Black, White and Green Opens at Gallery at 14 Maple on March 3
The living wall that anchors 14 Maple Ave is the inspiration behind a new art exhibit that opens this week on the building’s third floor gallery.
A free opening reception for the Gallery at 14 Maple’s 15th exhibit, Black, White and Green, will be held 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, March 3. The exhibit is guest curated by Katherine Murdock.
The exhibit includes works by the following New Jersey artists: Pat Brentano (Westfield), Jose Camacho (Montclair), Kathy Cantwell (Maplewood), Thea Clark (Maplewood), Carol Nussbaum (Short Hills), Casey Ruble (Milford), Nancy Ori (Berkley Heights), Jessica Rohrer (Bloomfield), and Raymond Saá (Maplewood). Two artists from New York are also featured: Richard Bottwin (Brooklyn) and Riad Miah (New York).
IF YOU GO
What: Morris Arts hosts a free opening reception for Black, White and Green, featuring the exhibit’s artists. Refreshments will be served.
When: 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, March 3, 2016
Where: 14 Maple Avenue in Morristown; third floor
Drawing from the limited color palette of the LEED-certified building’s three-story biowall, a vertical garden of living plants, Murdock chose to focus the exhibit on plants and selected the title, Black, White and Green as a means of unifying the exhibit.
What is striking, however, is the richness and variety of the artists’ unique approaches to the theme — through their use of different media (collage, oil, cold wax painting, photography, charcoal drawings, wood sculpture, etc.), composition, and subtle gradations of color.
“Casey Ruble’s paper collage illustrates a bundled bouquet of invasive plant species and Kathy Cantwell’s oil and cold wax on panel explores green color fields that resemble landscape,” Murdock said. “Richard Bottwin uses plant material as a medium and highlights the wood grain with stain and paint.”
Pat Brentano combines cut paper and acrylic on canvas to highlight subtleties within the spectrum of green while Thea Clark, in essence, “creates” plant life with artificial turf, acrylic textile, cotton thread, wood and foam. Jose Camacho’s work focuses on the abstract, ghostly images of possible plant life in his black and white oils on paper.
Similarly, stark black and white is used to highlight Nature’s geometric precision in Carol Nussbaum’s striking flower mandala photos. Riad Miah’s use of electric green and geometric units suggests plant life on a cellular level while Nancy Ori’s photographs cut to the essence of botanical forms, revealing hidden structures.
Jessica Rohrer’s gouache captures the green fluidity and grace of a hosta plant while the dramatic and intense charcoal drawings of Raymond Saá suggest the explosive release of energy of segmented structures that seem to collapse, yet still bristle with vitality.
Morris Arts gratefully acknowledges sponsorship for this exhibit by NJ.com with additional support from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.
The exhibit is open to the public Monday-Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and by appointment, and will remain on display until August 24, 2016.
Visit www.morrisarts.org or call (973) 285-5115 for additional information, including the exhibit catalogue which contains details and sale prices for all works. The Gallery at 14 Maple is a barrier-free facility. Individuals needing special accommodation should contact Kadie Dempsey at (973) 285-5115, ext. 17 orkdempsey@morrisarts.org.