Arts

Art Shows

Latest Show:

It Was That Way When I Found It

Artwork by Richard Rockford

DECEMBER 15, 2021 - MARCH 9, 2022

Artist Statement

Working alone in unusual antiques means you see a lot of things. You are drawn to colors and surfaces you like. The experiences of hunting and gathering have great influence. Saving fragments of things of low dollar value but high beauty gives me a way to relive, transform, and share.

Artist Bio

Richard Rockford uses his Clarence home/studio, reliving in art the years he combed old factories, salvage yards, dumpsters, and flea markets while gathering the old, overlooked beauty around us. He opened his first antique shop in Toronto. Returning to the United States in 1976, he landed in Clarence and operated Clarence Hollow Antiques until 2020. The antiques operations included American painted furniture, folk art, advertising and graphic design history, American Indian arts, early industrial furniture, and vintage printing machinery and wood type.

PAST SHOWS

List of 22 items.

  • Paula Sciuk September 1-November 22, 2021

    "Interruption" Artwork by Paula Sciuk

    September 1, 2021 – November 22, 2021

    FROM THE ARTIST:

    Immersed into the pure and corporeal landscape of organic shapes and sweeping vistas, the meaning of place begins to change

    Present time is suspended in the sacrosanct prose and poetry of an archaic Norse Viking culture, as I am pulled into the glowing and luminous atmosphere of oblique light

    Dalalaeda descends and recedes, thickly diffused, creeping, enveloping and disorienting then quietly vanishing into the misty fells and bracken from whence it comes without notice

    A lone whimbrel drums its dawn wings suggesting an almost imperceptible and unique discourse

    A palette of vivid, multicolored hues beckons me - velvet jet black punctuated with caramelized ochre, mercurachrome pinky orange and neon yellow, titanium white, smoky gun metal intermingled among muted shades of milky slate blue, silver sage, aubergine, claret and emerald green

    I am intensely aware of how deeply connected I am to a land that explodes without warning as I witness the earth rhythmically breathing, bending air through tilted sky

    My skin quivers, tingling as the earth trembles then shudders, very much alive, speaking its own voice as the pungent yet fleeting aroma of freshly simmering, scorched and bruised terrain floods my senses

    I feel the unfolding of emotion in the vast ocean within me A sensory cascade, fully amplified

    Each of these sublime moments collectively informs my work


    ARTIST BIO:

    Paula Sćiuk, a native Western New York multidisciplinary artist, began refining her visual and conceptual vocabulary at the State University College of New York at Buffalo, where she studied design, painting and sculpture, completing a BA in Design. Since 2007, her large scale photographic images have been shown in numerous exhibitions throughout New York State and at the Louvre, Paris, France; Times Square, New York City; and Scope, Miami, Florida. Her works are included in the permanent collections of the Burchfield Penney Art Center and Roswell Park Cancer Institute among other public, corporate and private collections.
  • Nichols School Class of 2021 May 7-June 9, 2021

    "Continuance" was the exhibit of artwork from seniors in the Nichols Class of 2021.

    ARTISTS' STATEMENT:

    The work comprising Continuance was made by the Nichols Class of 2021 over the course of this year. A multimedia show with pieces from twelve different artists, there is no one narrative running through the work. 2020 and 2021 have, however, been marked by disappointment for all of our class; in the face of it, students have continued to create, and this show is the embodiment of that. The Charles Balbach Award is given to a Nichols senior every year, and this year’s recipient Alex Aubrecht’s pieces highlights the show.

    Nichols artists are grateful for the art programs, resources, and teachers we have. We hope this show will become a facet of the Nichols senior experience and that it will continue for many years to recognize the work of the talented artists in our community.

    This show was curated by seniors Ted Chambers '21 and Lauren Radford '21 during their Independent Study on the Nichols Collection.

    Artists Featured
    Holly Arrison '21
    Alex Aubrecht '21
    Kiki Greeley '21
    Tristan Madden '21
    Abby Marzec '21
    Alex Musielak '21
    Grace Rauch '21
    Matt Roman '21
    Shea Ryan '21
    Noah Stabler '21
    Emma Stephen '21
    Julia Yohe '21

  • Adam Weekley September 14, 2020 - January 8, 2021

    "Rapt" artwork by Adam Weekley

    September 14, 2020 – January 8, 2021

    FROM THE ARTIST:

    The work comprising Rapt deals with issues of absence and isolation. A loose narrative exists in the drawings implying the aftermath of an ambiguous event, constructed from a series of hyper-gendered artifacts and nondescript environments. Using acrylic, gouache and marker, I have constructed a visual vernacular in which I play with subdued value, color and process. 

