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Off-Hour Gallery Visits, and Pick-Ups by appointment - C: 845-505-6040

January 13 - June 30, 2024

Opening Reception, Saturday, January 13, 3-5p.m.

Meet-the-Artist/Polly Law: Sunday, March 10, 2-4p.m.

Meet-the-Artist/William Underhill: Sunday, April 28, 2-4p.m.


In the Main Gallery:

POLLY M. LAW: New & Recent Work

In the Solo Gallery:

WILLIAM W. UNDERHILL (1933-2022): Cast Bronze Vessels

In the Holdings Gallery: Our 26th Anniversary Salon & Sale:

Landscape - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media

Our first exhibit of the new year is a fabulous combination of artists and media. Featured in the main gallery is a new exhibition of bricolage and collage by New York artist Polly M. Law. Her most recent solo show at the gallery was focused on several thematic series of large bricolage assemblages. This current show will include similar work and a completely new body of detailed collages, which materials have been sourced by found and purchased bits and pieces - from fragments of Law's printmaking to feathers and other natural objects. Polly will offer a paint-paste demonstration with her Meet-the-Artist talk Sunday, March 10, 2-4p.m.

The solo gallery is focused on the lovely hand-cast bronze vessels by New York sculptor William W. Underhill (1933-2022). The gallery is very proud and fortunate to showcase this rarely seen work. The sculputers in exhibit were most recently on view at the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum (2022) at Alfred University as part of the artist's first major retrospective. He was born in Berkeley, CA, and received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in art at Cal Berkeley. Underhill began his tenure as Associate Professor of Sculpture at Alfred University in 1969. Sarah Underhill (William's daughter) and Brian Oglesbee (fine art photographer and friend) will present a program Sunday, April 28, 2-4pm.

To top of this steller offering of artwork, the gallery is celebrating its 26th Anniversay year with a group exhibiton and sale in its holdings gallery - a splendid treasure trove of paintings, photography and mixed media work by the extensive stable of gallery artists.

Polly M. Law - Narrative Statement

My earlier work is paper dolls with deep personal issues. I use humble materials - illustration board, acrylic paint, buttons, wire - to achieve elegant and sophisticated effects. I manipulate the forms and employ pattern, rich color and gesture to explore myths of deep time and current self. The act of sewing the pieces together and adding sewn embellishments puts the work into the realm of the other.

"(S)titches act by forming visible and often ceremonious attachments between materials in order to aggrandize, embellish, assert and layer authority, or swathe an object in textiles as if it were a relic."

"(T)he person wielding the needle and thread has the authority to do so, and effects a change in the world by transforming an object: making it larger, making it contain new elements, causing its increase in dimensionality (usually changing it from a two-dimensional object into a three-dimensional one), forcing a new ritualistic use upon it, and reframing it. Stitching often calls attention to itself as a means of attachment, as if the ritualized form of attachment were being showcased in the resulting object." Sewing as Authority in the Middle Ages by Kathryn M. Rudy, Zeitschrift fur Medien-und Kulturforschung, Vol.6:1 (2015).

The female figure is my usual vehicle for expression. The female hand wields the needle, knife, and paintbrush; and that hand and mind shape the landscape my figures inhabit. The figures themselves are inwardly-focused though their gaze may be disconcertingly direct. Often they chafe at the constraints of mode but who does not also wish for the rustle of silk in their life? The figures stand proud of the backgrounds to achieve a flat/3D effect- turning the frame into a doorway, each piece a portal through which to glimpse private dramas. My work has been favorably compared to that of Joseph Cornell but in fact has been more influenced by the animation work of Jan Svankmajer, the luscious patterns, textures and graphic forms of Eyvind Earle, the eerie dioramas of the Cray Brothers and the anonymous work of my sister Seamstresses of times long past or never existed.

I have been working in my bricolage style since 2000. My artwork is represented by galleries in Provincetown, MA; Rhinebeck, NY; and Hudson, NY; and in numerous private collections.

William W. Underhill (1933-2022)

William Underhill was a sculptor, celebrated craftsman, and emeritus professor at Alfred University, in Upstate New York. Born in California, Underhill spent his early days on the west coast, receiving his Masters in Fine Art from the University of California, Berkeley. During his time there, he studied under legendary ceramic artist Peter Voulkos, became close friends with Stephen De Staebler, worked with Buckminster Fuller, and studied with Charles Eames.

[Bio below was written by Edward Lebow and edited by Sarah Underhill]

William Underhill is one of the compelling artists and mysteries of modern American studio craft. Born, raised and educated in Berkeley, California, he emerged from the rambunctious Bay Area art scene of the early 1960s and rose to prominence as a pioneer among artists who found sculptural invention in the obsolescence of foundry work. While most of his "creative casting" colleagues turned to the foundry to produce sculptural mass, Underhilll went for volume, pursuing cast bronze and iron bowls and other vessels with unrivaled persistence, virtuosity and distinction. No other artist followed his pottery-laden route to sculptural elegance in bronze nor dove so deeply into the expressive power of hand-cast and hand-finished vessels to fulfill a deeply personal quest for beauty and wholeness.

Starting out as a do-it-yourself amateur, he evolved into a "master of the lost wax technique" wrote Lee Norndes in his groundbreaking 1969 Objects USA survey of the modern studio movement. In the early work, observed Nordnes, "Underhill molded and scratched the wax until the final bronze surface embodied all of the mystical connotations of a ritualistic object". Then, calming the gestural spontaneity of his works, he fused the Bronze Age with Bauhaus, extending the power of touch to achieve what historian and former gallery owner Garth Clark (who represented Underhill briefly in the late 1980's) called a "modernist purity of form [that] brings to mind the works of Hans Coper."

The oddity of Underhill's career was in its swing from insider to outsider. Well known through exhibitions and published articles in the 1960s, he turned to teaching at the NYS College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1969 and drifted into a productive semi-obscurity. He followed no trends. He shied away from the grip and grin essential to academic, cultural and market success. And, beyond a flurry of efforts to exhibit and sell works in the late 1980s, he showed little interest in letting go of the vessels he had made. Instead, he turned his western New York studio into  a museum-like island of invention. By the time he died at 88, he had filled it with a symphonic range of forms exploring the geometry of beauty.

Underhill didn't calculate his way to their beauty or sense of perfection. He felt his way forward, applying the intuitive power of aesthetics that Poincarre' once characterized as invention's "delicate sieve". Proceeding without it, said Poincarre', "would be to forget the feeling of mathematical beauty, of the harmony of numbers and forms, of geometric elegance." In his lifelong pursuit of that elegance, Underhill reconciled the opposites and tensions in feelings and forms by telling the tale of two pots, both their interiors and exteriors. "I think you start out as a lyric poet of spontaneous, flowing, extemporaneous expressions," he said. "You start something and you don't even know how it's going to end. And as you get older, you go toward the epic poet", taking the time to tell the methodical tale, the long story. "I think you do that in art. I certainly have."

Public Collections: American Craft Museum, NYC; Burchfield-Penney art Center, Buffalo, NY; Philip Morris Company, Richmond, VA; Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA; Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI; Cooper-Hewitt Museum, NYC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Johnson Wax Collection of American Crafts, Racine, WI; Oakland Museum of Art, Okland, CA; City of San Francisco, CA; Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden; Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, Alfred, NY.

Gallery's 26th Anniversary Exhibit and Sale

Finally, the gallery celebrates its 26th year with a beautiful group exhibt featuring samples of work by artists Christie Scheele, David Eddy, Karl Dempwolf, Robert Trondsen, Ragellah Rourke, Arnold Levine, James Coe, Judith Hoyt, Yale Epstein and Tim Rowan. More works by artists represented in the gallery are on view & purchase in the holdings gallery.

AUGUST 19 - DECEMBER, 2023

Opening Reception, Saturday, August 19, 5-7pm.

Holiday Reception, Sunday, December 17, 2-4pm.

"Three Solo Exhibits"

  • JUDITH HOYT (NY) - Sculpture & Mixed Media
  • DAVID THELEN (NY) - Paintings from the Finger Lakes Region
  • KARL DEMPWOLF (CA) - Plein Air and Studio Landscape Studies


In the Holdings Gallery - Our Fall/Winter Salon:

Landscape - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media

The gallery is thrilled to host its first exhibit of Hoyt's "flatwork" and jewelery. Judith (Judy) Hoyt has been making work with found metal and paper collage with encaustic wax for over 40 years. She was born in 1958, in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where her growing interest in making art drew her to the Art Awareness program in Lexington, New York (at age fifteen) and then to the State University of New York at New Paltz, where she earned a BFA in Printmaking in 1980.

Among the honors and awards that Judith has received are the 2003 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in crafts, and- in 2005 - the "Best in Show" award at Craft Boston. Her work has appeared in numerous books and catalogues, including the like of Altered Art by Terry Taylor, 500 Brooches and 500 Necklaces by Marthe Le Van, Found Object Art by Dorothy Spencer and Fine Art of the Tin Can by Bobby Hansson.

Judith's solo shows have been at such venues as The Works Galley (Philadelphia, PA), the Signature Shop Gallery (Atlanta, GA) and Facere Jewelry Art (Seattle, WA). Judith has participated in many group shows focused on recycled content such as Recycle, Reuse, Recreate, which traveled to several countries in Africa, and Recreation/Re-Creation at the Noyes Museum in New Jersey. She is in the collection of The Racine Art Museum, The Arkansas Art  Center, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, among others.

David Thelen hails from Livonia, NY, near the Rochester/western Finger Lakes region - both areas that speak to his sense of place and in which much of his painted subjects come from. A lifelong artist, he has studied and worked in many different art forms - wood, ceramics, sculpture, stained glass and painting. He finds sharing his love of art a vital part of his artistic life. His approach to painting incorporates a type of reversal similar to a watercolorist's process (what Thelen calls "negative painting"). Thus, his moody paintings use the dark gesso background on the canvas as the coloring for what appears black (and similar dark forms or spaces) in his subjects, while the remaining portions of the images are painted around the dark forms to create the details that an observer recognizes as "real".

Featured in this second major exhibit of Thelen's work at the gallery are his most recent paintings, which add a mottling technique over the black gesso that enlives the movement on the canvases. His subjects explore times of transition during the day - early mornings, dusk, the melancholy movements of weather and the sentinal quiet of ageing "man-mades" left to their slow ruin. Barns, farms, and the sometimes hidden-by-nature detritus of human buildings and vehicles are a theme running through the new work

The third artist in this Trio Exhibit has been a key member of the gallery's original stable of master painters. Karl Dempwolf - working out of his studio in the Los Angeles area - is a long-time signature member of the historic California Art Club and is currently on the faculty of the premier multi-arts organization, Plein Air Convention and Expo (PACE) - representing the largest assembly of plein air painters in the world. He received the 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award from PACE for his tireless contributions to his art - both for his personal work and for his commitment promoting high artistic standards within his artistic circle. Karl's work is inspired, especially, by the first generations of California Impressionist and Expressionist painters, including the likes of Wendt, Bischoff, Puthuff & Guy Rose. Many of his subjects include coastal California and its environs as well as the State's historic urban boundaries. This style of painting is rarely seen in the Hudson Valley region and the gallery is excited to host the artist's bold, dramatic, painterly work. Karl was born in Germany and spent his childhood growing up in the picturesque Bavarian countryside. At the age of fourteen he and his family immigrated to the United States. He has received degrees from California State University Northridge (BA) and the University of Southern California (MFA) with additional study at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.

This current exhibit of his work includes new on-location studies from his travels through Europe, the American southwest and, of course, rural California. This is a rare chance to see paintings from this important American painter.

(Extended through August 13, 2023)

SEPTEMBER, 2022 - May, 2023

Opening Reception, Saturday, September 24, 5-7pm.

Meet-the-Artists Conversation/Reception, Sunday, December 11, 2-4pm.

"STUNNING!"

