 a.m. - noon 

Exhibition Statement

A mixed media show with works from Onondaga’s own faculty members. The 2012 Faculty Exhibition includes the artworks of PHIL AUSTIN, ANNE NOVADO CAPPUCCILLI, JILL DOSHER, RANDY ELLIOTT, MEREDITH CANTOR-FELLER, MERILEE FREEMAN, ALLEN “SKIP” FROST, DEBORAH HAYLOR-MACDOWELL, CHRIS MADDEN, PAUL MOLESKY, RICHARD PARDEE, DONALEE PEDEN WESLEY, G. STEPHAN RYAN, ELISHA STASKO, LIDA SUCHY, NICK TADISC, MIRANDA TRAUDT, GARY TRENTO, DAVID WEBSTER, RICHARD WILLIAMS, MARK WILLIAMSON, and MARK ZAWATSKI.

"Waking from Dreams of India" by Neil Chowdhury

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center 
Tues., Jan. 22 - Tues., Feb. 26 
Monday - Friday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
Artist Reception: Wed., Jan. 30, 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

Waking from Dreams of India 

This work tells the story of my lifelong dream of exploring India, the land of my father’s birth. He died without telling me much about the culture in which he grew up or the story of his early life there. As a child of mixed British and Indian heritage, I witnessed and took part in post-colonial battles playing themselves out on a domestic scale. Growing up in the United States, isolated from Indian culture fostered the cultivation of imaginative fantasy about my father’s country that ripened from a steady diet of exoticized Western media accounts. None of this prepared me for the discovery of the circumstances that drove my father away from his family as a teenager, or the masala mix of complexity, misery and beauty of contemporary India that I finally had the opportunity to see for myself. Having now made several trips, and collected a wealth of photographic images, videotape, and journal writings, I am shaping this material into a body of work that connects and contrasts my youthful fantasies of India with my adult experience building a relationship with the land of my ancestry.

Drawing from documentary, illustrative, advertising, sacred, and secular imaging traditions, I juxtapose images from different times and places, mythical and real, to create a visual narrative both imagined and lived. By collaging appropriated popular Indian “calendar art” imagery of Hindu deities into my photographs, I am referencing contemporary clashes of values and cultures that are occurring on the subcontinent. By removing these printed gods from spiritual contemplation in sylvan glades and temples, and bringing them into the chaotic capitalist hurly burly that is contemporary India, I want to show how the Hindu pantheon, representing an imperturbable and entirely non-western view of reality really do walk the streets of postmodern India. Their presence is palpable in the integration of spirituality into the country’s daily life. India also worships newer Deities with as much fervor as the old. The loosening of government control on foreign investment in the early 90’s led to a continuing economic boom in India and the meteoric rise of a huge new middle class. Western materialism and the mass appeal of flavor-of-the-month Bollywood icons have added another vibrant layer to India’s visual culture. The iconography of consumerism and media celebrity often borrows from that of the ancient gods. These recent manifestations of India’s striving for an earthly paradise have also found a place in my art. As I was dreaming of India, it turns out that India has been dreaming of the USA. 

For me, the complex history of these images signifies the emergence of my own identity, a slow process of assimilating influences from East and West. I use these images, doomed to different interpretations by individuals on either side of the east-west divide, as a kind of subversive bridge between cultures. Finding some way to reconcile these differing perspectives inspires this creative project.

Artist Bio

Neil Chowdhury is an artist working in photography and digital media. His work explores the relationships between individuals, their societies, and environments in different cultures. Currently, he is working on a project exploring his Indian heritage, entitled “Waking from Dreams of India.” He has been awarded the 2011 Light Work Grant, a 2008 NYFA SOS Grant, and the 2005 SPE Gary Fritz Imagemaker Award. He has been invited to speak about his work in Norway, Dubai, Hungary, India, and at many prominent venues in the United States. His photography and digital video works have been exhibited widely in the United States and abroad. His works are included in the permanent collections of Light Work Community Darkrooms, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, and the William Benson Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut. He has participated in artist residencies in Hungary, Macedonia, India, and the US. Mr. Chowdhury is an assistant professor and director of the photography program at Cazenovia College, Cazenovia, New York. He has also taught at Zayed University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates; the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan; and the University of Washington, Seattle. He received his M.F.A. in photography at the University of Washington. Chowdhury also worked for several years as an industrial photographer for Ford Motor Company, and does freelance travel, editorial, and commercial photography.

"Vessels Ceremonial and Mundane" by David MacDonald

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
Mon., March 4 - Tues., April 16 
Monday - Friday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
Artist Reception: Wed., March 6, 11 a.m. - noon and 6 - 8 p.m. 

