RED BANK: SELFIES KICK OFF ARTFUL WEEKEND
A selfie by Bob McKay is among the works on display in the group show FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE opening Friday at Gallery 135 in Red Bank.
Leave it to Gerda Liebmann – the Swiss-born, internationally exhibited multimedia artist (and redbankgreen Clippings correspondent) – to discern the beauty in so tawdry a device as the cellphone selfie.
Liebmann, who established Gallery 135 in the second-floor space shared by Red Bank Community Church, has employed this maybe-misunderstood signifier of 21st century life – and its cousin in succinct cinema, the Vine – as the basis for her new group show, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. Opening with a reception at 7 pm on Friday, the multimedia installation “will give viewers the opportunity to reconnect with the special intimacy and self-revelation that self-portraits uniquely offer,” she says.
“When I Was a Little Girl,” above is among the graphic and book-inspired works discussed by Kate Okeson at Brookdale’s Center for Visual Art Friday night. Mike Quon’s colorful rendering of the Dublin House, below, is among the works highlighted in a Saturday evening event at the Oyster Point Hotel.
Combining works by Liebmann, Ellen Martin, Robert J. Vanderbei, Elisabeth and Bob McKay and others with Vine vids from Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, Japan and Kuwait, the effect is to rescue the art of the self-portrait from the “narcissism and exhibitionism” of the typical Facebook fish-lips snapshot, Liebmann says.
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made continues through the weekend, with additional exhibit hours on Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 3 pm. Call Liebmann at (732) 687-3580 for more info.
Also tempting the art-hungry eyeballs on the greater Green this weekend…
A visual artist and educator at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School, Kate Okeson has specialized in words, print and “the book as construct” in crafting a body of works that “frequently address otherness, queerness, and are a critique on experiences that are normalized in our culture,” she says.
Having recently expanded her view of “book arts” into video, performance and installation, Okeson visits the Center for the Visual Arts Gallery at Brookdale Community College as part of the school’s Visiting Artist Program on Friday to discuss her creative process in a 7 pm event for which additional information can be obtained by calling (732)224-2520.
The artist returns next Friday, May 2, for a 6 pm appearance at Canvas Studio Art in Rumson, where she’ll spotlight her book-related art and conduct a workshop designed to “guide artists in creating their own personal narrative in book form,” from 12 to 3 pm on Saturday, May 3.
Before heading to Brookdale CVA, stop in at the Monmouth Museum (adjacent to the Brookdale Performing Arts Center) for the opening reception of the latest in the New Jersey Emerging Artists series, a display of pencil and charcoal portraits by Hackensack-based Alphonso Dunn. It’s a fascinating collection of faces, the most striking of which pair the (mostly unsmiling) adult subjects with the colorfully crayoned dreams and nightmares of children’s art. Reception’s on Friday from 6 to 8 pm, and the show remains on display during regular Museum hours through May 25.
Also on Friday, the Guild of Creative Art in Shrewsbury plays host to its annual group show of works by students of Red Bank Regional High School. Several of the artists will be on hand for the opening reception from 6 pm to 8 pm, and the exhibit continues during regular gallery hours through May 7.
The late afternoon and early evening of Saturday, April 26 brings graphic designer and illustrator Mike Quon back to the Oyster Point Hotel, where his bold brushwork visions of “Red Bank landmarks, streetscapes and favorite locations” are currently on display at in an exhibit of “dynamic and colorful new paintings on canvas, watercolors, works on paper, mixed media, collage and drawings.”
The son of a golden-age Disney animator (and student of Pop Art mover and shaker Ed Ruscha), Quon will be joined by veteran newspaperwoman Eileen Moon in a “Landmarks and Legends” event that finds the author of Legendary Locals of Red Bank reading from her collection of historical and contemporary profiles that spans the show people and shopkeepers, the politicians and professionals, the vivid personalities who gave Red Bank its unique character. The event runs from 4 to 6 pm — and you can read more about Moon and those Legendary Locals, right here on redbankgreen.
From the Oyster Point, take it downtown to Christine Zilinski’s Salon Concrete, where the salon owner teams with restaurateur and chef Marilyn Schlossbach of Kitschens Hospitality Group for a Saturday evening of spring cuisine samplings, hair technique demos and the surfboard print artworks of Schlossbach’s husband and business partner, artist and avid surfer Scott Szegeski. The 6 pm event benefits the nonprofit Thousand Locks Charity Hair Drive — and you can read all about it here, on the All Good pages of redbankgreen.
