"Light and Astigmatism," solo exhibition of oil paintings by Roger Mason at Park Row Gallery in Chatham, NY from June 11th through July 31st. There will be a memorable reception with the artist on Saturday, July 10th from 4pm to 6pm. The public is cordially invited to attend.

“Light and Astigmatism” features approximately 20 vivid paintings of the local region in Roger Mason’s polychromatic style, where the color of light and shadow are painted through the prism of the artist’s visceral experience. While deeply engaged in the present, Mason’s work evokes the past by abstracting the essence of small town scenes that he’s drawn to. It’s almost as though he stops time through the strength of his gaze, and leaves the viewer with an
immutable impression of a solitary place, as if it were a revelation.

As the writer James Gerald Croghan notes in an article on Mason, “ Perhaps unwittingly, and certainly without guile, Mason has become the chronicler of small-town life in Upstate New York, where an urban sensibility interfaces amiably with the last vestiges of rural America. He likely fell into this role because he paints directly from experience. In a real sense, painting is his experience.”

Mason is infatuated with color, but in love with light. Indeed, he pursues light from dawn to dusk, and even chases it into the night when he sees some radiant neon sign hanging in front of an ageless theater or bar, lighting up a darkened street corner. The artist says he’s drawn to these old world scenes because they remind him of the places he played in during his years as a musician. But he’s also intrigued with the distorted perception of color one experiences at night, and challenged by the desire to illuminate his canvas with electric pinks, reds and oranges pulsing against a sapphire blue sky on a summer night. For a painter-musician, that’s probably as close to jazz or the blues as one can see.

“Joe’s Tavern,” “Slattery’s,” and “Hudson Opera House,” are a few titles of paintings in the exhibition at Park Row Gallery in Chatham, and refer to local places that Mason has captured and commemorated for posterity. Joe’s Tavern in Hudson no longer exists, but Slattery’s in East Chatham certainly does. Indeed, the artist calls it “a shrine,’ and has painted it several times. He recalls buying a pair of shoes there nearly 20 years ago and has rich memories of the general store. As an aside, Mason quietly muses that sometimes he thinks he paints these places “to keep time from moving forward.”

Occasionally there are people in Mason’s paintings that seem to personify a reflective state of introspection. And there are objects, like an old car or mailbox, that act as characters to deepen his dialogue with history. A blend of abstract expressionism and realism, the artist paints large, luscious fields of light, blinding and overexposed at times, as if he’s searching for some miracle or mystery in the shadows. But there are details too – a striped awning, American flag, “Fresh Eggs” sign, Pepsi Cola bottle dispenser, barbershop pole, 1951 Chevrolet – that create a rich narrative and poignantly remind us of country life in this slow moving, but rapidly vanishing, American landscape.

Roger Mason sets up his easel and paints on street corners all over the world, but still calls Chatham, NY his home. He studied art at Pratt, yet had an inherent talent for music too, and found a way to pursue both passions by steering clear of the mainstream marketing machines and forging his own path. His paintings adorn the homes and offices of many music and film celebrities, as well as the CEO’s of ATT, Sony, Ford Motor Company, Time Warner, Ebay, Goldman Sachs and others. Mason has exhibited his paintings as far and wide as Paris, Buenos Aires, Corsica, Telluride, Santa Fe, Naples, New Orleans, La Jolla, Holland, Tokyo, Tahiti, Cuba, Key West, New York City and Chatham. As a famous art dealer once said about Roger Mason, “He is his own show.” Visit the artist's website at www.rogermason.net

Altered States will feature approximately 25 mixed media constructions made from old objects and antique artifacts that the artist collects on his travels. While the work is historically linked to the densely adorned “cabinets of curiosities” of the 16th - 18th century, and the surreal box assemblages of Joseph Cornell, Mr. Sideli’s constructions are much more sculptural in nature, and sparingly composed.