  • Ragellah Rourke - painting
  • Thomas Sarrantonio - painting
  • Polly M. Law - bricolage
  • Christie Scheele - painting
  • Jorge Hernandez - photography
  • Saul Lambert - painting & collage


In the Holdings Gallery - Our Fall/Winter Salon:

Landscape - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media

Albert Shahinian Fine Art ends its 24th year in the Hudson Valley Region with a monumental celebration of six artists who epitomize its extensive and eclectic exhibition program. "STUNNING!" is, indeed, a feast for the eyes and a challenge for those who love to devine meaning in the things they view and encounter. This is Rourke's first showing at the gallery; Sarrantonio and Scheele have had the longest realtionship (over 20 years!) with the gallery; Law and Hernandez represented nearly a decade. Saul Lambert was a dear friend and deep-thinking painter and printmaker, whose death in 2009 is a sad spot in our gallery life. Concurrent with the flatwork in the show are ceramics and bronzes by artists Tim Rowan, Madeleine Segall-Marx, Richard Marx, Paoli Bari and Steve Clorfeine. As always, the gallery continues to offer hundreds of additional artworks in its holdings gallery.

Ragellah Rourke has been creating luminous abstract paintings for over 30 years. Working in both oil and acrylic, she gradually builds up the surface of her paintings intuitively. Her surfaces are lush worlds which encompass energetic brush strokes suspended over atmospheric backdrops. Occupying an ethereal space, there is a sense of movement in the forms and imagery in which Rourke creates a place that is based in nature, yet is altered, intensified, and poetic. These sophisticated compositions are created through chaos that never reveals a definitive narrative. Rourke was born in Upstate New York and attended Russell Sage Junior College and the University at Albany, where she graduated with a degree in Fine Arts. For the past twenty years she has lived with her family in East Berne, New York. The natural beauty of the countryside surrounding her has been a major influence on her work.

Thomas Sarrantonio studied Painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia where his teachers included Wil Barnet and Sidney Goodman. He also holds degrees in Biology and English. His paintings have been exhibited widely and he is the recipient of numerous honors including a Pollock-Krasner Award, a Visiting Artist Residency in Normandy, France and an Artist Residency Fellowship at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ballycastle Ireland. He taught Art and Art History at SUNY New Paltz for over thirty years and he maintains a studio in Rosendale, New York where he lives with his wife and children. Sarrantonio's paintings seek to mediate between realms of external perception and internal reflection. They present themselves as meditations on nature and self. Choosing humble, often overlooked subject matter, such as the overgrown grasses at the edge of a field, he attempts to translate the dynamic processes of Nature into the stasis of physical matter on a painted surface. Small works are produced directly from Nature while large paintings are studio productions that utilize memory, experience, imagination and conceptual ideas to negotiate the terrain of contemporary painting. The paintings are offered to the viewer as templates to provoke active participation in the process of seeing and quiet contemplation of the mysteries of consciousness.

Polly Law write of her work: "My work is paper dolls with deep personal issues. I use humble materials - illustration board, acrylic paint, buttons, wire - to achieve elegant and sophisticated effects. I manipulate the forms and employ pattern, rich color and gesture to explore myths of deep time and current self. The act of sewing the pieces together and adding sewn embellishments puts the work into the realm of the other."

Law was born and raised near the buckle of the rust belt in NE Ohio. She studied glassblowing and weaving in college. She worked as an illustrator for many years while living in NYC and then in the Hudson Valley of NY, where she currently resides. She developed her distinctive bricolage style in the early 2000's and began her "Word Project: Odd & Obscure Words- Illustrated" at that time, eventually publishing a book version, which is available at the gallery. She has begun exploring printmaking - silkscreen, lino-cut, and mono print/moveable collagraph. Her influences include Clive Hicks-Jenkins, Edward Bowden, and Eyvind Earle. She has abiding interests in native plants, knitting, reading, Scrabble, and drinking copious pots of Earl Grey tea (with milk). She has an abiding fear of entropy.

As a well-established modern landscape painter with a background in contemporary art, Scheele reflects her own time. Instead of idealizing the landscape for the sake of sentiment or narrative, she idealizes the images that she paints for the formal purposes of enhancing the interlocking shapes that create the composition; their softened edges; and, the color that carries modulations of surface detail within the shapes. She believe that these abstract elements can elicit joy (and provoke deeper responses) in their own right, which is a modern concept. Drawing on the lineage of the abstract minimalists and color field painters from the mid-20th century (rather than to traditional studio or plein air landscape painters) she prefers to reduce a scene to its essentials - to record what is important without distraction or visual clutter; thus, to enable the viewer to experience an "expansive, chest-opening, breath-deep kind of meditative awe" in front of the landscape. Her version of minimalism is about shape and atmospherics: to paint not just the light but the air itself, and to show how these elements affect the edges and colors - and level of abstraction - of the scenes depicted.

Historically, the gallery has focused on work by living artists and much of what is in gallery are by that group. But, as some of our artists have passsed on over the years, the gallery holdings include a treasure trove of work from the estates of artists we had represented. We are fortunate to have known these wonderful, talented people and are honored to feel their presence through their work - and, of course, to have that work available for purchase and our visitors' continued enjoyment. Saul Lambert (1928-2009) was one of those "treasures" and we are excited reprising two important series of Saul's work. While Saul's work is grounded in the abstract tradition, it is to a large extent based on religious iconography and family history. Rather than being intellectual or descriptive, it is on a personal and meditative plane, influenced by the vast dimensions of symbolic space.

Quite the opposite in influence is Jorge Hernandez's photography. Hernandez sees his role of photographer as one who seeks and communicates new insights when capturing a moment in time. It is through rigor, intentionality, creative insight, and expertise that his images work their magic. Each has been researched in advance: a site explored, equipment perfected, time light and weather considered, and the image he wants to take already imagined in his mind. In this sense, he views his process as visionary - all to capture something below the surface, to communicate a timeless universality, to reset a viewers understanding of "what he thought he already knew".

His formal approach to his craft may seem cut and dry. Yet, so much of his patient planning is open to - and in many cases dependent on - the caprices occurring at the moment a shutter is clicked. The art in his craft is in the details, in his deep understanding of light, film, and composition, and how his expression of craft is constantly aware of unrealized possibilities - all components that differentiate and qualify a photographer's style.

Of the elements that make up his approach, light is the most essential (and difficult to master). "Light reveals the unfamiliar and alters the familiar," notes Hernandez. For him, light is not only required to take a photographic image, its handling defines meaning and subject in his work. Nearly as important to him is his refusal to employ software or digital manipulation in his photography - to pursue his art through the "old fashioned" medium of film. Melding film with highest-quality optics - including panoramic lenses and cameras - and presenting work in museum mounts results in images that glow and radiate with life.

Celebrating Our Gallery's

24th Anniversary!

A Salon Exhibit & Collectors Sale

Through August 31, 2022

Landscape - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media - Estate Work

In the Main & Solo Galleries: Featured Artist is Karl Dempwolf. Selected additional

painters represented in the Salon include Gary Fifer, James Coe, Crista Pisano,

Christie Scheele, Joanna Murphy, Robert Trondsen, Thomas Sarrantonio, Leslie

Bender, Yale Epstein, David Thelen, Polly Law, Arnold Levine, Chris Albert, Chris

Metze, Cindy Dill, Christoph Zihlmann, Steven Rosenzweig, Jorge Hernandez, Olga

Poloukhine, Travis Jeffrey, Todd Germann, David Eddy and Marilyn Fairman;

bronzes by Madeleine and Richard Marx; ceramics by Tim Rowan, Steve Clorfeine and

Paola Bari.

Work coming from estates include artists Margaret Crenson, Eline Barclay,

Eric Lindbloom, Judith Lindbloom, Billy Name, Frank Cannas, Saul Lambert,

Seth Nadel, Eugene Stevens, Howard Knotts and Israel Litwak.


In the Holdings Gallery - Hundreds of wonderful artwork by gallery artists:

Albert Shahinian Fine Art begins its 24th year in the Hudson Valley Region with a monumental celebration of the many artists who have shown in its extensive exhibition program. On view in this special Salon will be the gallery's complete invemtory - the whole gallery space will become its "back room". This is a rare exhibit/event hosted by the gallery during a this important Anniversary. Directors Albert Shahinian and Joanna Hess are grateful for the continuing support the gallery has received, especially during the difficulties of the past two years. They hope this exhibit will be a bright spot and soul-feeding experience while negotiating the months of pandemic - and, give the visitor a great opportunity to take home some of that "soul food" through the purchase of artwork.

Besides the dozens of artists represented in the Salon, the gallery is featuring new landscapes by California painter, Karl Dempwolf. We are privileged to represent Karl with this mini-show of new work. Karl is a longtime member of the California Art Club and a master painter steeped in the tradition of painters including William Wendt, Franz Bischoff, Hanson Puthuff and Guy Rose. As a colorist he is more resonant with 20th Century Expressionism, and the boldness of his work is much more sympathetic to aspects of Modernism than a reprise of older styles. Also an avid plein air painter, Dempwolf exploits the scenic beauty of the California coast, its valleys, mountains, and - occasionally - urban boundaries. He continues to travel around the country to work on location at National Parks and other scenic areas.

Over the years Dempwolf has participated in exhibitions including: the Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles, the Frederick R. Weisman Museum at Pepperdine University in Malibu, the Phippen Museum in Prescott, AZ, the Carnegie Art Museum in Ventura County, CA, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, and the Pasadena (CA) Museum of California Art. Karl received a Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by Plein Air Magazine, during the 2017 Plein Air Convention & Expo in San Diego.

Historically, the gallery has focused on work by living artists and much of what is in the Salon/Sale are by that group. As some of our artists have passsed on over the years, the gallery holdings include a treasure trove of work from the estates of artists we had represented. We are fortunate to have known these wonderful, talented people and are honored to feel their presence through their work - and, of course, to have that work available for purchase and our visitors' continued enjoyment.

November 6, 2021 - (extended through) January 23, 2022:


CHRISTIE SCHEELE

"Things Past/Mining Memory"

Opening Reception, Saturday, November 6, 5-7pm.

Artist Talk/Q&A, Sunday, December 12, 2pm.

In the Holdings Gallery, First Fall Salon & Collectors Sale:

Landscape - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media

This solo exhibition of over forty oil on linen paintings by Christie Scheele springs from the artist's memories of particular places and moments in time. These memories bring a dynamism to the imagery as she paints, and the emotions present have an intensity that underlies the more apparent serenity in her work.

Over decades of painting the landscape, Scheele has been devoted to creating a universal feel, a heart-opening moment of pure existence. In "Mining Memory ' she is exploring quite specific moments of her own experiences of place, while leaving the narrative open enough to allow the viewer to bring their own associations to both the subjects she has chosen and how she has chosen to portray them. (Those subjects may include ones from the Catskills, the Hudson River, Cape Cod, Nantucket, coastal Long Island or, even, California and Ireland.)

According to Scheele, "there is no conflict with the conversation of form and content, where all of the abstract elements that coalesce into a painting are what makes the subject matter speak powerfully and directly." She speculates that all our lives and our work build on memories of what has gone before. In universalizing this thought, her paintings are specifically about how our perceptions build on memories that have created both tangled and through-lines to the present.

"Things Past: Mining Memory" opens at Albert Shahinian Fine Art on Saturday, November 6, with a reception from 5-7p.m. An Artist Talk/Reception is planned for Sunday, December 12, 2p.m., and the exhibit will run through January 23, 2022 in the gallery's Upstairs venue at 22 East Market Street, Suite 301, Rhinebeck, NY. New Winter Hours are: Thursday-Saturday, 11-5; Sunday, 12-4, and by appointment and chance. Proper face covering is required when visiting inside the gallery.

YALE EPSTEIN

"CONFLUENCES"

Opening Reception, Saturday, September 11, 5-7pm.

Artist Talk & Book Signing, Sunday, October 10, 4pm.

In the Holdings Gallery, First Fall Salon & Collectors Sale:

Landscapes - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media

The gallery resumes full operation with a major exhibition of new and recent work by Yale Epstein. The show title, "Confluences", is taken from its namesake book of photographs Epstein published as a "coffee table" book in 2020, drawing images from more than sixty years of his personal photographs. Though he is primarily a painter and master printmaker, Epstein was intrigued and fascinated by how affinity and diversity play throughout his photographs. The more that twenty artist-printed photographs on view attest to his keen eye and, in some places, keen wit. (Any of the images in the book are also available for purchase by order through the gallery.)