    ARTIST BIO:

    Adam Weekley is a multimedia artist living in Buffalo. Weekley graduated from the MFA program at the University at Buffalo where his grew from two-dimensional drawings and paintings to include sculpture and large-scale installation. He has continued to develop a body of work that comments on social and political concepts through creation of drawings, paintings, spaces and objects that often play with artifice and the hyper-real.
  • Nando Alvarez-Perez January 21, 2019 – April 12, 2020

    "Eternal Flame" artwork by Nando Alvarez-Perez

    November 8, 2019 – January 12, 2020
    An opening reception will be held on November 15th from 5:30 - 7:30 pm

    ARTIST STATEMENT
    Eternal Flame is an exhibition inspired by #VSCOgirls, nostalgia, and the eternal recurrence of consumer trends. Made with Nichols students in mind, the exhibition focuses on the earliest of adolescent aesthetic encounters: the whisper of the infinite in a "stussy-S", the grim reality of a lucky rabbit’s foot, the beauty of a good boondoggle.

    The exhibition includes photos and drawings covered in doodles, sketches, patterns, and stickers. The works are pierced and accessorized with drooping chains that are bejeweled with charms, keychain bling, Croc Jibbetz, jewelry, scrunchies, boondoggle, and Tamagotchis. Students are invited to keep the digital pets alive through the exhibition. The digitally manipulated and accessorized pieces sit atop wallpapered photographs. Additionally, in several windows are doodles lasercut into acrylic. As the sun shines through the windows, the pieces and the hallway will change throughout the day.

    ARTIST BIO
    Nando Alvarez-Perez is an artist and educator based in Buffalo, NY. In 2014 he graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute where he was awarded the Master of Fine Arts Fellowship in Photography. Since then his work has been exhibited throughout the Bay Area and internationally, most recently at the Drake Hotel in Toronto and as part of the inaugural edition of the Radial Survey biennial at the Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh, NY. He has taught at the California College of the Arts, the Visual Studies Workshop, and Alfred University. He is the co-founder and co-director of The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art and Editor-in-chief of Cornelia magazine.
  • Elizabeth Leader November 8, 2019 – January 12, 2020

    "A RISING TIDE" artwork by Elizabeth Leader

    November 8, 2019 – January 12, 2020
    An opening reception will be held on November 15th from 5:30 - 7:30 pm

    ARTIST STATEMENT
    A Rising Tide is a series of artworks focused on our waterways and the damage we are inflicting on our rivers, lakes and oceans. Our mistreatment of water is an issue that keeps growing in importance as water becomes more polluted for all living creatures around the globe.
    The surface of water, as it reflects the sky, can appear so beautiful, unlimited and deceptively clean. With imaginative realism, I try to visualize the dangers underneath the surface that cannot always be seen. This includes the plastic debris collecting and swirling endlessly in the gyres of the oceans. I also illustrate the man-made objects dumped indiscriminately into our local waterways. Also included in this exhibit is a set of small watercolor portraits of Niagara River fish species now sharing their environment with microbeads.
    Protection of the planet is the central issue of our time. People around the world are working on different aspects of this multi-faceted problem. Scientists, environmentalists, businesses, politicians, artists and student activists all have their part to play. We are all needed to raise consciousness and provoke action.

    ARTIST BIO
    Born in Boston, Massachusetts. Elizabeth received her BFA degree at Massachusetts College of Art. She moved to Upstate New York to attend the Rochester Institute of Technology. After earning her MFA degree, she happily settled in Buffalo, working as an art instructor and graphic designer. Elizabeth has exhibited her art from Cape Cod on the East Coast throughout the ‘Rust Belt’ and as far west as Alaska and Hawaii. Portions of her work traveled around the country with the Smithsonian’s ‘Gyre, the Plastic Ocean’ exhibition. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Everson Museum in Syracuse, the Roswell Park Cancer Institute of Buffalo and the Aquarium of Niagara Falls, among others, as well as private collections throughout the United States and internationally. Her work is also visible at www.elizabethleader.com.
  • Muhammad Zaman September 4 – November 1, 2019