"Power Ball"

Primarily self-taught as an artist, Mr. Sideli studied painting and architecture in his formative years, and then developed an absorbing interest in antiques and history. He was deeply influenced by the playfulness and creative energy of the sculptor Alexander Calder during a two year period when he lived on the artist’s estate in Roxbury, CT, and it was during this time that the young John Sideli became fascinated with the beauty and mystery of ‘found objects.’ As the artist recollects, “I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I was taking it all in, and the concept that art could be anything, and everywhere, was clearly taking hold.”

Mr. Sideli gradually combined his interests in art, antiques and history into a very successful career as a dealer and expert in American Folk Art. But for the past forty years he’s also remained passionately engaged in the process of creating mixed media constructions from fragments of long forgotten objects. After living with these disparate artifacts and contemplating their beguiling forms for days, weeks or years, he reinterprets, recombines and magically transforms them into playful, poetic and transcendent works of art. “I try to liberate the spirit in matter by carefully combining objects in a way that allows them to transcend their original form or meaning, so that they evoke a feeling or tell a story,” the artist explains. “I combine and arrange objects in the same way that a poet combines words.”

Indeed, many of Sideli’s constructions convey an eloquent poetic narrative that is often reinforced by the titles, such as “On the Sacredness of Simple Work,” “Congregation,” “Artist’s World,” “Ozone Layer,” “Secret Garden,” "The Spirit of Pegasus,” or “Village Elders on a Journey to the Pointless Forest.” This latter piece is made from six umber gray wooden spires of varying size set into a long, narrow wooden form weathered by time and contextually redefined to suggest a small vessel that transports us (and the village elders) to another world. Such is the transcendent beauty of these works, for they are almost minimalist in their essential clarity, and yet still so full of mystery.

Some of the artist’s work draws on the inherent historical context of the specific objects to convey a social or political comment, such as “Hard Times for Jim Crow,” “Bitter Pill,” and “American Beauty.” Other pieces are quite playful and engage us in visual puns, paradox and wordplay, like “Letter Box,” “Heavyweight,” “Tools of the Trade,” and “Altered States.”

“Rare Bird” tells its own story and seems to illuminate the poetry and magic of John Sideli’s art. It’s made from an eccentric wooden pulley or armature mounted to a wooden base and adorned with a large, exquisite feather. That is all; so this ‘rare bird’ is really quite abstract. Yet there is something hopeful in its simple but stately grace, and in the ideal aesthetic relationship between the forms that, like a secret combination, sets the imagination in flight.

John Sideli lived and worked in Malden Bridge, NY for over thirty years before moving to Wiscasset, Maine. He was greatly inspired during his years living in Columbia County, and is delighted to be returning to the area to show his work in a community that he still calls home. Sideli shows his work nationally and internationally, including exhibitions with the Alexander Gallery and Giampietro in New York City, NY; Robert Young Antiques, London, England; Jenkins & Ingram, Wiscasset, ME; Tom Veilleux Gallery, Mount Vernon, ME; Red Mills Gallery, Claverack, NY; and Jeffrey Tillou Gallery, Litchfield, CT.

Acclaimed book designer Ed Hutchins creates artist books that spring to life in delightful and unexpected ways. Combining eclectic materials and ingenious formats with unusual printing techniques and advanced paper engineering, his hand-made books blow apart the traditions of the bindery, while infusing traditional forms with new meaning. Hutchins' inventions and variations expand the boundaries of bookmaking in unimagined and not soon forgotten, directions.

Everyone is invited to attend the Artists’ reception on Saturday, December 12, from 4 to 6 p.m.

Book artist, Ed Hutchins, has taught, lectured, curate shows, directed book arts programs and created many auditioned books while traveling across the U.S.A., Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand. Since 1989 he has been the proprietor of Editions, a workshop for producing artist book multiples.

According to Jeff Risley, owner of Park Row Gallery, “Everyone loves books, but most people have never seen books like these. They have an intellectual component that requires more than looking, they must be held and manipulated to be appreciated. Ed Hutchins packs his books with curiosity, new ideas, and humor. In reading and handling them we experience the joy of discovery that produced them.”