More significant than just showing photographs was is Yale's interest in connecting these real-time real-world images to his modern and primarily non-objective bodies of work. In this light, the exhibit is a kind of retrospective and survey - quite different from the highly specific previous exhibitions the artist and gallery have presented over the years. Here, are artist-printed photographs, works on paper, paintings, and large-format prints alongside two of his books: the 232 page anthology, "Confluences", and "The Discerning Eye", which focuses on architectural and tonalist subjects. The viewer is invited to play with the exquisite imagery and imaginative compositions of Epstein's work - finding his/her own connections and insights.

Epstein created a new series of unique mixed-media works on paper for this exhibit. The "Rebirth" series paintings are each twelve by eight inches and painted on paper rescued and repurposed from large-format prints that survived a devestating home and studio fire. Though the original prints had incurred fire and water damage, significant sections were left intact enough to be the foundation for the new work. To augment the art in the two main galleries, over sixty older works of Yale's are available to view and purchase from the Holdings Gallery. Both books are also available for purchase ($45 and $30, respectively).

ERIC LINDBLOOM (1934 - 2020)

A Retrospective IN MEMORIAM

Opening Reception, Saturday, July 10, 5-7pm.

Exhibit Curator Talk/Q&A Reception, Saturday, August 21, 5pm.

In the Holdings Gallery, Spring Salon & Collectors Sale:

Landscapes - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media

May 1 - June 27, 2021

THOMAS SARRANTONIO: "Seascapes"

Meet-the-Artist Reception, Sunday, June 13, 2-4pm.

(No Reservations Required.)


Continuing through June 27, 2021:

DAVID THELEN: "Liminal Explorations"

Meet-the-Artist Reception, Saturday, May 22, 2-5pm.

(David's event is Open and NO LONGER by appointment!)

In the Holdings Gallery, Spring Salon & Collectors Sale:

Landscapes - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media

Click HERE to Link to Thomas Sarrantonio's Page.

Click HERE to link to David Thelen's Page.

(Select additional artists from list on left.)

Thomas Sarrantonio is currently featured in a solo exhibition, "Seascapes", which runs through June 27, 2021. This is a series of shore paintings from his recent residency in Ireland and travels to Cape Cod and Long Islend. Tom has been in many solo and landscape exhibits over the years at the gallery. His work, until the recent shore pieces, has focused on intimate field paintings of the flora and views from the Wallkill/Mohank valleys in New York's Hudson River Valley.

Sarrantonio writes, "My fascination with the ocean was nurtured in Ireland, where I had an Artist Residency in 2016 for six weeks on its west coast. With views of the ocean from the studio and the cottage, I became enchanted by the ever-changing yet eternal rhythms of the sea, both comforting and terrifying.

Since my time in Ireland I have visited Cape Cod and Long Island beaches often, painting whenever possible, but mostly taking photos. Most of the paintings in this show are inspired by Cape Cod, while the largest painting, Lacken Strand, celebrates a most beautiful beach in County Mayo, Ireland. Every painting teaches me something, both about Nature and about Painting itself, and the Ocean is an inexhaustible resource for reflection and contemplation.

The show below is concurrent with Tom's.

March 27 - June 27, 2021

DAVID THELEN: "Liminal Explorations"

Painting the World Between the Shadows

Meet-the-Artist-by-Appointment Reception

is planned for Saturday, May 22, 2-5pm.

Reservations by phone, text or email via Contacts Page.


Continuing through April 25, 2021

JOANNA MURPHY: "Painting My World"

In the Holdings Gallery, Spring Salon & Collectors Sale:

Landscapes - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media

Click HERE to Link to Joanna Murphy's Page.

Click HERE to link to David Thelen's Page.

(Select additional artists from list on left.)

David Thelen is a recently-added painter to our stable of mid- and late-career artists. His inaugural exhibit at our Upstairs Galleries - "Liminal Explorations: Painting the World Between the Shadows" - opens March 27, 2021 and runs through June, 2021. A Meet the Artist by Appointment opportunity is scheduled for Saturday, May 22, from 2-5pm (call gallery to register).

Thelen currently hails from Livonia, NY, near the Rochester area. He, also, spends time in the Finger Lakes - both areas that speak to his sense of place and in which much of his painted subjects come from. A lifelong artist, he has studied and worked in many different art forms - wood, ceramics, sculpture, stained glass and painting. He finds sharing his love of art a vital part of his artistic life.

His approach to painting uses a type of reversal similar to a watercolorist's process (what Thelen calls "negative painting"). Thus, his moody paintings use the dark gesso background on the canvas as the coloring for what appears black (and similar dark forms or spaces) in his subjects, while the remaining portions of the images are painted around the dark forms to create the details that an observer recognizes as "real". His subjects explore times of transition during the day - early mornings, dusk, the melancholy movements of weather and the sentinal quiet of ageing "man-mades" left to their slow ruin.

David studied at Rochester Institute of Technology (Diploma of Fine Arts), the Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, and continues his education at the Woodstock School of Art. Prices for his work currently available at the gallery range from $300 for small unframed works on canvas to $2,500 for the largest of the oils. Most of his paintings come unframed but are ready to hang as is. The gallery is happy to arrange formal framing for clients wishing to do so.

October 29, 2020 - March 21, 2021/April 25

Two New Exhibitions:

Our 23rd Annual National Invitational Exhibition:

THE LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE 2020

James Coe - Thomas Sarrantonio - Eline Barclay - Christie Scheele - Gary Fifer


JOANNA MURPHY: "Painting My World"

In the Holdings Gallery, Anniversary Salon & Annual Collectors Sale:

Landscapes - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media

Click HERE to Link to Joanna Murphy's Page.

HERE to link to James Coe's Page.

HERE to link to Thomas Sarrantonio's Page.

HERE to link to Christie Scheele's Page.

HERE for Gary Fifer's Page.

(Select additional artists from list on left.)

And link here for a selection of paintings by Christie offered at special discount for our ongoing local food bank fundraiser.

All cast bronze sculpture in photos: Madeleine Segall-Marx & Richard Marx.

Two beautifully hung exhibits have opened at our Upstairs Galleries in Rhinebeck. Both will run (extended) through mid-March, 2021. In our main gallery, "The Luminous Landscape 2020"; in the solo gallery, "Joanna Murphy: Painting My World". Our holdings gallery will present additional wok by all of the exhibiting artists as well as an extensive offering of works by our stable of artists.

All cast bronze sculpture in photos: Madeleine Segall-Marx & Richard Marx.

Celebrating its 23rd year as a yearly national invitational exhibition of contemporary landscape painting organized by Albert Shahinian Fine Art, The Luminous Landscape 2020 features three primary exhibitors - James Coe, Thomas Sarrantonio, and Christie Scheele - and additional work by Maine artist Eline Barclay and Vermont-based artist Gary Fifer. Our holdings gallery will be open to view and purchase additional paintings by these artists and others featured in previous exhibits including: California Master Karl Dempwolf - Cynthia Dill - Marilyn Fairman - Jorge Hernandez (photography) - Arnold Levine - Crista Pisano - Robert Trondsen - Margaret Crenson - Polly Law - Yale Epstein - Seth Nadel.

In the solo gallery we present a major exhibit of new paintings by Joanna Murphy entitled "Painting My World". This is Joanna's first showing at our gallery and we are proud to welcome her to our stable of exceptional artistic 'voices'. Thirteen works are on view in the solo space and another thirteen are on view in the holdings gallery.

Joanna Murphy (photos below) sees her surroundings through the medium of paint. Her landscape paintings bear connection to the Romanticism of the Hudson River School and gestural painting of the New York Abstract Expressionists. She is inspired by land, nature, and poetry. Murphy's work balances elements of realism and dreamlike abstraction. Bold compositional rhythms are richly colored and uninterrupted. The oil paintings are queer, abstract, and intimate scenes - from the roof of her lower east side neighborhood and around her transcendentalist studio in the Catskills Mountains.

Her paintings mostly exclude actual human presence. However, in the strange shadows, dark spaces, and areas of light in windows, roofs and at the edges of the forest, are suggested an intangible - yet human - experience of life. It is a "you" that dissolves into a rhythm of the paint. With these elements, Murphy's paintings inspire a perception and understanding of her (and by extension, our) environment.

Murphy is an alumnus of the Swain School of Design in New Bedford, MA. She was influenced at Swain by painter and teacher, David L. Smith, who was a student of abstract expressionist, Hans Hoffman. Murphy also studied with Henry Hensche in Provincetown, MA. Hensche instilled in his students a profound appreciation for the beauty of nature's light and color. (Hensche studied with George Bellows, Charles Hawthorne and Cape Cod School of Art.) Murphy was awarded a grant from the Gottlieb Foundation and received an Artist Residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Manchester, VT. Her landscape murals are featured in several of the towns and private homes in the Catskill Mountains.

Sculpture in foreground: Tim Rowan, "Tray", anagama fired clay.


This Exhibition and our Summer Salon Were Extended Through October 15.

February 22 - April 26, 2020

Opening Reception - Saturday, February 22, 3-6 p.m.

DAVID EDDY

Solo Exhibiton of New & Recent Work

Larger photos of work are available by request: info@shahinianfineart.com.


LINK TO DAVID EDDY's AVAILABLE WORK

Saturday, February 22, a major solo exhibition by David Eddy opened at our Upstairs Galleries in Rhinebeck. The exhibit will run, extended (due to the pandemic) until further notice. Over forty-five works (primarily on panel) were selected for this celebration of Eddy's 17-year relationship with the gallery. Paintings were drawn from the artist's new and recent oeuvre, and include un-exhibited favorites from his personal collection. All work will be available for sale. This is David's first major exhibition since 2015 and we are looking forward to hosting this wonderful exhibit of acrylic on panel paintings.

Eddy is a self-taught painter whose talent, vision, and very hard work have paid off handsomely - both in the number and scope of gallery representation nationally and by an enduring and growing recognition of the quality and sophistication of his work. Most of his paintings center on figures, solo or in groups, and may include animals within the overall narrative of a piece. There is sometimes a child-like, naive quality to his work, but the modeling of facial expressions, the serious undertones, and the delightful complexity and subtlety of the whole speak to a creator with deep insight, expert craftsmanship and uncompromising integrity; and, also, quite a sense of humor and whimsy.

Eddy's paintings explore varying levels of abstraction and styles of narrative. While the preparatory stages of his process - he works with many layers of pigments (primarily acrylic) on panel and a ground which is periodically distressed by physical manipulation and "mistreatment" - are nearly identical for each piece, the final surface layers determine the unique narrative for each painting. A painting's subject begins to declare itself as Eddy works on the preparatory stages. (He rarely has a preconceived plan for a painting.) This sparks ideas for a larger image, story, experience, thought, or whatever, in the artist's mind and he then takes the painting to fruition/completion. His images are both self-revelatory and broadly human. Recently turned seventy, many of his creations draw on his life experiences - from former contractor, spouse and current parent to his love of surfing and shore life.

Our Gallery's

22nd Anniversary Salon Exhibit & Collectors Sale

January 16 - February 16, 2020

Celebratory Reception: Saturday, January 25, 4-6 p.m.

In the Main Gallery, 3 Featured Landscape Painters:

Gary Fifer, Karl Dempwlof, James Coe with additional work by

Crista Pisano & Christie Scheele; bronzes by Madeleine and Richard Marx,

ceramics by Tim Rowan and Paola Bari.

In the Solo Gallery, a mix of work coming from several estates - including Margaret

Crenson, Eline Barclay, Leslie Bender, Judith Lindbloom, Frank Cannas, Saul

Lambert, Seth Nadel, Eugene Stevens and Israel Litwak. New Light Boxes by Seattle

artist Bella Luz (Joline El-Hai).


In the Holdings Gallery - Hundreds of wonderful work by gallery artists:

Landscapes - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media

Our 22nd Annual National Invitational Exhibition:

THE LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE 2019

CHRISTIE SCHEELE: Atlas Project/Forms of Water

September 14 - October 17, 2019; EXTENDED through December 8!

Opening Reception: Saturday, Septmber 14, 5-8 p.m.