Artist Statement

David MacDonald received his undergraduate degree from Hampton University and while there, he was greatly inspired by noted African American ceramic artist Joseph W. Gilliard.

During his studies at Hampton, MacDonald became influenced by the political and social issues of the time (the Civil Rights movement). After graduating, he was awarded a graduate fellowship at the University of Michigan where he studied with John Stephenson and noted African American ceramist Robert Stull. During this time, his work continued to focus on social/political commentary and expand technically.

After receiving his Master of Fine Arts degree, MacDonald joined the faculty of the School of Art and Design at Syracuse University. During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, his creative work received most of its creative inspiration from his investigation of his African heritage. Looking at a variety of design sources in the vast creative traditions of the African continent; Mac Donald draws much of his inspiration from the myriad examples of surface decoration that is manifested in the many ethnic groups of sub-Saharan Africa (such as pottery decoration, textiles, body decoration and architectural decoration).

In recent years he has began to research the rich decorative possibilities of patterns created in the world of quilts and also in "tessellated patterns" as represented in the arts of Islamic cultures. MacDonald’s work spans the complete spectrum of utilitarian ceramic forms; and he says the following about his creative efforts:

“The nature of the art experience for me is one of self-discovery and communication. In one sense, it is a very private and personal journey in search of order, reason, reality and beauty. In yet another sense, it is a very public act in the attempt to express and share, with others, my realizations and discoveries.”

“The principal concern of my art is the articulation of the magnificence and nobility of the human spirit; and a celebration of my African heritage. The material I use is clay. The primary vehicle for expressions the vessel.”

“In my view, the vessel represents unique social and spiritual connections and associations, to all people, that do not exist in non- vessel ceramic forms. There exists in the vessel a timelessness and universality that records, contains and continues the very essence of humanity.”

MacDonald’s work is represented in many public and private collections throughout the nation. His work has also been featured in several ceramic textbooks and magazines. He is very active presenting lectures and demonstrations throughout the U.S. In May 2008 MacDonald retired from Syracuse University after 36 years of teaching and service and was awarded Emeritus Professor rank. He is now very active presenting lectures and demonstrations throughout the U.S.

 

Feats of Clay

Feats of Clay
Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
April 22 - May 2
Competition: Friday, May 3, 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. at Ferrante Quad
Artist Reception: Wednesday, May 24, 5 - 7 p.m. 

Feats of Clay spotlights the varied and creative ceramics art education programs in our high schools throughout Onondaga County and Central New York. The continued success of Feats of Clay rests with the talented and dedicated high school art teachers and art students.

OCC Faculty Art Show

Faculty Art Show 
Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center 
August 22 – September 20, 2011 

A mixed media show with works from Onondaga’s own faculty members.

"Toxic Beauty" by Shane LaVancher

“Toxic Beauty,” A photo series by Shane Lavancher 
Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
September 28 - November 1, 2011

 The series “Toxic Beauty” is a collaborative body if work created by photographer Shane Lavancher, Parisian Creative Director Clementine Allain, and New York artist Jason Clay Lewis, over the course of four months in a Brooklyn based studio.

There is something fascinating in the fragility of beauty that is destined to fade, in the grace and intensity that can be found in post-disaster and tragic scenes, in the disquieting elegance of loss of mind, and life. All three artists shared the vision.

Each photograph was treated as a painting, in an attempt to go beyond the photographic medium, with a sense of poetry and romanticism to the work. These photographs were built not “taken.” The process of creating this series was more of an installation and a performance.

Shane LaVancher is an alumnus of Onondaga Community College.

“Toxic Beauty” stands on the foundation of Lewis’ sculptures. The sculptures and the interpretation given in the series surface some great dualities: life and death, love and hate, beauty and ugliness.

"Pile-Strata" by Mikyung Kim

Mikyung Kim: "Pile-Strata"
Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
November 9 - December 13, 2011 

Mikyung Kim is a Korean born conceptual sculptor living in New York. She is interested in the relationship between the intrinsic meanings of game and rite. Her work is deeply rooted in Eastern ceremony, especially ancestor worship by creating the tableau as an altar setting. Kim received her BFA from Seoul National University in Seoul, Korea and her MFA from Pratt Institute in New York City. She has lived and worked in New York since 1979. 

Her numerous solo and group exhibitions include the Brooklyn Museum, Bronx Museum of Art, Blum Helman Warehouse, Art in General, Art on the Beach and Art Omi, in New York; the National Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City; as well as the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Kwachon, Korea and the Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art in Kungju, Korea. She has lived and worked in New York since 1979.

  

Artist Statement

The drawings in these recent series—titled “Pile-Strata” —are inspired by ancient ritual stone mounds and stupa. The images are a result of serialized succession, each drawing a product of both random and composed elements. This produces a form of controlled spontaneity that mirrors the interplay between the fleeting mind and metamorphic nature, and the strata of our rooted unconscious.

