During the opening reception at 5 pm, there will be a one-hour musical performance by Terry Jenoure and Angelica Sanchez. Jenoure (violinist/vocalist) embarks on an untraveled road with her dynamic collaborator, Sanchez (pianist). Jenoure’s adventurous project, Secret to Life, is a series of portraits painted with sound. For this performance, through their singular freestyle jazz and songwriting, the duo shares women’s often-unheard immigrant stories invoking a celebration of life. Sometimes playful, sometimes raucous, sometimes meditative, and at other times a war cry, Jenoure and Sanchez are a force that takes us by surprise and always land us where we need to be. 

The performance program is sponsored by Panther Arts Collective (PAC), performing arts initiative fund and OWWR.

Terry Jenoure, violinist and vocalist, is a 2023 Creative Capital awardee. Influences on her composing include her Puerto Rican and Jamaican heritage and numerous collaborations with Free Jazz pioneers of the Black Arts Movement. Her publications in the field of arts-based research have been referenced by more than fifty scholars internationally. She was on the graduate faculty of Lesley University for eighteen years, and concurrently was the director of Augusta Savage Art Gallery at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst for thirty years. Terry holds master’s and doctoral degrees in Education.  

Angelica Sanchez, pianist, moved to New York from Arizona in 1994, and has collaborated with such notable artists as Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Motian, Richard Davis, and Nicole Mitchell. Sanchez leads groups ranging from duo to nonet, and her work has been recognized in national and international publications including Jazz Times, The New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune. Sanchez has a master’s in Jazz Arranging from William Paterson University. She is currently on the music faculty of Bard College. 

Expanding our understanding of painting and sculpture, Eleanna Anagnos and Alexis Granwell team up to present Shift. Breathe. Expand. Painting in Space. Featuring works made of handmade paper, this exhibition brings forth the artists' drive and ability to shed light on the potential of this undermined medium: making it shift, making it breath, making it expand in space. Anagnos (Mexico City) and Granwell (Philadelphia) met in 2019 and engaged in a prolific exchange that would soon become friendship. Together, they explored the potential of paper pulp to challenge their own position as female contemporary artists.

Shift. Breathe. Expand. Painting in Space features works from the last decade to the present and allows the spectator to experience first hand the pillars of their unique process. In this three room installation, the viewer will have the opportunity to walk through the artists’ ongoing collaboration and experimentation with new techniques shifting from common painterly practices; their assertion and defiance towards the ‘feminine’; and their constant research on paper as a malleable, sustainable, medium, which enables us to expand our approach to painting.

A public reception for Shift. Breathe. Expand. Painting in Space is scheduled for Wednesday, September 13, 2023 between 4pm and 7pm. A performance event led by the curator and the artists will take place at 4pm, and a workshop led by the artists will allow the spectators to engage more closely with their practice will be held on Thursday, September 14.

This exhibition is curated by Tally de Orellana (London, Philadelphia).

Marisa Williamson, Sweet Chariot: The Long Journey to Freedom through Time features several videos created by Marisa Williamson for her project, Sweet Chariot (2017), originally a video scavenger hunt in the city of Philadelphia. Developed with support from MonumentLab, Sweet Chariot involved a scratch-off map and image recognition smartphone app containing pictorial and written clues to unlocking videos launched by augmented reality triggers. Sweet Chariot explores African-American historical struggles for freedom. The original project involved the walking tour map, eight immersive videos, and supplemental clues and context through the app. With these features, tourists and locals alike could discover hidden moments in the landscape of historic Philadelphia. Murals, plaques, and other markers served as signposts through time and through the neighborhood, ultimately finding the resting place of the story's main character, Amelia Brown. Sweet Chariot serves as a monument to centuries of sorrow and joy in the city of Philadelphia.

The Great Chain of Being: Sung Rok Choi, runs from February 7 through March 18, 2022. Choi’s digital animations reflect global crises of climate change, technological singularity, and the pandemic on dynamic screens that resonate with today’s culture of video games, cinema, and surveillance cameras. “Sung Rok Choi: The Great Chain of Being” is one of twenty final winners of the fourth international open call for the Fund for Korean Art.

Visual Arts Department Exhibition

February 7 – March 13, 2024

Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, SUNY Old Westbury

www.amelieawallacegallery.org

Public Reception: Tuesday, February 20, 2024, 3–6 pm

The Amelie A. Wallace Gallery at SUNY Old Westbury is pleased to announce the opening of a group exhibition by students of the Visual Arts Department. Each submission is unique, ranging across media that include drawing, painting, sculpture, animation, laser-cut typography, print design, website design, photography, and video. These works were created by students who represent the foundation courses—Creative Thinking, Drawing, Introduction to Color—as well as elective courses —Painting, Sculpture, Creative Coding, Graphic Design, 3D Design, Animation, Interactive Web Design, Digital Imaging, and Digital Video. Also presented are selected papers from an art history course and two music courses. These works reflect the diversity and richness that the Visual Arts Department offers, taught by a faculty of talented and dedicated teachers. From conventional media to up-to-the-minute technology, the Department provides a solid art education to students who seek careers in the creative and artistic fields.

Some highlights include collectively made large-scale inflatable sculptures made in Introduction to Creative Thinking class (Prof. Tony Proechel), seemingly useless Readymade objects for the Chindōgu Project in Creative Thinking class (Prof. Michael Capobianco), and multiple Contour Tiling drawings inspired by Cubistic perspectives in Creative Thinking class (Prof. Elizabeth Atzberger). The self-portraits made in Painting class (Prof. Fred Fleisher) and Drawing class (Prof. Jennifer Sullivan) reveal not only fine execution, but also the ethnic diversity of our Old Westbury student body. Various projects from Electronic Media courses, Digital Animation, and Digital 3D Design (Prof. Tricia McLaughlin), Graphic Design I and II (Prof. Patty Harris), Digital Imaging and Digital Video (Prof. Lizzy DeVita), Interactive Web Design (Prof. Jude Broughan), and Creative Coding (Prof. Eric Hagan) demonstrate a wide range of creative work that requires mastery of computer software for each project, strong preparation for careers in industries that demand critical thinking.