Mid-Show Gala Fundraiser for Mountainkeeper & Riverkeeper:

Saturday, October 12, 5-8 p.m.

*Special Interview/Q&A with Christie Scheele Moderated by Brett Barry

(of Silver Hollow Audio) Sunday, December 8, 3 p.m.


In the Holdings Gallery - Fall Salon & Sale:

Landscapes - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media

THE LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE 2019 is a major solo installation by the artist Christie Scheele, in this, the gallery's 22nd Annual National Invitational Exhibition. The Luminous Landscape: CHRISTIE SCHEELE - ATLAS PROJECT/Forms of Water opens Saturday, September 14 with a reception from 5-8p.m., and runs, extended, through December 8, 2019. A Mid-Show Gala to benefit Mountainkeeper and Riverkeeper regional conservation programs will be held Saturday, October 14, 5-8p.m. A special interview and Q&A with Christie Scheele, moderated by Brett Barry (of Silver Hollow Audio, Woodstock, NY) will take place Sunday, December 8 at 3 o'clock. (This event will be filmed for future use.) All programming is free to the public.

Water is everywhere; water is life; and water use has been politicized since the beginning of our time on earth. As water rights and fights; severe storms; droughts, fires and floods; and sea level rise become increasingly critical on much of the planet, Scheele has been catapulted - and also eased, nestled - into creating an expanded rubric for water imagery in her artwork. Her rubric focuses in on our environment and the challenges it faces, while continuing to celebrate the beauty our planet provides.

Scheele was motivated in fall of 2016 to move towards creating a new body of work (now, The Atlas Project) that included her well-known open, color-field landscapes but linked them to a complex experiential web or matirx. Three major factors came into play at just that time: a first-time artist residency on Nantucket Island; turning 60, which raised questions about where to go with her art; and profound grief over the outcome of the 2016 election, in which the huge and looming issue of climate change seemed to be "disappeared" and, by some, intentionally denied.

Forms of Water is the second installment of Christie's multi-year Atlas Project. It is significantly expanded from the first, which was mounted in Chatham last year as Atlas/Hudson River Valley. The geographical area covered by Forms of Water is much greater and the subject, itself, more complex and "personally universal"; and so, follows, the greater number and variety of the various landscape components included in this show: oil on linen paintings, small works in oil on board, watery imagery using vintage boxes, blackboards and other containers/supports, monotypes, wall text, and map collages.

The 60 plus artworks in Forms of Water map environmental themes, while also mapping the artist's body of work, revealing a web of meaning around - and between -the individual pieces that she has made. The matrix that connects all of her landscape imagery is saturated with memory, both personal and collective. To make these connections, Scheele has created a site map for the body of work on view. Maps function as aids to find our way. In this context she is mapping our bodies (which are 60% water) and many states of water: the show itself; memory and self; and threats to our environment, among other, more elusive things. While Scheele's imagery is heavily weighted toward the Northeastern United States - as that is where she has spent much of her life - she could be anywhere on the plaet exploring the same themes. Her own travel and childhood experiences are significant contributions that inform her work's matrix.

Albert Shahinian Fine Art has been working with Scheele since 2016 to mount this portion of The Atlas Project. Three years later, there seems to be even more urgency in the climate and resources arena and her installation feels timely in every way. We are hoping that our sponsorship of Mountainkeeper and Riverkeeper will be mutually beneficial and bring a tangible, active connection of the art to local action. The gallery is Christie's primary dealer in the region and is celebrating a 21 year relationship with the mounting of this extraordinary exhibit.

THE LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE has brought over 45 artists through the gallery in its 22 years as a showcase to promote a broader and deeper understanding of - and appreciation for - aspects of contemporary realism in landscape painting. Curated by Albert Shahinian, his primary focus has been to show original, thoughtful, and well-crafted work by mid- and late-career artists, whose works eschew literalism (and, especially, photorealism), sentimentalism and commercialism. Exhibitors do honor past artistic traditions - especially painting on location - and excel in their dedication to high standards of craftsmanship, technique and self-expression. Both artists and gallery aim to encourage a free and fresh appreciation of what might constitute realism in painting today.


Made One-Of-A-Kind: Uniquie Artist-Pulled Prints

Monotypes, Lithographs & Etchings Featuring:

Melissa Braggins - Ted Braggins - Louise Kalin - Pondside Press

June 29 - EXTENDED through August 25; Pondside Press through September 8)

Opening Reception, Saturday, July 6, 4-6 p.m.

Through September 8 In the Holdings Gallery:, Summer Salon & Estate Sale

Landscapes - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media

Curator's Statement

It's been twenty years since the gallery mounted a dedicated artist-pulled print exhibit and we are happy to finally present this wonderful current show featuring three individual artists and one print studio, all active within a twenty-minute drive from our Rhinebeck location. The focus of the shown work is monoprinting, with stone lithography and plate-based etching filling in the balance of the 50 or so pieces in the exhibition.

Each of the primary artists is working on very specific types of printmaking: Melissa Braggins with complex stenciling and line-work; Ted Braggins with painted regional landscapes; Lousie Kalin with a variety of non- and near-objective etchings and monotypes. Pondside Press - founded in 1985 and run by Melissa and Ted Braggins - has brought samples of work done during its decades of artist residencies, including prints by Richard Clark, Sue Coe, David Snyder, Nanette Carter, Emmi Whitehorse, Laura Battle and Alice Forman.

To complement the 'flat work', we are showing bronzes by Richard Marx, Madeleine Segall-Marx, Ceramics by Tim Rowan, and mixed-media lightboxes by Seattle artist Joline El-Hai. Our Summer Salon continues in our holdings gallery with a wonderfully diverse offering of landscapes and contemporary work by artists including Gary Fifer, James Coe, Karl Dempwolf, Christie Scheele, Tom Sarrantonio, David Eddy, Polly Law, Steven Rosenzweig, Marilyn Fairman, Yale Epstein, Margaret Crenson, Arnold Levine, Travis Jeffrey, Howard Knotts, Leslie Bender, Billy Name & Eric Lindbloom.

Melissa K. Braggins - Artist Statement

Through my artwork, I try to capture a fleeting moment of time. I am struck by a variety of images that compel me to create. Nature plays an important role in what I want to portray together with the intricate emotions and relationships between people. The constant state of flux, which is shared in both nature and in people, make it important to embrace the intensity of the moment.

The juxtaposition of color, shape, texture, line, and detail provides me with a means to add richness and depth to my images. I enjoy working with formal aspects of art as well as the emotional complexity of ideas and feelings. It is exciting to have the freedom to explore and to combine different materials and processes.

I work in a variety of media including printmaking, painting, drawing, collage, papermaking and ceramics. The pursuit of letting different processes play a role in directing how I construct my work is both challenging and gratifying; it is a constant give-and-take between the original concepts and how the work develops. I would like my work to offer a way to connect to the elusive qualities of a moment and to provide a chance to look closely at what surrounds us.

Ted Braggins - Artist Statement

My work uses the landscape as source material for expression on many different levels. The breaking of the traditional picture plane into spaces that can function as pure form while working spatially is integral to the image structure. I like to be able to take apart space and then re-create it in an altered form using line, shape, color and texture. The landscape images that I have been working with are used as metaphors for emotional qualities and are expressions of personal meaning. I believe in a psychological form of landscape that is able to represent aspects of human feeling. I also use solitary images of forms in nature such as rocks, cliffs, waves, herons or trees that have qualities to produce perplexity and contemplation.

My work describes a sense of place in the Hudson Valley, Central New York, the Adirondack Mountains or other areas where I have lived, such as New Mexico and Colorado. I am interested in depicting the long view and will often select roads, distant mountains or valleys for my subjects. Free-standing trees in full bloom or in decline with broken branches are also sources of inspiration. The single tree images evoke feelings of mystery and transformation while giving pause for reflection. I believe that the features within a view shed can show life cycles and change while providing for a personal interpretation of the landscape.

My art is produced on paper in a variety of media. Many are monotypes or combined with additional print media. I find that working in printmaking provides me with a level of control that allows for the use of strong color, layering and transparency. The works that are produced may seem flat while actually having depth and richness. Some pieces are ghost impressions that, when re-worked, develop different visual solutions than those apparent with a first-pulled print. And, other pieces may be - for example - tree images scratched into photo emulsion that create immediacy and directness with the viewer.

Louise Kalin - Narrative

After graduation from Rhode Island School of Design, Louise continued printmaking, first at the Experimental Etching Studio in Boston, and then at the DeCordova Museum School, DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts, where she was the graphic designer for the Museum until moving to New Hampshire in 1976. During her 15 years in New Hampshire, she set up another studio, while restoring and renovating an 1810 center chimney farmhouse. She also continued graphic design work, helped start a small town newspaper, and began an Artist's Studio Complex in Wilton, New Hampshire.

Louise received a MacDowell Fellowship in 1987, followed by an Artist's Residency at St. Anselm College in 1988, and was invited to show in solo and group exhibitions throughout New England. She showed stick sculptures and works on paper through McGowan Fine Arts, and received many New England commissions. She was given a one-person show at the Currier Gallery of Art by Museum Director Robert M. Doty, who purchased her work for their museum collection. Her prints were included in the US Government Art-in-Embassies Program from 1989 throughout the nineties.

From 1992 through 1997, Ms. Kalin was the Executive Director of Gallery North in Setauket, on Long Island, and a guest curator for Islip Art Museum, and other Long Island art institutions. From 1998 until June of 2004, she was Executive Director of the Rhinebeck Chamber of Commerce in Rhinebeck, New York. In 1998, she built a printmaking studio in her 19th Century barn at 40 Nevis Road in Tivoli, New York, where she works today. She has been represented by McGowan Fine Arts in Concord, NH for thirty years, and joined Longyear Gallery in Margaretville, NY in 2015. Her work is in numerous corporate and private collections in New England and New York.

Pondside Press, Rhinebeck, NY

Pondside Press is s a collaborative graphic arts workshop for artists desiring to produce hand-printed lithographs, monotypes and works of art on paper. Tamarind Master Printer Melissa Katzman Braggins and Printer, Ted Braggins, operate the studio and gallery in the Hudson River valley region of New York. Founded in 1985, the printers have produced original graphic art for over 30 years.

The workshop uses limestone and aluminum plate lithography to hand print limited editions. The printing elements are drawn directly by the artist on the printing surface, processed and proofed with their participation. Only prints which achieve the highest standards are included in the edition. The prints are signed and numbered by the artist and embossed with the shop chop marks. Complete documentation and curatorial services are provided.

The monotype medium is an excellent way for artists to build work in a series by developing an image through the use of ghost impressions and multiple drops. The exploration of new thought and ideas are well suited to this dynamic medium. While working in collaboration with a master printer an artist is able to use the medium to its fullest potential. Monotypes are an ideal way for artists to generate works of art on paper.

The workshop also collaborates with artists in the production of works of art on paper. These may include projects involving different media as well as graphic arts processes. The resulting work is often freshly unique, richly layered and complex in texture. These original works on paper may include collage elements, and hand coloring combined with passages of monotype.

Polly M. Law & Steven Rosenzweig

Bricolage, Monoprint, Scupture & Painting

March 2 - May 12, 2019 - EXTENDED through June 23, 2019

Opening Reception, Saturday, March 16, 5-8 p.m.

Mid-Show ArtTalk & Reception, Sunday, May 12, 2-4 p.m.

In the Holdings Gallery, our Spring Salon Featuring

Landscapes - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media

Polly M. Law - Narrative Statement

My work is paper dolls with deep personal issues. I use humble materials - illustration board, acrylic paint, buttons, wire - to achieve elegant and sophisticated effects. I manipulate the forms and employ pattern, rich color and gesture to explore myths of deep time and current self. The act of sewing the pieces together and adding sewn embellishments puts the work into the realm of the other.

"(S)titches act by forming visible and often ceremonious attachments between materials in order to aggrandize, embellish, assert and layer authority, or swathe an object in textiles as if it were a relic."