    "Legibility vs Readability" artwork by Muhammad Zaman
    September 4 – November 1, 2019

    ARTIST STATEMENT
    I am an Urban Artist specialized in Arabic calligraphy. Over the years I have developed a personal style that incorporates three different languages that make up my identity: English since I live in the USA, the Bengali, the language of my fatherland, and Arabic which is the language of the religion I belong to. Since childhood, I was always fascinated by languages, lettering, and calligraphy of different parts of the world. Now, as a Muslim in the USA, I see a lot of negativity towards our tradition but I always look for ways to give some positive message to people through my art. My aim is to inspire people to share the same place and learn from each other in harmony and mutual understanding. I am also part of commongroundsrtists.com which is an interfaith organization that promotes peace and allows diverse groups of people from all spectrums to come together for the arts. Although my works contain words in three different languages, there is always at least one recognizable word. This makes the audience curious to ask and decode the message, and this led them to a deep connection with my art. Even if I use ancient techniques and universal messages of peace, I keep going trying new shapes and colors to present my art to the world with a modern look. My paintings are mostly acrylic on canvas or wood, but I’m always experimenting with materials and textures.
  • 2019 Parent Art Show April 8 – June 12, 2019

    2019 Parents Art Show
    April 8 – June 12, 2019
    An opening reception will be held on April 10th from 5 pm-7 pm

    We are celebrating the artistic talents of our parent community!
    This exhibition features works from Nichols School parents ranging from professional artists to casual hobbyists. Mediums include charcoal, photography, oil, watercolor, mosaic tile, metal, pencil and acrylic. Exhibiting artists include Rohini Bhalla, Andrew Chambers, Chelsy Collins, Rajitha Mallela, Dana Mauser, Jennifer Potter and Andrea Villafuerte.
    The show will run from April 8th – June 12th. An opening reception will be held on April 10th from 5 p.m. - 7 p.m.
    All questions can be directed to Kari Achatz, Middle School Art Teacher, at kachatz@nicholsschool.org.
  • Tricia Butski "Monuments of our Time" January 28, 2019 - March 17, 2019

    "LIKENESS"
    artwork by TRICIA BUTSKI

    JANUARY 28, 2019 - MARCH 17, 2019
    Nichols School Gallery at the Glenn and Awdry Flickinger Performing Arts Center
    Reception for the Artist is on February 8 from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

    ARTIST STATEMENT

    Through drawings rendered in charcoal and ink, my recent work examines issues related to memory by exploring its limitations and aestheticizing the instability inherent in portraiture. The work allows the viewer to enter the subconscious space between remembering and forgetting. The figures and faces, which have been distorted through a repetitive layering process, manipulate our sense of familiarity. The original image becomes fragmented through this process, a conceptual procedure that corresponds to the experience of forgetting the semblance of the face, the body, and the subject.
    Through distortion and fragmentation, the figures take on a monstrous form. The familiarity of the face evokes comfort while simultaneously rousing a sense of distress. This creates an intermediary form that inhabits a space both real and imagined. The resulting image is neither entirely original nor fully invented, taking form as a realistic rendering of a fleeting moment. By challenging the boundaries between representation and abstraction, and questioning the relationship between fluctuation and constancy, the works become entangled and disordered, mirroring the viewer’s innate desire for clarity and their proclivity for drawing meaning out of partiality.
    Tricia Butski is an artist and educator living and working in Buffalo, NY. Trained in drawing and oil painting, she holds a BFA from Fredonia State University (‘13) and an MFA from the University at Buffalo’s Department of Art (‘15). She is currently a Resident Artist at Buffalo Arts Studio and an Adjunct Instructor at Erie Community College City Campus and Fredonia State University, teaching foundation courses in drawing, painting, 2D design, and digital art. Butski has exhibited her work throughout Western New York. Her recent solo exhibitions include ‘Fathom’ at Revolution Gallery, ‘Fugue State’ at Genesee Community College, ‘New Work by Tricia Butski’ at The Cass Project, and ‘Semblance’ at Buffalo Arts Studio. Butski recently co-taught the Buffalo Public Schools Mural Arts Program (2017-18), leading the students in painting “The Art of Labor” murals on Clinton Street in Buffalo, NY (’17) and another mural project created in collaboration with local students for the Buffalo Hispanic Heritage Council, titled “From One Home to Another/ De Un Hogar A Otro,” in the Niagara Street Corridor (’18).
  • Yola Monakhov Stockton "Monuments of our Time" November 16, 2018 - January 13, 2019