As I apply pigment-infused resin in single strokes to the surface—using only a carpenter’s putty knife—the hidden shapes emerge, evoking the misty landscapes seen in dreams or Chinese ink calligraphy, or of the fluid waves of the ocean. 

I am fascinated with this newfound, instinctive process, and the immediacy of the imminent forms. It allows me to compose patterned layers, echoing like the pulses of our transient thoughts.

As a sense of mystery surrounds the canons of nature and mind, so is there unpredictability in how these waves will finally surface, until only the layers that connect them together remains.

"Imposibilitados" by Abisay Puentes

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
Mon, Jan 23 - Tues, Feb. 28
Monday - Friday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
Artist Talk: Wed, Jan. 25, 11 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Reception: Wed, Jan. 25, 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.  

Artist Statement: 

In the imagination of all artists, lay all transcendent questions that human-kind have formulated in their heart and mind. In my artwork there are only a few questions as the center. Why do humans hurt each other? What is the reason for man’s evil? Why do men have bad nature?

The only answer I have found is: Because mankind is “IMPOSIBILITATO” (unable, helpless, without means, impossibility in man)

This is a spiritual and physical stage that makes possible an unhappy humanity. This impossibility became the product of man losing the purpose of existence. With this loss we have found pain, agony and disorientation. 

In my paintings I try to capture the diverse stages of impossibility. This is why this series has the same theme, feeling and internal message. Between the expressionism and the neo-romanticism I establish a pictorial-sonorous piece of work with its own time and space, making a greater connection with the viewer. 

About Abisay Puentes: 

Born in Pinar del Río, Cuba, May 1st 1974, Second son of a Baptist church pastor moved to the city of Habana in 1975. At an early age he became passionate about painting. His mother wanted him to become a musician and enrolled him in piano lessons in Seminario Bautista de La Habana. As a teenager he tried to study in the academy of art San Alejandro at La Habana, but unfortunately he failed to pass the difficult drawing exams to become a student of the prestigious academy of art. Abisay studied in a two year college that was very close to San Alejandro, he suspended his first year by not attending his final test just to try passing the talent exams. Abisay fails again; he gives up his studies at his previous school. His obsession was to learn and study art. 

A year passed and through some of his friends that studied in the National School of Art, he starts receiving painting, drawing, design and ceramic classes to obtain a higher level of preparation for the upcoming test. He starts art classes in San Alejandro, and moved by his faith; he begins to preach the word of God to his classmates along with his friends. Abisay projected a movie about the life of Jesus Christ on a big theatrical screen in the backyard of the school. This action brought him problems with the school’s directors. They prohibited all Christian students to talk about their faith with anyone, and they weren’t allowed to bring bibles or anything related to their beliefs. One day Abisay wore a shirt that said in front "Sonríe Jesús te Ama"(Smile Jesus Loves you). This brought rage to the school’s directors and he was terminated from the school; he was also threatened that if he lay a single foot in the school again, he was going to be taken by the police. Abisay, crying, at on the sidewalk in front of the school and made a promise. He was never going to try to study again in a communist school, where he could not be who he really was, express his beliefs and the essence of his being. 

He kept studying on his own by reading books and doing research, until he encountered a professor of art philosophy and history, Juan Enrique Guerrero. This teacher instructed Abisay on how to elaborate a piece of work pictorially, musically and poetically by making him feel that in each visual artist there is a musician and a poet as well. That all these things tie together, to convey a successful and powerful message. This encouraged Abisay to start his first series called "The Apocalypse of Abisay" in 1998 winning two drawing awards. Then he started his second series called "Lamentations of Abisay" a series that he is still working on today.
This group of art work could also be called "Times” because it features events that occurred in his lifetime "Apocalyptic", "Lamentation", "Rito Gular", "Imposibilitados" and other series. In this series "Imposibilitados", Abisay decides to fuse the art of painting and music. Poetry was incorporated since his series "Apocalypse" was created. His work in Cuba was generally unwanted, although he was able to exhibit in some galleries, thanks to the help of great people he met along the way. 

In 2004 Abisay decides not to exhibit in Cuba and turn his energy and strength towards studying musical theory, composing and orchestral conducting. In the summer of 2010 Abisay comes to the United States as a political refugee, he is currently living in the city of Syracuse, New York State where he continues painting and pursuing his dream as an artist.

"The Narrative Tradition in the 21st Century" by Randy Elliott & Richard Williams

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
Monday, March 5 - Tuesday, April 10
Monday - Friday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. 
Artist Reception & Talk: Wednesday, March 7, 11 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. 