"(T)he person wielding the needle and thread has the authority to do so, and effects a change in the world by transforming an object: making it larger, making it contain new elements, causing its increase in dimensionality (usually changing it from a two-dimensional object into a three-dimensional one), forcing a new ritualistic use upon it, and reframing it. Stitching often calls attention to itself as a means of attachment, as if the ritualized form of attachment were being showcased in the resulting object." Sewing as Authority in the Middle Ages by Kathryn M. Rudy, Zeitschrift fur Medien-und Kulturforschung, Vol.6:1 (2015)

The female figure is my usual vehicle for expression. The female hand wields the needle, knife, and paintbrush; and that hand and mind shape the landscape my figures inhabit. The figures themselves are inwardly-focused though their gaze may be disconcertingly direct. Often they chafe at the constraints of mode but who does not also wish for the rustle of silk in their life? The figures stand proud of the backgrounds to achieve a flat/3D effect- turning the frame into a doorway, each piece a portal through which to glimpse private dramas. My work has been favorably compared to that of Joseph Cornell but in fact has been more influenced by the animation work of Jan Svankmajer, the luscious patterns, textures and graphic forms of Eyvind Earle, the eerie dioramas of the Cray Brothers and the anonymous work of my sister Seamstresses of times long past or never existed.

I have been working in my bricolage style since 2000. My artwork is represented by galleries in Provincetown, MA; Rhinebeck, NY; and Hudson, NY; and in numerous private collections.

Steven Rosenzweig - Narrative Statement

While attending art school at SUNY Purchase, Steve Rosenzweig concentrated on painting, printmaking and installation art. His thesis project was a culmination of these disciplines - a dreamlike, shadowy environment featuring a field of rooftops surrounded by a panorama of large-scale surreal paintings. Suspended above all this was an oversized floating figure - the dreaming artist. This would become imagery that would resurface time and again in his future artwork. After receiving his BFA, he moved to NYC and soon began a dream job working as a studio assistant to Red Grooms - an artist Steve had admired, and been influenced by, from an early age. There, he was involved in the fabrication, installation and creative problem-solving of a highly prolific and internationally recognized artist. Grooms' work was entirely unique - quirky, full of joy, humor and invention - characteristics that became essential to Rosenzweig's own artistic voice.

Soon after, Rosenzweig embarked on a decades-long stretch working as a Production Designer in the film, television and theater businesses. He was involved in projects spanning Independent movies, Dr. Seuss-inspired children's TV programming, to a stage production, which premiered at the 1992 Salzburg Opera Festival. This diverse and creatively challenging career supported and fortified his personal studio work. While there was a mutually beneficial relationship between these collaborations and his private work, the decision came to fully immerse himself in his studio life.

This sea change coincided with his move from NYC to upstate New York. The tranquility and natural surroundings focused and informed his work. Rosenzweig initially reacted to his environment by painting landscapes in oil. The Hudson River School served as motivation. What began as somewhat representational, his attention started moving toward the abstract - more Expressionistic, Romantic, and allegorical. Influencing these landscapes were the likes of Caspar David Friedrich, J.M.W.Turner, El Greco and Charles Burchfield.

As his work progressed, more internal, personal infatuations and curiosities started to enter the equation. Then, the rectilinear canvas began to break free from its confines. The work became three-dimensional, constructed, and off the wall. With hints of scenic design, and a nod to Red Grooms, his new "constructions" heralded a more immediate and personal path for self-expression. Concurrently, by increasing his physical engagement, Rosenzweig began to employ previously disassociated skills and materials.

In this new work, there is no sketch, no blueprint, no specific plan. Each piece begins by fabricating a substrate - the first trigger. Moving between the studio and the workshop, the initial structure prompts an array of actions. The work evolves entirely as it is being constructed: each successive addition an immediate reaction to the last. The arsenal: metal, wood, canvas, plastic, paint - cut, bolted, burned, stretched, melted, poured. Vibrant colors, bold textures and dissonant arrangements are all coaxed toward a self-defined resolution. Spontaneity and improvisation are essential. Simultaneously, so is the slow and deliberate need for precision. The process, though, remains open to invention and discovery. This approach provokes "trouble"...with the hopes of somehow finding a way out.

By adding a third dimension, the artistic domain expands. More physical, more tactile, and without planar confines, the finished piece engages the viewer in ways simply not possible with works on canvas or paper.

Rosenzweig's paintings, drawings and constructions are in private collections both regionally and in Europe. His work is in the collection of the Beinecke Library at Yale University. In recent years, he has been commissioned to create paintings for set decoration for ABC and Warner Brothers Television.

He and his wife Susan, an archaeologist, live in Columbia County, New York.

Our 21st Annual National Invitational Exhibition:

THE LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE 2018

James Coe - Karl Dempwolf - Crista Pisano - Christie Scheele

September 29 - December 16, 2018, EXTENDED through January, 2019

Opening Reception, Saturday, Septmber 29, 5-8 p.m.

Mid-Show ArtTalk & Reception, Sunday, November 18, 2-4 p.m.

RESCHEDULED DUE TO STORM!: Gallery's 21st Birthday & BEST OF Celebration is reschedulef from Saturday, January 19, 4-7 p.m to Saturday, February 2, 4-7p.m.

In the Holdings Gallery, Anniversary Salon & Annual Collectors Sale:

Landscapes - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media

THE LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE 2018 constitutes four mini-solo shows - one for each exhibiting artist - in this, the gallery's 21st Annual National Invitational Exhibition. The exhibiting quartet includes James Coe (NY), Karl Dempwolf (CA), Crista Pisano (NY) and Christie Scheele (NY).

James Coe and Karl Dempwolf are nationally recognized artists in their respective fields. Coe - who currently resides in the Catskill region of the Hudson Valley - is well-established in both the wildlife painting and straight landscape arenas. He is a graduate of Harvard University and The Parsons School of Design. His resume includes contributions to the "Easy Bird Guide: West," and "Birds of New Guinea." and to Frank Gill's classic college textbook "Ornithology." In the illustration arena, he may be best known as the author and illustrator of the acclaimed "Golden Field Guide Eastern Birds," published in 1994 and reissued in 2001 by St. Martin's Press. As a landscape painter, he has established an honored reputation for the quality of his plein air (on location) and studio work. He is stylistically at home in the best of post-Impressionist American traditions. His subjects range from those around his neighborhood to those drawing from his travels - including Cape Cod, the Southwestern desert, the Rockies, and New England vistas.

Karl Dempwolf - working out of his studio in the Los Angeles area - is a long-time signature member of the historic California Art Club and is currently on the faculty of the premier multi-arts organization, Plein Air Convention and Expo (PACE) - representing the largest assembly of plein air painters in the world. He received the 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award from PACE for his tireless contributions to his art - both for his personal work and for his commitment promoting high artistic standards within his artistic circle. Karl's work is inspired, especially, by the first generation of California Impressionist and Expressionist painters, including the likes of Wendt, Bischoff, Puthuff & Guy Rose. Many of his subjects include coastal California and its environs as well as the State's historic urban boundaries. This style of painting is rarely seen in the Hudson Valley region and the gallery is excited to host the artist's bold, dramatic, painterly work. Karl was born in Germany and spent his childhood growing up in the picturesque Bavarian countryside. At the age of fourteen he and his family immigrated to the United States. He has received degrees from California State University Northridge (BA) and the University of Southern California (MFA) with additional study at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.

Christie Scheele - a successful full-time mid-career painter - started painting her signature atmospheric, minimalist landscapes just before moving to the Catskills from New York City several decades ago. These meditative pieces cross the boundaries between realism and the contemporary art world, reaching the viewer's heart without sentimentality or melodrama. Her mentors include mid-20th Century color field painters and those working in various strains of Minimalism. She is a graduate of Alfred University (BA, MFA) and taken additional studies in Spain and Bolivia. Beside a series of oils, included in this year's show are a set of monoprints, part of a body of new work that is taking her artistic vision in new directions. Scheele teaches painting workshops at the Woodstock School of Art, The Provincetown Artists Association and Museum, and The Artists Association of Nantucket. She, also, mentors emerging artists for work and career development. Scheele, Coe and Dempwolf are established artists whose work is housed in many museum and private collections.

Crista Pisano, who is based in Nyack, NY, is one of the gallery's younger artists and has, in the past few years, established quite a star reputation for her small, beautifully crafted plein air paintings. Pisano began painting under the instruction of John Phillip Osborne at the Ridgewood Art Institute in Ridgewood, NJ. She graduated from the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts and earned a Master Degree of Fine arts Painting from the New York Academy Graduate School of Figurative Art. Her on location and studio work are partly influenced by the Hudson River School. She also loves the Macchiaioli, a group of Italian Painters active in Tuscany in the second half of the Nineteenth Century. She is very active in the national plein air "circuit" - participating in regional paint-outs and exhibitions during the year.

Additional work by many previous participants in the gallerys landscape program will be available to peruse in the Holdings Gallery Salons, which will run concurrent with this year's main show.

THE LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE has brought over 45 artists through the gallery in its 21 years as a showcase to promote a broader and deeper understanding of - and appreciation for - aspects of contemporary realism in landscape painting. Shahinian's primary curatorial focus has been to show original, thoughtful, and well-crafted work by mid-and-late-career artists, whose works eschew literalism (and, especially, photorealism), sentimentalism and commercialism. Exhibitors do honor past artistic traditions - especially in their dedication to high standards of craftsmanship, technique and self-expression - but aim, also, to encourage a free and fresh appreciation of what constitutes "realism" in painting today.

YALE EPSTEIN

Geometry - Affect - Spirit: New Works on Paper

June 30 - August 12, 2018

Now Extended through September 3

Opening Reception, Saturday, June 30, 5-8 p.m.

ArtistTalk/Q&A Reception, Sunday, August 5, 2-4 p.m.

In the Holdings Gallery, Our Annual Summer Salon:

Landscapes - Painting - Photography - Sculpture - Mixed Media

Albert Shahinian Fine Art is honored to present a long-anticipated exhibition of new paintings by Yale Epstein. "Geometry - Affect - Spirit" is his first major show since a devastating fire destroyed his home and studio two years ago, and in which he lost nearly all of his extant personal work: quite a setback, seemingly, for anyone! Yet, his creative juices have been energized through the loss. The result is a body of new work he calls his Minimal/Maximal. The series unites, teases and explores many of the threads his creative adventures have woven during his six decades as an artist of the highest caliber.

More than sixty-five, mainly small, paintings are included in the exhibit - each a beautifully crafted gem. In these, Epstein explores themes of movement, symmetry, pattern, and grid configurations, which employ interesting subtle or bold color combinations. The work evolves from minimal "clean" geometric compositions (which draw a line between "presence" in its flatness, and color that reveals an "absence"), to those that develop into intricate, complicated, inter-weavings of organic forms that play with the work's surface and feel pregnant with meaning - not unlike Persian miniatures in their rich detail.

An Exhibition In Memoriam:

MARGARET CRENSON
(1934 - 2011)

Delving A Sense Of Place

March 4 - April 29, 2018, Extended through June 24, 2018

Opening Reception, Saturday, March 10, 5-8 p.m.

Mid-Show Reception/Open House, Saturday, April 21, 5-8 p.m.


"Sanctuary", oil on canvas, 30 x 28 inches

The gallery's first program for its 20th year is a long-anticipated exhibition In Memoriam for a dear friend and gallery artist, Margaret Crenson. Entitled "Delving A Sense Of Place", the show runs March 4th through April 29, 2018. Opening Reception is Saturday, March 10, 5-8p.m. and a mid-exhibit Open House/Reception is planned for Saturday, April 21, 5-8p.m. On view are more than fifty paintings showcasing Margaret's incomparable talent as a painter and keen observer of the everyday encounters in her life. Paintings are drawn from her body of work from the 1990s through 2007. The gallery hopes to introduce this gifted and insightful work to a new audience and to reacquaint her collectors with her humor and vision.

Margaret was born in New York City in 1934. She studied painting at the Art Students League with Edwin Dickenson and at Cooper Union, both in New York City. Married to photographer and videographer Dick Crenson, the couple moved upstate, eventually settling in the Poughkeepsie area, where they were activists and innovative artists enriching the area's creative life. Both were dedicated members of the Barrett Art Center and were exhibited by many of the region's galleries. Margaret joined Albert Shahinian Fine Art in 1998 and both she and Dick have been featured in the gallery's ongoing exhibition program. Margaret died of illness in April, 2011. Dick continues to develop his creative (and many times humorous) talents; his wire sculpture will be included in the current show.