    "MONUMENTS OF OUR TIME"
    photographs by YOLA MONAKHOV STOCKTON

    NOVEMBER 16, 2018 - JANUARY 13, 2019
    Nichols School Gallery at the Glenn and Awdry Flickinger Performing Arts Center
    Reception for the Artist is on December 6 from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

    ARTIST STATEMENT

    Monuments of Our Time is a photographic exhibition in three parts.

    With Post-Photography, the artist creates recording mechanisms from cardboard boxes. Loaded with darkroom paper and perforated with pinholes, the boxes glimpse surrounding views, as they peregrinate among post offices, mail trucks, and delivery points. Authorless and automatic, the unique prints produced by this process recall early-twentieth-century Soviet Constructivism, an apex of expressive freedom and Utopian optimism in the defunct nation where the artist was born.

    In another series, the artist creates a visual diary in her adopted city. As an observer sensitive to social-documentary concerns, she catalogues its vernacular voices, public avowals, personal and humorous moments, and testaments to resilience. Rendered through color film and a handheld camera, these photographs trace the crimson contours of the city’s Phoenician renewal.
    Finally, weaving together oral and epic traditions for the titular series, the artist creates panoramic portraits of women alongside public monuments. The sculptural symbols of civic virtue, masculinity, and conquest take on new overtones in the presence of the contemporary flâneuse, who may be a refugee, student, or holder of an H1B visa. Equally, the artist envisions other totems of the civic landscape in monumental terms: the tender cultivation of a garden; a beautiful young woman waiting at a bus stop. The elongated aspect ratio of the B&W photographs, such as was favored in Japanese narrative painting, and their direct graphic approach, cast new monuments for a new story.

    Yola Monakhov Stockton is an artist working in photography, artist books, and documentary practice. She runs the Photography program at SUNY Buffalo State, where she is Assistant Professor. The Nature of Imitation, her first monograph, was published by Schilt. Her work has recently appeared in Harper’s, The New York Times, The New Yorker, among other publications, and resides in the collections of Fidelity Investments, George Eastman Museum, JP Morgan Chase, Nelson-Atkins Museum, and Smith College Museum of Art. She is represented by Rick Wester Fine Art in New York City. After receiving her M.F.A. from Columbia University, she served as Harnish Visiting Artist at Smith College, and currently lives in Buffalo with her family.

    The show is free, open to the public and sponsored by the Colby Art Fund | For Gallery hours an details please call 716.332.6300
  • Rachel Shelton, Mizin Shin, and Bob Fleming "Mirabo" August 30, 2018 - November 12, 2018

    "Mirabo" artwork by RACHEL SHELTON, MIZIN SHIN, and BOB FLEMING

    AUGUST 30, 2018 - NOVEMBER 12, 2018

    Nichols School Gallery at the Glenn and Awdry Flickinger Performing Arts Center
    Reception for the Artist on September 21
    from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
    ARTIST STATEMENT
    Mirabo brings together the work of three artists: Rachel Shelton, Mizin Shin, and Bob Fleming. Through both abstract and representational imagery, the prints on view explore the multitude of ways that people and processes are connected, as well as the future of life on earth – familiar themes for all three artists.
    With printmaking at the center of each artist’s practice, Fleming, Shelton, and Shin have distinct approaches and styles, which combine in an exhibition showcasing collaborative works between the three. Fleming and Shelton will reveal a large-scale print that has been many months and processes in the making, along with smaller works resulting from this collaboration. Prints from editions by Fleming and Shin will be on view, as well as reworked collaborations between Shelton and Shin. Also on display will be pieces made by the individual artists.
    Fleming, Shelton, and Shin have recently co-founded Mirabo Press in Buffalo, an editioning and printmaking workshop.