Cannamela's architectural reliefs are composed entirely of papers from around the world. They are informed by art historical sources that include Persian miniatures and Tibetan paintings, as well as Japanese illustrations of "The Tale of Genji." These works reveal Cannamela's interest in texture, color, space, and pattern, and how these design elements are interwoven to create a balance between representational space and abstract form, between implied space and actual depth.

Breznak's sculptures, made of clay and gold leaf, suggest a variety of imagery from ancestral totems to modern abstraction, from natural sources to geometric forms. These palm-sized objects are intimate portrayals of texture, light, and form, reflecting a wealth of worldly influence, and playing with the power of scale to refute the idea and prejudice of size.

Cannamela and Breznak both participated in the New York Foundation for the Arts MARK Hudson Valley 2008 program. They found a common interest in cross-cultural imagery, textural forms, and diminutive scale.

Park Row Gallery is celebrating 20 years of providing service and support to clients from Manhattan to the Upper Hudson Valley and neighboring Berkshires region, satisfying all of their fine art needs and promoting the exceptional works of regional artists. This exhibit has been supported in part by a Strategic Opportunity Stipend, a grant program of the New York State Foundation for the Arts and The Arts Center of the Capital Region.

To learn more about the artists in this show go online to Laura Cannamela's website at www.lauracannamela.com, and to Lisa Breznak's website at www.lisabreznak.com.

"Anima Mundi," A two-person exhibition of photographs by Joel Seaman and paintings by Roberta Wilson, will be on view at Park Row Gallery July 9 through August 15th. An opening reception with the artists will be held July 18 from 4 to 6 p.m.

According to Seaman, Anima Mundi is a philosophy dating back to ancient times that theorizes a pure, ethereal spirit resides in all things.

Meant to be viewed as landscapes more than still life, Seaman's photographs are known for their exploration of the interrelatedness of the natural and industrial world. He often uses found objects, including taxidermy, to set up a tableau that examines the natural world through a lens that suggests a time continuum.

"My imagery references the history of pictures from paintings and illustrations through contemporary advertising and media images. My conversation is about the present, seen through the past, concerning the future. These images are a conjunction of traditional landscape, still life, and wildlife genres which reference our current state of affairs."

Also included in this show are pieces from his Apple series, completed in 2008, which depicts heritage fruit in all their misshapen beauty.

By contrast, Roberta Wilson's paintings infuse a deeply felt, non-sentimental understanding of animals with evocative images that challenge the viewer to assess their own animal nature.

Wilson's works on paper are created from her handmade egg tempera paint, a technique that often takes months to complete. The process of painting with egg tempera is precise, resulting in renderings that may evolve dramatically over the time it takes to apply the 50 or 60 layers of paint she uses to create them.

"Although I begin with an animal in a natural setting, it eventually becomes symbolic of my psychological state. Not surprisingly, the final image may represent something internal, that I have yet to become aware of. What results are animals whose nature is animalistic and highly personal without becoming anthropomorphous."

Wilson's work with animals extends across her career, including research for her MFA thesis that explored the human psyche through the early artistic depictions of unseen beasts and sea monsters.

To view the works of artist Joel Seaman, visit him on the web at www.joelseaman.com.

Sigmund Abeles was born in New York City in 1934, but moved to South Carolina when he was two years old, and was raised as an only child by his mother. As a young boy he fell in love with horses and with the human figure. So he began drawing both, as a way to know them better. After years of studying art and drawing incessantly, it’s not surprising to learn that drawing is as essential to Abeles’ art as breathing is to his life. “Drawing is touching at a distance,” the artist has said, and it seems that the closer he gets to his subjects, the greater the intensity and intimacy of each line he depicts.

"Spring Runaway Recaptured"

As a humanist with a strong social conscience, Abeles has been influenced and inspired by other artists of the humanist tradition, including Rembrandt, Ingres, Degas, Kollwitz, Schiele, Kokoschka and Lucian Freud. And as a young artist in NYC in the late 1950’s, he swam against the popular current of Abstract Expressionism, holding onto the emotional expressiveness and narrative content of his representational style. The writer Issac Bashevis Singer once observed, “In a time when many artists try their best to be abstract, obscure, and detached from human suffering and human efforts, Sigmund Abeles has the courage to portray real people and even to tell a story in the way artists did for generations. His roots are attached to the soil.”