Crenson painted primarily with oil, sometimes mixed with cold wax. She loved the directness and simplicity of applying paint with a palette knife. Primarily a studio painter, she was expert, also, en plein air. Her subjects covered a wide and sometimes unexpected range. They included personal objects, appliances and tools, kitchen tools, everyday interiors, pets, outdoor views around their home, things seen and experienced on the road, and street scenes - of local towns and villages to those encountered on the many trips she and Dick took to far-away places. Atmosphere, light, and shadow were very important to her and she was a master at evoking a sense of groundedness and place, even when painting something as simple as her iron and ironing board.

Crenson's talent for composition is immense and undergirds the work selected for this show by Albert Shahinian. Margaret was a slight, soft-spoken and progressive personality, treating her subjects with tenderness and humor and, on occasion, with deep regard for positive social values and the thoughtful life. She was a singular stylist and her work remains, still, indelibly, Margaret.

Our 20th Annual National Invitational Exhibition:

THE LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE 2017

"Twenty Years - Twenty Artists - Twenty Per Cent*"

October 5, 2017 - January, 2018

Opening Reception, Saturday, October 14, 5-8 p.m.

Mid-Show Reception, Saturday, November 18, 5-7 p.m.


(Above: Gary Fifer, "Pastoral Storm", oil on masonite, 30 x 40 inches, SOLD)

*Special Sale: 20% discount on purchase of exhibition artwork,
sales to benefit the Gallery's upcoming 20th year of programming.

Celebrating its 20th year as a yearly national invitational exhibition of contemporary landscape painting organized by Albert Shahinian Fine Art, The Luminous Landscape 2017 is subtitled "20-20-20", and features twenty exhibitors, including thirteen who have been featured in the show since 1998 and seven artists new to the gallery. Hung beautifully as a salon, clients will receive a 20 per cent discount on their purchases. The sale is to benefit the gallery's upcoming 20th year of programming. The Luminous Landscape runs October 5, 2017 through January, 2018.

Featured artists include: Paul Abrams - Eline Barclay - Jane Bloodgood-Abrams - James Coe - Marie Cole - Karl Dempwolf - Cynthia Dill - David Eddy - Marilyn Fairman - Kari Feuer - Gary Fifer - Todd Germann - Jorge Hernandez - Betsy Jacaruso - Arnold Levine - Crista Pisano - James Ransome - Thomas Sarrantonio - Christie Scheele - Robert Trondsen.

The gallery's two exhibit rooms will show a sampling from each artist's ouvre. Additional work will be available to peruse in the holdings gallery. New to this year is artist Jorge Hernandez, whose photogrpahy is a first for this traditionally painting-oriented show. Other 'first-timers' include author/illustrator/painter James Ransome; regional artists Betsy Jacaruso, Marie Cole, Kari Feuer, and Paul Abrams; plein-air painter Crista Pisano; and 'non-traditional' modernists David Eddy and Todd Germann. Of note are painters Eline Barclay, Gary Fifer, and Marilyn Fairman, who were in the inaugural show in 1998.

The Luminous Landscape has brought over 45 artists to the public in its 20 years as a showcase to promote a broader and deeper understanding of - and appreciation for - contemporary realism in landscape painting. Shahinian's primary curatorial focus has been to show original, thoughtful, and well-crafted work by mid- and late-career artists, whose works eschew literalism (and, especially, photorealism), sentimentalism and commercialism. Exhibitions aim to expand the viewer's definition of landscape painting and to help free those perceptions from more literalist notions and historical constraints and stereotypes. Exhibits honor past traditions and encourage a broader, changing definition to unfold. Shahinian also hopes that artists viewing the show will be inspired to resist any shackling to staid and tired aesthetics or expected stylistic approaches and be aroused to seek more personal, less commercial, and deeper levels of self-expression and craft as painters.

Jorge G. Hernandez : Visions

Large-format Museum-quality Museum-Framed Photographs

First Exhibit: April 29 - July 9, 2017

Second Exhibit: July 13 - August, 2017

Opening Gallery Reception, Saturday, April 29, 5-8p.m.

ArtistTalk, Sunday, June 4, 2-4p.m.


& Continuing through August:

Our Annual Summer Salon

LANDSCAPES - SCULPTURE - WORKS ON PAPER

Cuban-born artist Jorge G. Hernandez has been a photographer all of his adult life. His primary focus for the past 40 years of image-making has been the New York City skyline and wilderness landscapes - those as nearby as in the Hudson Valley and as far-flung as in the American Southwest. For his first solo exhibition at Albert Shahinian Fine Art - entitled "Jorge G. Hernandez: VISIONS" - the gallery presents a selection of large-format museum-mounted archival prints (Cibachrome, Ilfochrome and Fuji Flex) culled from the artist's extensive urban and wilderness archive.

"VISIONS" will run through August, 2017, extending the original exhibition dates and including additional photographs not on view during the first half of the show. Samples of Jorge's work will continue to be on view in the holdings gallery after the show ends.

Concurrent with the photo show is this year's "Annual Summer Salon", featuring paintings by gallery artists including Todd Germann, Yale Epstein, Chris Albert, Leslie Bender, David Eddy, Saul Lambert, Tom Sarrantonio, Arnold Levine and Christie Scheele. Two magnificent sumi ink on ricepaper paintings are also on view by new-to-the-gallery artist, Fumiko Sugaya. In addition to the many works in our holdings gallery, we are pleased to show new regional landscapes by the wonderful James Coe. Finally, sculpture on view includes small bronzes by Richard Marx and Madeleine Segall-Marx, anagama-fired ceramics by Tim Rowan and a lovely ceramic and concrete piece by Judy Sigunick.

Jorge Hernandez sees his role of photographer as one who seeks and communicates new insights when capturing a moment in time. It is through rigor, intentionality, creative insight, and expertise that his images work their magic. Each has been researched in advance: a site explored, equipment perfected, time light and weather considered, and the image he wants to take already imagined in his mind. In this sense, he views his process as visionary - all to capture something below the surface, to communicate a timeless universality, to reset a viewers understanding of "what he thought he already knew".

His formal approach to his craft may seem cut and dry. Yet, so much of his patient planning is open to - and in many cases dependent on - the caprices occurring at the moment a shutter is clicked. The art in his craft is in the details, in his deep understanding of light, film, and composition, and how his expression of craft is constantly aware of unrealized possibilities - all components that differentiate and qualify a photographer's style.

Of the elements that make up his approach, light is the most essential (and difficult to master). "Light reveals the unfamiliar and alters the familiar," notes Hernandez. For him, light is not only required to take a photographic image, its handling defines meaning and subject in his work. Nearly as important to him is his refusal to employ software or digital manipulation in his photography - to pursue his art through the "old fashioned" medium of film. Melding film with highest-quality optics - including panoramic lenses and cameras - and presenting work in museum mounts results in images that glow and radiate with life.

Albert Shahinian Fine Art is proud to have represented Hernandez since 2012, an exceptional addition to the gallery's stable of gifted mid- and late-career artists. Not a surprise, Jorge's work is widely collected in private and corporate collections and many of his iconic images are available unframed in select sizes through the gallery. Edition sizes are usually 10 prints per unique image - no matter the size - and photographs are available until an edition sells out. Framing of unframed prints can, also, be arranged through the gallery.

To review, concurrent with the main show is the "Annual Summer Salon", featuring diverse works (in the holdings galleries) by gallery artists. Albert Shahinian Fine Art/Upstairs Galleries is located at 22 East Market Street, 3rd Floor, Rhinebeck, NY. Gallery hours are Thursday - Saturday, 11-6, Sunday, 12-5 and by appointment and chance. (845) 876-7578; Off hours: (845) 758-0335. We also provide home showings, delivery and installation services.

GALLERY:STUDIO - A SYMBIOSIS
A Curatorial View & Special Sale Celebrating our
18-Year Partnership with Artist Christie Scheele

February 11 - Extended through April 23, 2017

Opening Gallery Reception, Saturday, February 11, 4-7p.m.

Studio Reception at Christie Scheele's Studio, Saturday, March 25, 4-7p.m.

Shahinian and Scheele have long had a great deal of movement of artwork and visitors between the studio and the gallery. Theirs has truly been a partnership, with many collaborative moments: GALLERY:STUDIO - A SYMBIOSIS is one of them. Scheele has been regionally "home-based" at the gallery since her first exhibition in fall of 1999. This means that, besides inclusion in the gallery's normal changing-exhibition program (including six major solo installations), a substantial number of her paintings have a continuing, active, permanent presence on site. A similar repository exists at Scheele's studio, available for viewing and purchase through the gallery. Thus, clients have the ability to "shop both ends", creating a seamless and mutually supportive relationship that is enriching for client and institution. To deepen the relationship, Shahinian has held artist-related events at the gallery and has taken her work to all of its off-site activities, which include participation in art fairs, traveling exhibitions, "pop-up" shows and hangings in alternative spaces.

The impact of this mutuality is significant. As Scheele relates, "For an artist showing in multiple galleries, the gallery close to home can be the nexus for our community of artists, art-lovers, and collectors. Being able to show up often in person has no substitute, and the gallery becomes a home-away-from-home. A private gallery is a unique kind of retail space. Where else does the 'shop' serve not only as a place to purchase beautiful one-of-a-kind pieces, but also as an art viewing and gathering place? [I have] witnessed and enjoyed the graceful and seamless way that these multiple functions - store, museum, and events space - are handled. I, also, have complete faith, proven over time, in Shahinian's finesse in hanging a show; his meticulous care for, and of, the work; and his consideration for me, the artist."

Shahinian responds that "the same is true from our perspective: Christie's studio is 'our' gallery away from home, accessible, professional, responsive to - and respectful of - the person behind the business, the mission beyond just some commodity labeled 'art'. Care, trust, and attention work both ways and are essential to a long-term gallery/studio commitment."

GALLERY:STUDIO - A SYMBIOSIS is a retrospective and a culmination, presenting over 60 works drawn from a broad range of Scheele's recent output - including paintings, pastels, monoprints and mixed-media. In designing this show, artist and gallery were keen on making more accessible to visitors and collectors the opportunity to acquire a painting (hence the special sale). As a culmination, the exhibit and sale end a significant period of Scheele's aesthetic explorations, making time and space available for her focus on, and movement toward, a complex new project. Finally, important to both parties, this exhibit celebrates a friendship born, but not limited by, their respective callings as artist and art venue.

To view a large sampling of her work, please link to her Artist Page via the Sidebar on your left.

THE LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE 2016

Our 19th Annual National Invitational Exhibition

October 8, 2016 - EXTENDED through January 29, 2017

Opening Reception, Saturday, October 8, 5-7:30p.m.

Mid-Show Reception, Saturday, November 12, 5-7:30p.m.

Featuring New Work by Jane Bloodgood-Abrams & James Coe,

Additional paintings by Eline Barclay, Karl Dempwolf & Christie Scheele

In our Upstairs Galleries, 22 East Market Street, 3rd Floor, Rhinebeck, NY.

(Also showing in our Annual Fall Salon: landscapes, works on paper, sculpture, photography.)

Celebrating its 19th year as a yearly national invitational exhibition of contemporary landscape painting organized by Albert Shahinian Fine Art, The Luminous Landscape 2016 features two solo exhibitors - Jane Bloodgood-Abrams and James Coe - with additional work by Eline Barclay, Karl Dempwolf and Christie Scheele. Subtitled "The Long View", this year's show is a celebration of the gallery's commitment to its artists, its curatorial vision, and its will to survive during some very tough times for presenting and selling fine art. The Luminous Landscape opened Saturday, October 8 and will run, extended, through Sunday, January 29.

This year's show brings back five artists who have been important to the gallery's program since 1998 - all extremely gifted painters who have worked tirelessly to establish themselves as masters in their field regionally, nationally, or both. We are pleased to extend this exhibit and fold it into our upcomning year of programming, which is guided by the "umbrella" idea of The Long View.