    The show is free, open to the public and sponsored by the Colby Art Fund | For Gallery hours an details please call 716.332.6300
  • Kari Achatz "Alluring Abandonment" March 26, 2018 - June 10, 2018

    Kari Achatz
    "ALLURING ABANDONMENT"

    MARCH 26, 2018 - JUNE 10, 2018

    Nichols School Gallery at the Glenn and Awdry Flickinger Performing Arts Center
    Reception for the Artist on April 18
    from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
    ARTIST'S STATEMENT:
    The neglected places in this world are not the first we think of when we think of beauty, but if we look, instead of just see, we can find beauty and wonder. Through her artwork, Kari Achatz takes us along as she explores the Buffalo Central Terminal and Buffalo Grain Silos through colors, texture, secret spaces, and altered perspectives. Achatz's large-scale photographs and photo sculptures hint at the essence of what once was in these fascinating abandoned spaces, telling the story of their past and revealing a forecast for their more re-envisioned future.
  • Robert Lynch and Matthew SaGurney "PEANUT PUNCH LEASURE LAMPS." January 5, 2018 - March 19, 2018

    Robert Lynch and Matthew SaGurney
    "PEANUT PUNCH LEASURE LAMPS."

    JANUARY 5, 2018 - MARCH 19, 2018

    Nichols School Gallery at the Glenn and Awdry Flickinger Performing Arts Center
    Reception for the Artist on January 30, 2018
    from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
    ARTIST'S STATEMENT:
    Robert Lynch and Matthew SaGurney have been collaborating on artworks since their Buffalo State years in the mid to late 90's. They share an interest in the absurd and the ridiculous nature of our contemporary society. It's always been a game for them to make each other laugh at their artwork. They challenge each other to shine a light on the foolish treasures around us. To pay close attention to the smallest details of our experiences. To expose the ludicrous at every chance.
  • Missy Kennedy Cleary "Maybe Tomorrow" November 17, 2017 - January 15, 2018

    Kennedy Cleary
    "MAYBE TOMORROW"

    NOVEMBER 17, 2017 - JANUARY 15, 2018

    Nichols School Gallery at the Glenn and Awdry Flickinger Performing Arts Center
    Reception for the Artist on December 6, 2017
    from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
    ARTIST'S STATEMENT:
    Missy Kennedy Cleary has been a professional photographer for the past thirty years. She attended Rochester Institute of Technology where she earned her BFA in Photo Illustration. She is the owner of Missy Kennedy Photography. Maybe Tomorrow is the culmination of six years of photographing animals for the SPCA's adoption website.
  • Adam Zyglis "Drawing a Reaction" September 1 - November 9, 2017

    Adam Zyglis
    "DRAWING A REACTION"

    SEPTEMBER 1, 2017 - NOVEMBER 9, 2017

    Nichols School Gallery at the Glenn and Awdry Flickinger Performing Arts Center
    Reception for the Artist on October 19, 2017
    from 6 - 8 p.m.
    ARTIST'S STATEMENT:
    Adam Zyglis is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for The Buffalo News, his hometown newspaper. In August 2004, Zyglis became the paper’s staff cartoonist at just 22 years old. Since then, his cartoons have become syndicated through Cagle Cartoons and have appeared in publications including The Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, The New York Times and Los Angeles Times.
  • Alumni Art Exhibition: "Green Vortex Parade" April 10, 2017 - June 7, 2017

    Green Vortex Parade
    ALUMNI ART EXHIBITION

    APRIL 10, 2017 - JUNE 7, 2017
    Nichols School Gallery at the Glenn and Awdry Flickinger Performing Arts Center

    ARTISTS FEATURED
    • Laylah Ali '86
    • Michael Angelakos '05
    • Cory Arcangel '96
    • Ryan Arthurs '01
    • Emma Colby '02
    • Maggie Barrett '04
    • Luke Copping '99
    • Gigi Gatewood '99
    • Elliot Johnston '10
    • Falynn Koch Waugh '03
    • Neal Koch '03
    • Mitch Riter '12
    The show is curated by Emily Johnson Tucker '00. It is free, open to the public and sponsored by the Colby Art Fund.
    Artwork above by Cory Arcangel, Taurus, 2011, pencil on paper. Executed by a robotic obsolete Mutoh XP-300 Series Pencil Plotter Printer.
  • Jack Edson "Pieces; the Fabric Art of Jack Edson" January 20, 2017 - April 3, 2017

    Jack Edson
    "PIECES; THE FABRIC ART OF JACK EDSON"