Park Row Gallery and the Joyce Goldstein Gallery are honored to present Passionate Lives / Passionate Lines, a joint exhibition of the work of Sigmund Abeles. The exhibit on view at Park Row Gallery includes approximately twenty paintings, pastels and etchings that attest to Abeles’ passionate and enduring engagement with horses and the human figure. People and horses are subjects that the artist knows and loves, although he says he was in awe of the power and beauty of horses long before he knew what art was. There are several pastels in the show portraying people with horses, including, “Winter Eve with Mare and Couple,” a large and poignant portrait of a horse in the moonlight on a clear winter night and a couple warmly embracing in the background. The etchings include “My Rolling Mare,” which depicts a mare on her back with legs in the air, and “Sometimes I Have Difficulty Telling Art From Reality,” a fascinating portrait of psychological complexity drawn with such grace and virtuosity that it’s difficult to look away. Rounding out the show are a number of oil paintings including, “Mare in the Mist,” and “Self-Portrait with Horse’s Skull,” a compelling picture of the artist with a soulful stare.

The work of Sigmund Abeles at the Joyce Goldstein Gallery focuses on portraits of women, with nearly a dozen paintings and pastels, and several small terra cotta nudes pulled quickly from the clay. Many of the models the artist works with are family members and friends, which explains the emotional power and resonance of the work. Titles such as, “Nude in Martha’s Vineyard Garden,” “She and Her Shadow,” “Woman of the Middle East,” and “Woman with Pears,” suggest the subject matter at hand. But it is the artist’s profound empathy and mastery of line that reveals a deeper identity and adds gravity to the character of these alluring portraits of women.

As Robert M. Doty so eloquently expressed in an essay on the artist, “Abeles believes in art that is about life, about the human condition. He has contemplated humanity’s weaknesses, exaltations and irresistible attractions in order to gain a renewed understanding of the contradictions that exist in the modern world. With the aid of intense perception, he seeks out intimate situations, moments in time, episodes of human drama, the emotional nuances of life around him and transforms them into significant images.”

Sigmund Abeles divides his time between studios in Columbia County, NY and New York City. He received his BA in Art from the University of South Carolina in 1955, and an MFA from Columbia University in 1957. He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of New Hampshire, and was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Coastal Carolina University in 2000. Mr. Abeles exhibits his work nationally and internationally, and is the recipient of an extensive list of scholarships, awards, prizes and grants. He is a long-standing member of the prestigious National Academy of Design, and in 2006 was honored with the Degas Society Award by the Pastel Society of America. Abeles’ work is represented in over 100 public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Museum of Modern Art, NY; Whitney Museum of Art, NY; Montclair Art Museum, NJ; Museum of Fine Arts, MA; Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA; Yale University Art Gallery, CT; Fogg Art Museum, MA; Williams College Museum of Art, MA; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; and the Museo de Arte, Ponce, PR.

Hope, a 2008 Emerson College graduate, describes the work as a collection of street portraits - some candid some solicited - that show Boston's lottery subculture as a barometer for the current economic climate.

"I was reading a story about how lottery sales were going up as the economy was going down and the photographs really came from that, I wanted to see what was happening to the individual as opposed to a faceless statistic. So I went out and started talking to people, finding out why they play, how often they gamble and how often they win." What he found, he says, was a broad group of people - from the unemployed to those wearing three-piece suits - trying their luck.

The photographs themselves are striking. Shot with medium format film and often from a lower perspective, the crisp gelatin silver prints recall an earlier era of documentary image making while showing an understanding and insightful grasp of the work of contemporary masters.

But Hope's work stands apart, tactfully confident and genuine, his portraits are intimate without ulterior intention.

"I suppose I've come to the conclusion that there's a lot more than the loss of jobs that's really behind the gambling. It's a lot more psychological. In some ways it's a kind of modern extension of the American Dream - instantly going from nothing to something - and the way we seem to celebrate wealth and success."