The Luminous Landscape has brought over 40 artists to the public in its 19 years as a showcase to promote a broader and deeper understanding of - and appreciation for - contemporary realism in landscape painting. Shahinian's primary curatorial focus has been to show original, thoughtful, and well-crafted work by mid- and late-career artists, whose works eschew literalism (and, especially, photorealism), sentimentalism and commercialism. Exhibitions aim to expand the viewer's definition of landscape painting and to help free those perceptions from more literalist notions and historical constraints and stereotypes. Exhibits honor past traditions and encourage a broader, changing definition to unfold. Shahinian also hopes that artists viewing the show will be inspired to resist any shackling to staid and tired aesthetics or expected stylistic approaches and be aroused to seek more personal, less commercial, and deeper levels of self-expression and craft as painters.

For viewing photos of Jane Bloodgood-Abrams's available work from this show, please click on her name to link to her photo page. (Larger images of each artist's work can be sent by request.)

For the other artists in this exhibition, please click on their names below to link to the Represented Page for samples of their work (also accessed by the sidebar to the upper left side of this page).

Jane Bloodgood-Abrams

A long-time friend of the gallery, we are pleased to feature her in this year's show! In describing her work, Jane states, "My work has continued to explore the unique light and dramatic atmosphere of the Hudson Valley. High vantage points with emphasis on clouds and a sense of space excite and inspire me, [places] where there is a connection with a higher energy and one feels alive. With these works I seek to transcend the landscape as mere subject matter, and use it as a tool to illustrate nature's spiritual or emotional essence. In many works I may use the composition or presentation of the image in such a way as to present the landscape as iconography, to be worshiped and revered."

A life-long resident of New York's Hudson Valley, Jane Bloodgood-Abrams paints landscapes inspired by the Northeastern U.S. as well as the works of 19th Century artists, including the Hudson River School, Luminist and Tonalist painters. The artist received her Master of Fine Arts degree from the State University of New York at New Paltz, and a Bachelor of Studio Arts degree from the College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY. She was inducted into the National Association of Women Artists, and is listed in "Who's Who in American Art".

Ms. Bloodgood-Abrams's work has been chosen for numerous regional, national, and international exhibitions, including the New York State Biennial, The Mohawk -Hudson Regional, The Bienniale in Florence Italy, as well as exhibitions in Austria and Germany. She has been an Artist in Residence through the Catskill Center and was selected for a Rhine-Hudson Artist Exchange in Cologne, Germany. The artist has been awarded grants from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and was recently a finalist for the prestigious Basil H. Alkazzi Award for Excellence. She was selected for a 2016 Artist Residency at the historic Wakonda Lodge on Lake George NY, where Georgia O'Keefe and other major artists have worked.

Jane Bloodgood-Abrams's paintings are included in numerous corporate, museum and private collections.

James Coe

Honored in 2011 as Master Wildlife Artist by the Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin, James Coe was described by museum director Kathy Foley as "...a painting-lover's dream. His canvases are ethereal, moody, and sensitive all at once."

Whether he is painting the birds for which he was honored by the Woodson, or views of barns and landscapes near his home in New York's Hudson River Valley, James Coe is always seeking to find in his oil paintings a satisfying and poetic harmony. "The subject matter reflects my passions in life: birds, nature, old barns and our endangered rural landscape - but the thread that ties all of my artwork together is more conceptual. My goal is to find in each motif a balance of abstract design and evocative light, and to create a luscious surface of paint and canvas."

Educated at Harvard as a biologist, Coe later earned a master's degree in painting from Parsons the New School for Design, and spent the first years of his career as an ornithological illustrator and field guide author. He contributed work to several books, including the recently reissued Easy Bird Guide: West, and Birds of New Guinea, and to Frank Gill's classic college textbook Ornithology. His Golden Field Guide, Eastern Birds was acclaimed as a 'tour-de-force' when first published in 1994 (a second edition was released in 2001). But the years of painstaking work creating detailed watercolor and gouache illustrations of birds took its toll. Jim renewed his interest in art by taking his oil paints out into the landscape, and he has been painting en plein air and in his studio full-time since 2000.

Jim is a Signature Member of the prestigious Oil Painters of America, as well as the American Impressionist Society and Society of Animal Artists. As a longtime member of the Board of Directors of the Society of Animal Artists, Jim now serves as the Jury Chair and oversees the selection of the SAA's annual exhibition. For more than 35 years he has been a regular exhibitor in the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum's prestigious "Birds in Art" annual and in 2011 was recognized as the Museum's 32nd Master Wildlife Artist.

Jim's paintings have won awards and mention in many professional juried exhibitions, including the prestigious Alden Bryan Medal and first place in the Laumeister Fine Art Competition. He is represented in the permanent collections of the New York State Museum, Bell Museum of Natural History in Minneapolis, Museum of American Bird Art at MassAudubon, the Hiram Blauvelt and Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museums, and the Bennington Center for the Arts. He has been the subject of feature articles in various magazines, including Plein Air, Wildlife Art, American Art Collector, and in the online publication Wildlife Art Journal. His paintings have appeared on the covers of Sanctuary, Bird Watcher's Digest, Birding World, and The Auk, professional journal of the American Ornithologist's Union.

Eline Barclay

After a long hiatis from our exhibit program, the gallery is pleased to present new oils on panel by Eline Barclay. Her naturalistic yet romantic paintings capture the mysteries and essences of the natural world. A former Hudson Valley native and established regional painter, Barclay looks for places and themes in her work that evoke and inspire her dialogue with nature. In her current home and studio on Maine's Downeast coast, she has found exactly the right synthesis of emotion and space, light and atmosphere. There is a mood of elegy in her work, which reflects her deep concern for a threatened ecosystem. Her paintings radiate a primal, essential feeling for the landscape wherein the manmade is subservient to a natural world full of soft light and gentle highlights - drama without horror or disaster, power without overstatement, deep feeling without sentimentality.

Her concerns are the quiet magic of early morning twilight, stormy skies, gathering storms, the atmosphere of ephemeral fog, and the neverending allure of waters, lakes, rivers, wetlands, marshes and whatever inspiring natural phenomenon this Cornwall-on-Hudson native encounters.

Barclay has a degree in Fine Arts from SUNY, New Paltz, NY, and is included in corporate and private collections around the world. She has an extensive exhibition career with solo and group shows throughout the east coast. Barclay has traveled to diverse settings - including Monhegan Island, MA; Isle of Skye, Scotland; Kenya (Africa); and the Canadian Maritimes - to document a changing landscape. She has been a primary artist with the gallery since 1998.

Karl Dempwolf

We are honored to represent renowned contemporary landscape painter, Karl Dempwolf, and pleased to announce he will be receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by Plein Air Magazine, on the opening night of the 2017 Plein Air Convention & Expo in San Diego, CA. Karl is a longtime member of the California Art Club and a master painter steeped in the tradition of painters including William Wendt, Franz Bischoff, Hanson Puthuff and Guy Rose. As a colorist he is more resonant with 20th Century Expressionism, and the boldness of his work is much more sympathetic to aspects of Modernism than a reprise of older styles. Also an avid plein air painter, Dempwolf exploits the scenic beauty of the California coast, its valleys, mountains, and - occasionally - urban boundaries. Dempwolf continues to travel around the country to work on location at National Parks and other scenic areas. He currently makes, carves, gilds and finishes his own frames - a tribute to his high standards and respect for the Arts and Craft traditions his personal art (and sense of craft) draws from. Karl has garnered many awards and a loyal collector base for his work.

Over the years Dempwolf has participated in exhibitions including: the Autry Museum of Western Art, Los Angeles; the Fleischer Museum in Scottsdale, AZ; the Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles; the Frederick R. Weisman Museum at Pepperdine University in Malibu, the Phippen Museum in Prescott, AZ, the Santa Paula Art Museum in Ventura County, CA; the Carnegie Museum in Oxnard, CA; the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA; and the Pasadena (CA) Museum of California Art.

Dempwolf's work can be found in publications from North Light Books, entitled Art from the Parks. His paintings are in the permanent collections of large corporations, among them McGraw-Hill Publishers and the National Park Foundation. Dempwolf's recently published book, A Painter's Journey, is available through the gallery or his web site.

Christie Scheele

For Scheele, the landscape inevitably holds powerful associations and painting it becomes a back-and-forth between exploring the narrative and focusing on the formal elements of shape, composition, surface, color, and edge. Christie is a non-regional landscape painter and uses images from all over the world, many of places she has been. For her, with the right atmospherics, anything and everything can reflect a powerful beauty - from smokestack at sunset or headlights on a road to a moody thunderstorm at sea. Nearly everything she paints could exist in nature, yet most often it does not.

Creating space in her life has long drawn Christie to spend a great deal of time outdoors and to paint her landscapes in an open and minimalist manner. Her version of minimalism is about shape and atmospherics - to paint not just the light, but the air itself, and how these affect the edges and colors of the scenes depicted. This approach quiets the mind, evoking a direct response. In her work, abstract elements can elicit deep, complex feelings; larger, flatter shapes with soft edges awaken the wide-open atmospheric feeling of being outdoors. At a time when the material content of contemporary life loudly demands attention, she is consciously working to balance the acquisition of stuff and life's busy-ness with intervals of their absence.

Scheele spends long swaths of time intensively focused on - and living within - the emerging painting, punctuated by intervals of scrutiny and analysis, observing a painting's elements with as much distance as possible. She feels this rigor is, ultimately, what allows the viewer to sink into a piece - many small just-so decisions to create a seamless whole. In her aesthetic and process, less is not only more; less is different. According to Scheele, "Too many details in a painting tend to compete for attention, creating an experience that remains purely visual, superficial, or intellectual without going deeper. With fewer elements and more open space, both the emotional and formal content have enormous, often visceral, impact. At the same time, what is there has to hold up under analysis and experience, as there is no place to hide (visually)."

Scheele has an extensive exhibition history and robust collector base. Besides her painting, she is an active instructor at the Woodstock School of Art and runs a mentoring program through her studio for both emerging and stablished artists.

FEBRUARY 13 - MAY 1, 2016

Opening Reception Saturday, February 13, 5-7p.m.

"WHIMSY & GESTURE"

Featuring:

Christopher Albert - painting

Dick Crenson - wire relief sculpture

Travis Jeffrey - collage

Madeleine Segal-Marx - hand-felted sculpture

In our Upstairs Galleries, 22 East Market Street, 3rd Floor, Rhinebeck, NY.

(Showing in our Winter/Spring Salon: landscapes, works on paper & photography.)

Christopher Albert

Christopher Albert paints paintings. These paintings are diaristic. What imagery exists in them and the motives behind their making are rooted in real, experienced life. But paintings, sculptures, drawings - whatever, become their own things, not totally dependent on their maker for their own significance. There are many other factors that go into the making of an artwork beyond the hand pushing the paint. The alchemy of time, weather, and all the other elements that make up any given moment influence the nature of what is created. Just as the body has no control over the nutrients within a substance once it is consumed and is in fact subject to the power of those components, the artist can't control the reactions that occur when he injects his experiences into the process of making an artwork. For this artist, these works are the evidence of his metabolizing the essence of his day, and the next one and the one after that.

The same impulse to tinker with materials also drives Albert to instigate projects that often include the works and efforts of other artists. Such endeavors have placed him in the roles of: director of the bulletin board exhibition space, kork (2008-2011) in Poughkeepsie, NY, co-founder and co-producer of the Dead Hare Radio Hour podcast, and most recently, director of Crotch, an art space in the crotch of a tree in his former backyard in Beacon, NY.

Albert studied at Colorado State University and has exhibited his work nationally. Currently in Hollywood Florida, he's getting philosophical about roaches, and exploring the conceptual potential of coconuts.

Dick Crenson

Dick Crenson is a longtime fixture in the cultural scene in the Hudson Valley. His current artistic activities include videographer, filmmaker, curator and wire "doodler". He is also active with arts organizations, including Barrett Art Center and the Mid-Hudson Cultural Heritage Center, and is a generous volunteer for many projects central to the artistic and spiritual well-being of the area.

Crenson's wire sculpture evolved from his days as a stained glass artist. They enabled him to be quick and spontaneous with his ideas and soon became their own "thing" - certainly easier and healthier to work with than glass. His work ranges in scope, from small witty visual jokes to large-scale crowd scenes that comment on current cultural and political trends and human foibles.