    ARTIST'S STATEMENT:
    Jack Edson, librarian, quilter, collector, has been putting together the pieces, one way or another, all of his life. His work uses faces of his favorite artists, human figures from great, but overlooked, old photographs and drawings. His work is on display at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Golden, Colorado, and will be featured at the La Connor Quilt Museum. "I try to bridge a gap between Art and Craft. To make something that would usually be done one way and make it different with hundreds of pieces of cloth. I reach out to other guys who make quilts and try to inspire others to mash up this-with-that, to celebrate great artists from the past, and to put it all together."
  • Martha Marlette "Capturing Light" November 18, 2016 - January 16, 2017

    Martha Marlette
    "CAPTURING LIGHT"

    ARTIST'S STATEMENT:
    For me painting is a journey of exploration and discovery. I am embarking on a new experience with each new subject and am eager to see the details with my brush. Using line and form, then moving onto harnessing the light and its infinite effects in creating color is a joyful goal. Colors and shapes shift moment to moment and capturing a quick snap shot is work and fun. The outcome is rarely predictable but always enriching and surprising. I've learned something new along the way.

    ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:
    Martha Burns Marlette was educated at the Art Students League, Skidmore College, and The Cooper Union for the advancement of Science and Art in New York City. A lifelong painter, she works in watercolor and oil on subjects ranging from still life to landscapes and portraiture. She has exhibited at her studio in the Tri-Main building, the Garret Club, Studio Hart, and Hilbert College. Her work has also been featured at Images Gallery in Old Greenwich, Connecticut.
    She works closely with clients to create portraits of children and adults as well as homes, gardens, clubs, boats, and institutional or corporate buildings. Martha paints in her studio in Buffalo or wherever she happens to find inspiration.
  • George K. Arthur "Everyday Places" September 1 - November 14, 2016

    George K. Arthur
    "EVERYDAY PLACES"

    SEPTEMBER 1, 2016 - NOVEMBER 14, 2016

    Nichols School Gallery at the Glenn and Awdry Flickinger Performing Arts Center
    Reception for the Artist on September 27, 2016
    from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
    ARTIST'S STATEMENT:
    George K. Arthur is a native of Buffalo, New York. He has served the city for decades, most notably as a member of the Buffalo Common Council from 1970 until 1996. No matter what was going on in life, George never relinquished his passion for photography. His works have been exhibited in numerous art galleries including: Nina Freudenheim Gallery, CEPA gallery, Burchfield Penney Art Center, WNED, Buffalo Niagara Convention Visitors Bureau, Main Place, Keenan Gallery, Greater Buffalo International Airport gallery, Buffalo Science Museum, and Studio Hart. In this exhibit Western New York’s well-known buildings and some of the outstanding local and international musical artists are captured in black and white or infra-red instead of color in an attempt to give each well-known subject a different look and a greater impact.
  • Helen Murphy Quattrone "Drawings & Paintings 1964-2016" July 1 - August 12, 2016

    Helen Murphy Quattrone
    "DRAWINGS & PAINTINGS 1964-2016"

    JULY 1, 2016 - AUGUST 12, 2016
    Nichols School Gallery at the Glenn and Awdry Flickinger Performing Arts Center
    Reception for the Artist on July 21, 2016 from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
    ARTIST BIO & STATEMENT
    Helen Murphy Quattrone, landscape and portrait artist, was born in Onoville in 1921. She enrolled in the Famous Artist School in the 1950's, an illustration course established by Norman Rockwell. Helen then worked as a portrait artist for families all across Western New York. Her paintings come out of her desire to capture the beauty of particular time and place. Almost every painting in the exhibition was completed in one sitting under three hours. She improvises with her materials, often using cardboard and paper towels. In the past five years, Helen's work has undergone a few changes: she has begun a series of paintings that capture the landscape of her childhood strictly from memory.
  • Jody Hanson "Seeing Through Nature: New Mandalas" January 8 - March 16, 2016

    Jody Hanson
    Seeing Through Nature: New Mandalas

    January 8 - March 16, 2016
    Show hours: Monday - Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
    Reception for the Artist
    Friday, January 8th from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
    Nichols School Gallery at the Glenn and Awdry Flickinger Performing Arts Center
    1250 Amherst St., Buffalo, NY

    In this exhibit, Jody Hanson shares new work utilizing the Cyanotope process. These prints incorporate natural materials such as pressed leaves, flowers and seeds. Employing the basic design concept of a Mandala, the artist has created meditative focal points of pattern, energy and radial balance using preserved elements from nature.
    The show is free and open to the public and sponsored by the Colby Art Fund.