Although Hope admits the title of his first photography exhibition is somewhat cynical, he hopes the subtle irony of the show comes through as well.

"I'm not trying to paint any kind of emotion that wasn't there. I'm trying to show the personal side of what's resulting from our economy: the person, their lottery ticket, their gamble to make it in the face of a collective loss."

For more information about "Set for Life" and Owen Hope, visit www.runhoperun.com

Painting the Invisible: Patterns in Nature, is an intriguing exhibition featuring nearly twenty oil and vinyl paintings on canvas and works on paper. D’Onofrio creates visionary paintings that are a synthesis of the empirical and the metaphysical, and bring to life the poetic mystery of Nature as exemplified in William Blake’s famous stanza from Auguries of Innocence: To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour….

It is this poetic elegance that the artist observes, intuits and expresses in layers of color and patterned markings that fluoresce with a shimming light, like the dance of wind through a stand of trembling aspen. As Mr. D’Onofrio states, “My sense of the spiritual in art comes out of my experience of nature. The melting solidity of light catching and releasing itself … or the feeling of being surrounded by energy systems ordering and reordering themselves in the overlapping necessities of their existence, like loops within loops.” This penetrating engagement with the natural world, which borders on prayer or reverie, is evident in these vibrant paintings, and even in the titles such as “River Walking,” “Enchanted Forest,” “The Song of the Trees is the Song of the Earth,” and “Tree Walking (Maine).”

Eleanor Heartney, a contributing editor of Art in America, has said, “In the hands of Raffaele D’Onofrio, nature regains its sense of mystery and primal power. His works explore not the surface of nature, but it’s underlying sense of movement and pattern.” And the prominent art historian and art critic Irving Sandler has concisely observed, “Raffaele D’Onofrio’s paintings conjure up lyrical visions of Nature and evoke its vitality and magic. Commingling what is seen and what is imagined, they emulate nature’s inexhaustible complexity.”

Mr. D’Onofrio received a scholarship to The New College at Hofstra University and completed his degree at Franconia College, majoring in Art and Biology with a minor in Philosophy. He continued studying painting at The New School in NYC until refining his unique vocabulary, which integrates his profound interests in music, biology, physics, philosophy and poetry. Raffaele D’Onofrio exhibits his work nationally and internationally, including recent exhibitions at The Museo de Arte Moderno in Bogota, Columbia, the Cantor Fitgerald Gallery at Haverford College, The Andrews Gallery in Williamsburg, VA, and The Painting Center in New York City.

“Down the Shore” is a series of over twenty-five black and white and color photographs documenting the people who flock to the beaches, boardwalks and arcades in the towns along the New Jersey shore, not far from where the artist grew up. As Tony Gonzalez describes, “I returned again and again to these fertile grounds to explore the coexistence between the human figures set within both a natural and man made environment. To me, these places promise an endless diversion from everyday existence, a stage on which people play out specific rituals, as when boy meets girl, or when boys will be boys (and girls will be girls)….”

While the artist pays homage to the documentary traditions of street photography, this work is so charged with intimacy that it is more akin to sensuous poems of uninhibited joy and yearning. Indeed, Gonzalez is clearly intrigued with intimate moments, and adeptly captures the expressive gestures and revelations of the human form, in all its beauty and mystery. One can feel the sensual atmosphere too; the stark light of the strong sun in Lifeguards, the sounds of the surf and wind muffling the playful banter of bathers along the shore in Girl with a Striped Bikini, or the cool cleansing spray of a shower washing away the sand and salt of the sea in Boys at Shower. The series seems to celebrate the exhilaration of innocence while capturing casual poses and stares that are at once flirtatious and utterly natural. The liberating angles and juxtapositions hold our attention as we gaze into the shimmering photographs and are seductively lured into the private realms of these strangers, and our own evocative memories of long summer days at the shore.