During the run of the show, Acting class (Prof. Ed Malone) and Dance class (Prof. Teresa Fellion) will hold one class open to the public. The date and time will be announced later. The exhibition reception is scheduled for Tuesday, February 20, from 3 pm to 6 pm.

The Visual Arts Department at SUNY Old Westbury offers three degrees: BA in Visual Arts, BFA in Visual Arts, or BS in Visual Arts: Electronic Media. There are also opportunities to minor in Digital Design Marketing, Media Design, and Visual Arts. All students pursuing a degree must complete foundation courses that enable students to develop skills that improve their technique and expand their knowledge as they prepare to pursue careers in the arts. The transition from Foundation courses to Art Tutorial builds towards the students’ Capstone projects that culminate their studies. The Department also offers performing arts courses in Acting, Dance and Music. Visual Arts Department’s current Chair is Frederick Fleisher.

This exhibition is organized by Hyewon Yi, Gallery Director, assisted by student interns Angelica Abejar, Kristel Carbajal, Jordan Gonzalez, Amanda Linken, Bre’anna Mcqueen, and Janice Ospina.

Janet Taylor Pickett: Necessary Memories features the artist’s works from the 1970s to the present, including several that have never been shown to the public before. The exhibition commemorates the inauguration of the Black Studies Center and the recently accredited Black Studies major at SUNY Old Westbury, an initiative representative of the College’s strong social justice mission and racial diversity. The Black Studies Center is sponsoring the exhibition and public programs.

Reimagined is a group exhibition of works by four new adjunct faculty members of the Visual Arts Department at SUNY Old Westbury. The title of the exhibition loosely connects the underlying methods and purposes shared by these artists. Leeanna Chipana, a painter whose artistic practice revolves around her identity through her Quechua-Peruvian history and culture, creates reimagined portraits in an uncolonized contemporary world. Matthew Cronin digitally repurposed 1970s commercial photographs taken for the national retail chain JC Penny, inventing a new kind of image that reveals the artificiality underlying American middle class aspirational consumerism. Cronin reimagines these pre-existing images in order to explore the hidden function of commercially produced photographs. Through montage, multiple exposure, and in-camera manipulation, he creates new pictures that reveal what was both literally and figuratively hidden. Ramon Gil, Filipino-American designer and comic book artist and writer, shaped images of diverse communities through his wide ranging design work, helping, among many others, healthcare and education groups to use effective communication and create positive public images. His commitment to multi-culturalism is coupled with his sense of humor.  Ed Malone, an Irish actor who trained under the mystic teacher Philippe Gaulier in France, brings his philosophy of direct engagement with the audience through genuine fun and pleasure like child’s play. His reimagining harks back to the pure imagination of the child within us all.

The exhibition consists of paintings and works on paper selected from several of Riccadonna’s series: Garden series, Hanging Garden series, Puzzle series, Tile series, and Plastic Pollution series. An observer and admirer of nature since childhood, as well as a critic of environmental pollution, Riccadonna composes images filled with patterns and decorations inspired by motifs she finds in nature and cities. A striking quality of Riccadonna’s work lies in her tendency to frame “close-up” views rather than wide vistas, thus creating a sense of depth with in a very shallow space. Riccadonna is significantly influenced by the P&D (Pattern and Decoration) Movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s, pioneered by Miriam Schapiro, Robert Zakanitch, and Joyce Kozloff, who reacted against Modernist constraints. Petah Coyne, Beatriz Milhazes, and Ebony Patterson have also fascinated her. Floral motifs, insects, seasonal changes, and the cycle of growth and decay are frequent subjects expressed in sumptuous color.

David B. Smith digitally alters photographs from his daily life, and prints them onto fabric which he then crafts manually into objects and images from imaginary worlds that speak to themes of interconnection, growth, and the blending of digital and organic experiences. Visitors will be simultaneously immersed in Smith’s dream-like worlds and also invited to analyze and interact with his methods and will leave empowered to continue to create their own languages and strategies for the future of their and our worlds.

John Day's work has been involved with nature and the environment since 1980. His art practice includes installation, assemblage and drawing, focusing on wilderness experience, a concern for our relationship with nature, and the changes that we have wrought upon the natural world. In numerous journeys through forests and nature preserves in the northeast US, his encounters with natural phenomena are the source for his work, and comment on humanity's fragile, conflicted relationship with nature, with works that refer to journeying within, experiencing and confronting wilderness, revealing its mystery, power and unknowability.

Fiona Lee (b. 1986), a recent alumna of the Visual Arts Department, SUNY College at Old Westbury, documented Black Lives Matter protests in New York City and Long Island from May to July 2020. Dissatisfied with how BLM has been covered by mass media, Lee took matters into her own hands, deploying her Nikon D750 to seek authenticity amid the unfiltered truth of the protests. Lee ventured into the field every other day during her two-months of reporting, witnessing the protests unfold firsthand while committing herself to unbiased coverage.

Music of the Black Experience is a virtual exhibition devoted to highlighting the cultural contributions of Black people of the United States of America through their music. Some express the horrors of marginalization from a long line of oppression while others express a sense of pride and a desire for progress. Any song that did not cover these topics was selected to shine light on the corruption of the Music Industry, specifically the white owned record label corporations, as many of these artists fell victim to their exploitative nature. This music most importantly contains the purest accounts of what it was like and how it still is, to be Black in the United States of America.