    The Colby Fund provides income to promote and enhance the arts at Nichols School and provides some funding to assist with exhibitions and guest artists and special programs for the benefit and education of our students.
  • Ruth McCarthy "Stillness and Sanctuary" September 1st - November 8th, 2015

    Ruth McCarthy

    "STILLNESS AND SANCTUARY"

    ARTIST'S STATEMENT:
    My work has through the years taken a broad range of forms. Undirected in my youth, I developed a taste and talent for drawing, weaving, pottery, and Native American textiles before ultimately gravitating towards the fine arts in adulthood. My early commercial pursuits were mostly in the decorative painting arts for private clients who sought specific treatments of glazing, trompe l'oeil, thematic murals and the like. I continue to receive commissions for such work in homes and businesses ranging from New York, Florida, Connecticut, Cape Cod, and Nantucket and beyond.

    In recent years, I have been working in oils on canvas and board using a limited or so-called "dead" palette of colors. I have employed such medium in public works locally such as Gilda's Clubhouse and the recently opened Wendt genealogical center at Forest Lawn.

    Landscapes on display here, compounding realism with a blur of dreaminess, are my personal favorites; permitting color and my imagination to run riot and giving my works a somehow placeless character.

    I maintain a studio for viewing and consultation: Loft No. 553, the Tri-Main Center, 2495 Main Street, Buffalo, New York 14214, 716.870.7062
  • Mark McLoughlin "Stolen Souls, Willing" November 13, 2015 - January 4, 2016

    Mark McLoughlin
    "STOLEN SOULS, WILLING"

    ARTIST'S STATEMENT:
    The pinhole camera represents a retreat from the wealth of options available in modern photographic technology. It is an exercise in restriction, a deliberate paring-down of the image making process. Using a hand-built camera with paper as a negative returns the medium to its nascent period of simple light gathering.
    For the series Stolen Souls, Willing, I constructed a large pinhole camera that would accommodate a 20x16 inch paper negative. Each sitter was asked to position him/herself in front of the camera for fifteen minutes (this exposure time was one part pun, one part trial and error). Studio lighting and backdrops were kept intentionally minimal. The subtle movements of each sitter over the long exposure time, combined with the inherent softness of the pinhole format, cancelled out the sharp detail normally associated with formal portrait of photography.
    The resulting contact-print positives suggest something beyond a mere likeness, the energy of each person contributing to the erasure of their form, expanding into a notion of the spirit. The series title refers to the belief (antiquated, yet still extant in certain parts of the world) that the act of taking someone's photograph would steal their soul.
     
    ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:
    Mark McLoughlin was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. His early life was influenced by the abundance of Asian culture in the Pacific Northwest (in particular, the Fuller Collection at the Seattle Art Museum). After a stint in the Navy he enrolled in college, eventually earning a BFA (cum laude) in printmaking from Cornish College of the Arts in 1986. Working as an assistant to the artist Gary Hill, he traveled to the Tokyo Video Festival, electing to stay on in Japan after the Festival closed. McLoughlin lived and worked in different parts of the country over the next 3 years, exploring many facets of Japanese traditional and contemporary arts.
    Upon his return to Seattle, McLoughlin began to produce his own art in earnest while spending an additional 5 years as an assistant to Hill. His awareness of current trends in contemporary art was broadened by many trips throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan, installing Hill's work. On one such trip, McLoughlin saw Ed Ruscha's painting, High Speed Gardening.The ironic message helped inform his decision to abandon the burgeoning digital media explosion in favor of pursuing more simplified, temporal ways of expression.
    McLoughlin's next move was to New York City, where for 12 years he supported himself by working as a freelance art installer at a variety of venues including the Guggenheim, Whitney Museum, and Japan Society Gallery. He continued to produce and exhibit work exploring themes of time, memory, and process, and was included in two group exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum.
    In 2007, he moved to Buffalo with his wife, Jody Hanson, and young son, Parker. They are all active members in the arts community.

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