Tony Gonzalez divides his time between Hudson, NY and New York City. He exhibits his work nationally, and is the recipient of numerous awards, grants and fellowships. Mr. Gonzalez also teaches and lectures on photography, and is an expert on alternative processes, which he often employs in the service of his painterly photographs. Gonzalez graduated with a BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art, and received his MFA from Yale University. His work is widely collected and is included in a number of permanent collections, including the Center for Photography, Woodstock, NY; Numina Gallery, Princeton, NJ; the Mercer County Cultural and Heritage Commission, Trenton, NJ; and En Foco, Inc., Bronx, NY. Concurrent with this exhibition at Park Row Gallery, Mr. Gonzalez will be featured in a solo exhibition at the Cheryl McGinnis Gallery in NYC, from September 5th through October 11th, 2008. According to the artist, "The Bedroom series continues my exploration of the human form and features a group of twenty photographs combining the nineteenth century printing technique of Gum Bichromate with digital technologies."

Ruth Shively grew up in Nebraska, surrounded by expansive vistas that may have encouraged her vast imagination and creative aspirations. With an emphasis in drawing and illustration early on in her career, Ms. Shively has loosened her style in recent years, from the graphic rendering of flattened forms to fluid strokes that easily express the subtle nuances of shape, color, texture, light and hope. While the artist still has a firm hold on realism, there is a daring sense of exploration in her new work, as she abstracts large areas of space and experiments with expressive modulations of smudged or dripping paint; and muted tones that all but disappear, as if exposed to too much light. The artist has a compelling manner of rendering perspective too, as seen in the deep horizons of “Tourist” and “Field Girl,” or in the dangling arms of “Falling,” as if those foreshortened arms were stretching endlessly toward a mystery, yet still hinged on the precipitous limb between childhood and adolescence.

"Sleep” “Falling” and “Tourist” are three examples of Ms. Shively’s work that might be viewed as
archetypal faces of humanity that form a modern mythology. For we can all identify with the tender vulnerability of a child immersed in the oblivion of “Sleep.” And “Tourist” is an adult face that most of us know, if one has ever stood for the first time in a new place and experienced a sense of alienation, vulnerability and joy, all tumbling together like the scumbled paint that rolls across the guileless face of this young woman standing at an airport. “Falling,” a dramatic and exuberant painting of a child leaning over the top of a wall, captures the universality of youth boldly flirting with the world, and with the limits of authority. That Ms. Shively can so vividly express such complex and contradictory emotions that touch us all is quite extraordinary, and suggests a long and successful career ahead.

Ruth Shively received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, and then traveled to Europe to study art, living in Paris for a year. Ms. Shively worked as an illustrator in New York for several years, apprenticing with the distinguished illustrator Steven Guarnaccia, before she returned to her passion for the emotional expressiveness of fine art, and began painting in acrylic and oils. The artist had her first solo exhibition in 1998, in Vancouver, WA, and has exhibited in many other solo and group exhibitions in the New York region. In 2000, Ruth Shively settled in Columbia County, NY, where she lives with her husband Kevin, and two children, Emmett and Ruby.

Michael Zelehoski grew up in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, but traveled to South America at the age of 20 and spent nearly six years pursuing his vocation as a young artist, including an apprenticeship with the late Chilean sculptor, Felix Maruenda. Mr. Zelehoski, now 28, has returned to the region and is currently working on upcoming exhibitions from his studio in Pittsfield, MA. He is an emerging artist of exceptional talent whose mixed media work will
be showcased in this exciting solo exhibition.

Michael Zelehoski’s recent work includes abstract and figurative compositions created from old pieces of wood and furniture that have been worn and weathered to reveal the passage of time. The artist seeks to save what he perceives as priceless remnants of our past, as he endeavors to cultivate a deeper awareness of the intrinsic aesthetic value in these wooden surfaces. It is as if he sparks a dialogue between the object and its history, between the textured surface of our lives and the history that shapes us. It is not surprising then that figures enter into his work, and that they tend to be archetypal – an old man, a young woman, an innocent child.