Storytelling is at the center of the images created by artists, Richard Williams and Randy Elliott. Each image they create transports their viewers into a world specifically designed to convey the key elements of that unique storyline. In this sense, they are Visual Problem Solvers. Unlike artists that create purely from their own motivations, Williams and Elliott have spent decades bringing to life the visions of others. To do this, both men have developed their abilities to capture the perfect image for their clients. Drawing upon the Western Realist tradition and the rich heritage of American Illustration, Williams’ and Elliott’s paintings are easily accessible to the average viewer. Their people look like people. Environments have the ring of truth to them, even if they represent some alien or fantastic setting. For them Art is not about obfuscation and self-expression, rather it is about communication through discipline - the discipline of dedication to the figurative and illustrative traditions.

About Richard Williams: 

As a self-taught illustrator I was able to side step the many academic pit falls that plague contemporary artists, such as the belief that drawing skills are not important. My work is steeped in the tradition of craftsmanship and the importance of the narrative. Art in my opinion serves a social function, which can encompass selling a product to the public or making critical commentary on society and culture, and anything in between. To accomplish this, the artist needs to communicate in a simple, clear and powerful way. To do this one needs to have a firm grasp of the basic skills of draftsmanship, color, painting technique and storytelling.

About Randy Elliott: 

Randy Elliott began his professional art career in 1988, inking the Dungeons & Dragons, Dragonlance comic book for DC Comics. That job began a career that continues until the present. Over the course of the last twenty-odd years, Randy has inked and/or penciled comic books for DC, Archie, Marvel, Dark Horse, Valiant and a number of smaller publishers. He has also painted images for clients like, Wizards of the Coast, Alderac Entertainment Group, Battlefront Miniatures, Hasbro and others.

Feats of Clay

 

"Return Trips" by Bea Nettles

Return Trips: Bea Nettles
Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
October 2 - November 2, 2010 

These photographic composites deal with the poetic impact of certain landscapes and aspects of classical architecture and art history on the life of Bea Nettles, and how these influences continue to remain in memory, resurfacing at unexpected moments. The photographs are autobiographical. They represent her effort to clarify, to find meaning and significance in daily existence. Often epiphanies often occur while traveling. Bea is particularly interested in recording a sense of place and the selective, multi-layered nature of memory.

Marcus Acevedo

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center  
November 8 - December 8, 2010 

The duality of man, the potential to be both divine and carnal beings, has always interested me. There is a struggle with the expectations associated with these opposing forces: the potential for greatness always present on one hand, and weaknesses inescapable on the other. My work exists to inspire the question of what is the nature of heroes, legends and Gods, and how different is that from the nature of man. My work goes beyond self-analysis and introspection. I use myself as the archetype for the experiences that connect us. I want to explore not only the greatness of man, but the weakness as well. My work demonstrates that we are powerful and that there is no contradiction that this great power can manifest itself in a person that is inadequate, fearful and weak. In my work I am actor and director, puppet and puppet master, mortal and God. I am free to explore all of these relationships, to be whomever and what ever I desire. 

"Stations of the Cross" by Ludwig Stein

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
January 24 - February 22, 2011 

This exhibit will depict the 14 Stations of the Cross, also called "Via Dolorosa" or "The Way of Sorrows.” These events are the depiction of the final hours of Christ, and they cover the Passion of Jesus from his condemnation to his entombment.

"accord, 2011" by Takafumi Ide

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
February 28 - April 5, 2011 

Takafumi Ide is an interdisciplinary media artist specializing in installation with sound and light. He received his B.A. in graphic design from Tama Art University in Tokyo in 1989, and his M.F.A. in studio art from Stony Brook University in 2007. He has worked for more than ten years as a graphic designer and an illustrator in Japan and now teaches at Stony Brook University as a lecturer, and Suffolk County Community College as an adjunct instructor.

He has received several honors, such as The Sculpture Space Fellowship and Residency (funded by both the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts), the Strategic Opportunity Stipend Program Grant through the New York Foundation for the Arts, and most recently the Nomura Cultural Foundation's Project Grant, Asahi Shimbun Foundation Project Grant, and the Vermont Studio Center's Partial-Grant and Residency. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally. More recent exhibitions include Sunroom Project Glynder Gallery, Wave Hill, NY, ISE Cultural Foundation in Soho, NY, and AC Institute in Chelsea, NY.

 

Feats of Clay

Gallery at the Ann Felton Multicultural Center
April 11 - May 6, 2011

Feats of Clay spotlights the varied and creative ceramics art education programs in our high schools throughout Onondaga County and Central New York. The continued success of Feats of Clay rests with the talented and dedicated high school art teachers and art students.