“Summer Girl,” "Old Man in Hat," and “Me and Johnney,” are just three of the figurative works in this exhibition. While some of the work has a photographic quality, the technique used by the artist is sculptural in nature and quite primitive. That is, Mr. Zelehoski literally carves the figures into the assembled wooden plane with gouges, and then burns the surface of the carved wood into blackened shadows, adding layers of encaustic wax to build lighter tones that create a chiaroscuro effect.

The abstract assemblages, such as “Dark Plains,” “Textured Blue,” and “Morning” are created with a minimalist aesthetic, but the artist often constructs compositions with strong horizons and explores the push and pull of space within a two-dimensional plane. Mr. Zelehoski also takes utilitarian objects, such as old tables and chairs, and “flattens” them, as in “Winged Chair.” He achieves this by deconstructing a simple piece of furniture; sawing, cutting and shaping it into abstract fragments that he reconstructs as he explores positive and negative space and the play of perspective. Ever mindful of calling attention to the inherent beauty of what is so often ignored, the artist states, “We may take a chair for granted when we are sitting on it, but when we find it flattened and hanging on a wall in front of us, still a chair though its function has been completely negated, our perception is challenged and enlarged.”

Michael Zelehoski was born in Concord, Massachusetts and grew up in the Berkshires. He attended the Rudolf Steiner School and received his AA from Simon’s Rock College of Bard. While living in Chile, Mr. Zelehoski completed his BA in Fine Arts from the Universidad Finis Terrae in Santiago de Chile and graduated with votes of distinction. Mr. Zelehoski has exhibited his work regionally and internationally. His work is in private and public collections in the U.S. and abroad, including The Red Lion Inn in Stockbrige, MA, and La Nacion and the North American Cultural Institute in Santiago, Chile.

Bader's interest in art began in her childhood. One of her earliest and fondest memories is when she was six years old, drawing faces on large sheets of wrapping paper from her parents' grocery store. She would immerse herself for long periods of time, paying limited attention to the noise around her. As Bader grew into adolescence, she began to formally study drawing and painting at The Arts Students League of New York. There she met instructors and artists that made lasting impressions on her. She remembers saying to them around that time: "When I grow up, I'm going to be a painter and paint forever."

Soon after moving to Boston, Bader enrolled in art classes at The Museum of Fine Arts, continuing to paint independently in her private studio. More recently, she received fellowships to paint Intensively at The Vermont Studio Center in Johnston, Vermont for four consecutive years.

Memory plays a significant role in the making of her art, which often consists of expressive paintings in oils or acrylics that she draws upon from her recollections; she prefers not to work from photographs. "I'm not painting in front of the outdoor scene, but rather from the memory of how I wish to recapture the actual view." The genesis usually occurs on long walks, during which she commits the scenes to memory. Often some time passes before these paintings become realities on canvases. "For me, the expressions left to chance, the embellishments of vivid colors and strokes that I relive spontaneously, add form and texture to my images." In addition to inspiration that she gathers from communing with nature, Bader notes that she finds some philosophical parallels in her own paintings with Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past," which she often rereads for its beauty.

Bader says: "When I return to my studio, and I stand before a blank canvas, I close my eyes to recall my impressions, taking into account all the senses that were evoked at the actual viewing. I often begin in one direction, and as I continue, the painting itself leads me to where I wish to go. I trust that, although I'm not sure how it will all unfold, the painting will please me at the end. Since I paint for myself, the changes and surprises on the way engage me in a new and fresh way of 'seeing.'"

Malanga is the author of a dozen books of poetry and four books of photography that span nearly a 45-year period. His most recent books are "No Respect: New & Selected Poems 1964-2000' and "Screen Tests Portraits Nudes." His work has appeared in Poetry, Partisan Review, The Paris Review and The New Yorker.

"This work is really a kind of veiled autobiography," said the artist of the 26 pieces in the show, which features photographs of the cats he's known, and that have influenced him, during the last three decades. The earliest work in the exhibit dates from 1972 and features a farm cat in Wales.

"I've taken these photographs all through my career. Over 30 years I've accumulated these images and really, until I decided to do this show, I didn't realize how many pictures I had. Malanga explained that he started making images of cats in much the same way anyone would take photographs of their pets. "Not all the photographs are of my cats, but I think I took the first picture of my own cat in 1974. I suppose it's just natural that as a photographer you just start exploring all the possibilities.

"As a portrait photographer - someone who photographs musicians and artists - I always look to do the portrait. And what is a portrait of a cat? A cat has no idea of self or of the camera."

Malanga explained that he found there are really four basic, traditional poses for cats: There's the headshot; the cat in repose, which is really a cat sitting on his haunches; the full-length body shot, standing or lounging; and catching the cat in some kind of activity. However, what he learned from gleaning through his collection and gathering up narratives for each of the 13 subjects in the show, was that his own life closely paralleled the lives of his feline subjects.

"This is not just a show about pictures of cats. These are basically reminders of certain things that happen in life as I was photographing them. It's a recounting of our lives together."

For example, Malanga writes this about his photograph "Eban in the golden hour. 1985": "Eban was William Burroughs' favorite cat. Whenever I'd run into Bill, he'd always ask, "How's Eban?"

It was Spring '74 that Diane and I answered a classified ad for a kitten looking for lots of love and a home. So when we arrived at this publisher's office in the Flatiron Building, out from the broom closet pranced this little black kitten 3-months tall, immediately scampering up Diane's leg nipping her on the chin.

"OK," she said. "You're coming home with us."

Diane named him Eban, punning on his all-ebony coat - actually an Oriental Shorthair hybrid. He became the central focus in our top-floor apartment which overlooked 14th Street and Julian's Billiards just a ways up. He was super-friendly and super-smart - and beautiful; a statuesque prince.

Many years later, a cystitis that had been in remission flared up out of nowhere. Suddenly, everything was breaking down all at once. Eban lost a lot of weight, but the worst of it was he had difficulty urinating. Weekly visits to the Animal Hospital for blood tests only postponed the inevitable. Twelve weeks later he passed away quietly in my bed while I was up reading.

I buried Eban behind Jerry Martin's barn in the Berkshires, wrapped in his favorite Indian blanket; it was autumn, 1986. A year later I went to visit, but everything was pretty much overgrown, and there were no visual markers that I could remember."

A number of noted writers have best summed up Malanga's contributions in poetry and photography. Included among them, Robert Creeley in a testimonial to the Academy of American Poets had this to say:

"Now and again a poet is found who is a complex of many capabilities and patterns, all relating but none so isolating in its practice that the one is lost to the other. I have marveled for years at Gerard Malanga's articulate endurance as a poet--and also as a photographer of singular power. He has moved with deftness and great authority in the various worlds of art and pop, and never lost either his wits or his footing. In short, he reminds me as do few others of what poets might be in a common world if only they could or would."

Among the many exhibits of Malanga's abroad over the years, an entire wall was given over to his photographs in the 2001 exhibition, The Pop Years at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Malanga's photographs have also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times obits, Vanity Fair, Vogue Italia, Rolling Stone and most recently in The Paris Review 50th anniversary issue; he was the first photographer to be published in The New York Review of Books.

Gerard Malanga lives with his three cats, Sasha, Zazie and Xena, in Brooklyn, New York.

To see more about Gerard Malanga, visit www.gerardmalanga.com. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of work will benefit Animalkind, Inc. of Hudson.

In "Form," Arnaud has gathered a section from recent work featuring common, everyday (often overlooked) objects presented in a way that can only be considered compelling. With his keen eye, a functional piece is transformed into something extraordinary.

"Because of my work (in commercial photography) I have taken an interest in form and function, and in simple objects that we look at without really seeing. Things we take for granted. In doing so, I show the power of an arm of a chair, the romance of a flower. ... The beauty of simple things."

Arnaud is known for his telling portraits of celebrities and his iconic images of some of the world's most talented musicians. In addition to his book, "Nashville: The Pilgrims of Guitar Town," Arnaud's photographs have appeared in numerous publications for the past three decades, including Architectural Digest, The New York Times and Paris Match. His work has also appeared In House Beautiful, Harpers Bazaar and InStyle.

For more information on Michel Arnaud, visit www.michelarnaud.com.