Each piece is carefully soldered and painted with many coats of black paint. All ore one-of-a-kind creations aimed to please. Enjoy!

Travis Jeffrey

Travis Jeffrey has been a collage artist for decades, initially focusing on small-scale - actually, post card sized - creations that were easy to transport and work on given his "real" work. That work included stints as Hudson River Sloop Clearwater on-board educator, Captain (complete with official Coast Guard license), and as an integral part of the Sloop Singers. He is a protege of Pete Seeger's, from whom Jeffrey honed his guitar, banjo, and singing skills.

Off "the boat", Jeffrey expanded his art to include painting and sculpture, sometimes on a large scale and infused with whimsy and social commentary. While fixing up his home and working on other construction projects, he came upon huge numbers of found materials that became his basic palette for the larger collages on view in the Whimsy & Gesture exhibit. He also gathered discarded books and objects from the local dump to add to the visual vocabulary of his work.

THE LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE 2015

Our 18th Annual National Invitational Exhibition

October 17 - December 13, 2015

Opening Reception, Saturday, October 17, 5-8p.m.

ArtistTalk & Reception, Sunday, November 22, 2-4p.m.

Featuring Two Solo Exhibits:

Eric Lindbloom, photographs & Thomas Sarrantonio, paintings

In our Upstairs Galleries, 22 East Market Street, 3rd Floor, Rhinebeck, NY.

(Also showing in our Annual Fall Salon: landscapes, works on paper, sculpture, photography.)

July 25 - September 20, 2015

Opening Reception, Saturday, July 25, 5-8p.m.

ArtistTalk & Reception, Sunday, August 2, 2-4p.m.

CHRISTIE SCHEELE Solo Exhibiton: "Contours/Distillations"

Oil on linen, oil on paper & pastel on paper

In our Upstairs Galleries, 22 East Market Street, 3rd Floor, Rhinebeck, NY.

(Showing in our Annual Summer Salon: landscapes, works on paper, sculpture, photography.)

Albert Shahinian Fine Art presents a major solo exhibition of recent paintings by Christie Scheele. Entitled "Contours/Distillations", the show opened July 25 and runs through the end of September. Included are over 45 paintings that embody Scheele's ongoing explorations of space, boundaries, essential and universal narratives, and minimalist approaches to her landscapes. These images draw inspiration primarily from the Catskills, Cape Cod, and Long Island regions. "Contours/Distillations" presents the most open, color-field aspects of her significant output. She hopes viewers can bring their own memories to these paintings - as hers are only suggested - or simply experience them as a conduit for feeling. For Scheele, the landscape inevitably holds powerful associations and painting it becomes a back-and-forth between exploring the narrative and focusing on the formal elements of shape, composition, surface, color, and edge.

Creating space in her life has long drawn Scheele to spend a great deal of time outdoors and to paint her landscapes in an open and minimalist manner. This approach quiets the mind, evoking a direct response. In her work, abstract elements can elicit deep, complex feelings; larger, flatter shapes with soft edges awaken the wide-open atmospheric feeling of being outdoors. At a time when the material content of contemporary life loudly demands attention, she is consciously working to balance the acquisition of stuff and life's busy-ness with intervals of their absence.

Scheele spends long swaths of time intensively focused on - and living within - the emerging painting, punctuated by intervals of scrutiny and analysis, observing a painting's elements with as much distance as possible. She feels this rigor is, ultimately, what allows the viewer to sink into a piece - many small just-so decisions to create a seamless whole. In her aesthetic and process, less is not only more; less is different. According to Scheele, "Too many details in a painting tend to compete for attention, creating an experience that remains purely visual, superficial, or intellectual without going deeper. With fewer elements and more open space, both the emotional and formal content have enormous, often visceral, impact. At the same time, what is there has to hold up under analysis and experience, as there is no place to hide (visually)."

Concurrent with Scheele's exhibit is the gallery's Annual Summer Salon, a rich offering of landscapes, genre painting, abstracts, photographs, works on paper, and sculpture drawn from the more than 40 artists that the gallery represents. A third floor walk-up, Albert Shahinian Fine Art is located at 22 East Market Street in Rhinebeck, NY. Hours are Thursday-Saturday, 11-6; Sunday, 12-5, and by appointment or chance. (845) 876-7578 or www.ShahinianFineArt.com.


June 6 - July 12, 2015

Opening Reception, Saturday, June 6, 5-8p.m.

ArtistTalk & Reception, Sunday, June 28, 2-4p.m.

YALE EPSTEIN Solo Exhibiton: "Essential Forms"

Pantings, Serigraphs & Photographs

In our Upstairs Galleries, 22 East Market Street, 3rd Floor, Rhinebeck, NY.

(Showing in our Annual Summer Salon: landscapes, works on paper, sculpture, photography.)

Yale Epstein - Artist Statement "Essential Forms" - Geometric Abstraction

Varying ideas in art-making have interested me over the years. I find myself moving from complex concepts and processes toward a more minimal, formal simplicity. In retrospect, I realize that this might be a facet of my slowly evolving predilection for clarity over mystery (which is sometimes employed by artists as well as philosophers in order to add "textural" depth and meaning, or perhaps a romanticism to their ideas). This evolution was in some way commensurate with my recent tendency to no longer accumulate items from my travels, and to more regularly discard surplus clothes, books and tchotchkes, and to generally pare down that which I no longer need or enjoy. This is the genesis of my Contemporary Modernist Series.

In order to satisfy my newfound predilection for a clear statement in my work, I submit each image/idea to a process of "purification" - to try to remove anything that is not essential to the specific expression of the composition. The work in this series employs few colors and textures, and contains only straight lines and angles, which have either dynamic or opposing intersections, or more benign relationships with one another. So, these are, in effect, geometric distillations organized in the most efficient way I could come up with to bring the works to their completion.

The paintings will seem planned to the viewer because they involve precise formal pictorial solutions and delicate balancing acts of geometry. In fact, the decisions made along the way - given the infinite possibilities of composition, color, positive and negative fields and space - are intuitive (and sometimes playfully). So there is here the paradoxical relationship of the improvised and the measured, which gives these works a variety of contradictory attributes. There is order, yet not rigidity. The challenge is to go beyond the expectation of given order and structure and, thus, to induce surprise. My method is highly inductive. Each painting is developed from numerous sketches and it is only when a concept makes the leap from the sketch to the finished painting that its potential is realized. I, then, can see the full impact of my idea. If my task has been handled successfully, indications of the difficulties and efforts expended are not apparent.

The forms I use are relatively simple: their character is conditioned by rhythmic forces moving within the construction. I begin composing with a single, specific color in mind. That first color suggests one or two others. Then I develop each of these original colors into a kind of chromatic chord. From the interactions of those chords, I experiment with exact shapes of the color-chords. The compositional process continues like this until all chromatic forms together seem "right". The way the brain registers color, movement and spatial/geometric relationships is at the heart of my worrk.

Most of these paintings are the same, relatively small, size. This can offer interesting exhibition designs and experiences as well. Completely separate individual works placed in close proximity to each other can visually "unite" across or within the exhibition space.

My hope is that the viewer will give each work a quiet attention, so that the unique integrity, elegant simplicity, and strong presence of each is experienced deeply.

Curator's Statement:

Albert Shahinian on Epstein's "Contemporary Modernist Series"

Yale Epstein's latest explorations have an understated - yet powerful- impact in their bold, dynamically balanced formats. Using pure geometric language and a limited palette, Epstein achieves remarkable diversity within a narrow framework. These paintings employ simple shapes, often unmediated by any textural nuance. They are deceptively complex compositional statements, which display an obvious knowledge of the history of abstraction, often through the use of sly referential nuances. There is no narrative content, but rather an insistence that what you see is pure feeling, and your experience is the content.

The group of works work here - paintings, photographs and serigraphs - can be considered Minimalist in approach; a kind of contemporary Geometric Abstraction oeuvre. They tend to involve clarity of form, utilize pure shapes, pared down design elements, and subtle relationships of color range and tonality. Edges are taut, producing the inner tensile strength that is expressed in these compositions.

In these works Epstein creates subtle unique ideas of spatial relationships. We often are unsure as to where the shapes exist in relation to each other in space. "Uncomfortable" colors sometimes lie side-by-side but work together alchemically to produce striking, simple, or complex visual surprises, achieving a remarkable diversity within a deceptively narrow framework.

This exhibition presents a refreshing group of sophisticated - yet approachable - works by a seasoned master who applies a contemporary sensibility spin to the venerable Modernist/Constructivist tradition. In the process Epstein displays a respect for the craft of painting, which is so often lost in our post-modern era.


MARCH 28 - MAY 31, 2015

Opening Reception Saturday, March 28, 5-8p.m.

ArtistTalk & Reception with David Eddy & Polly M. Law

Sunday, May 3, 2-4p.m.

TWO SOLO EXHIBITIONS

Featuring -

David Eddy: Paintings

Polly M. Law: Bricolage

In our Upstairs Galleries, 22 East Market Street, 3rd Floor, Rhinebeck, NY.

(Showing in our Spring Salon: landscapes, works on paper & photography.)

Polly M. Law - Narrative Statement

My work is paper dolls with deep personal issues. I use humble materials - illustration board, acrylic paint, buttons, wire - to achieve elegant and sophisticated effects. I manipulate the forms and employ pattern, rich color and gesture to explore myths of deep time and current self. The act of sewing the pieces together and adding sewn embellishments puts the work into the realm of the other.

"(S)titches act by forming visible and often ceremonious attachments between materials in order to aggrandize, embellish, assert and layer authority, or swathe an object in textiles as if it were a relic."

"(T)he person wielding the needle and thread has the authority to do so, and effects a change in the world by transforming an object: making it larger, making it contain new elements, causing its increase in dimensionality (usually changing it from a two-dimensional object into a three-dimensional one), forcing a new ritualistic use upon it, and reframing it. Stitching often calls attention to itself as a means of attachment, as if the ritualized form of attachment were being showcased in the resulting object." Sewing as Authority in the Middle Ages by Kathryn M. Rudy, Zeitschrift fur Medien-und Kulturforschung, Vol.6:1 (2015)

The female figure is my usual vehicle for expression. The female hand wields the needle, knife, and paintbrush; and that hand and mind shape the landscape my figures inhabit. The figures themselves are inwardly-focused though their gaze may be disconcertingly direct. Often they chafe at the constraints of mode but who does not also wish for the rustle of silk in their life? The figures stand proud of the backgrounds to achieve a flat/3D effect- turning the frame into a doorway, each piece a portal through which to glimpse private dramas. My work has been favorably compared to that of Joseph Cornell but in fact has been more influenced by the animation work of Jan Svankmajer, the luscious patterns, textures and graphic forms of Eyvind Earle, the eerie dioramas of the Cray Brothers and the anonymous work of my sister Seamstresses of times long past or never existed.

I have been working in my bricolage style since 2000. My artwork is represented by galleries in Provincetown, MA; Rhinebeck, NY; and Hudson, NY; and in numerous private collections.

David Eddy

David Eddy is a self-taught painter whose talent, vision, and very hard work have paid off handsomely - both in the number and scope of gallery representation nationally and by an enduring and growing recognition of the quality and sophistication of his work. Most of Eddy's paintings center on figures, solo or in groups, and may include animals within the overall narrative of a piece. There is a child-like, naive quality to his work, but the modeling of facial expressions and the delightful complexity and subtlety of the whole speak to a creator with deep insight, expert craftsmanship and uncompromising integrity; and, also, quite a sense of humor and whimsy.



SEPTEMBER 13 - NOVEMBER 9, 2014

Opening Reception Saturday, September 13, 5-8p.m.

ArtistTalk & Reception with JAMES COE

Sunday, October 19, 2-4p.m.

THE LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE 2014

Our 17th Annual National

Invitational Exhibition

Featuring -

Solo Gallery:

James Coe, "Paintings East & West"

Salon Gallery:

Christie Scheele, Thomas Sarrantonio

Karl Dempwolf, Arnold Levine


In our Upstairs Galleries, 22 East Market Street, 3rd Floor, Rhinebeck, NY.

Celebrating its 17th year as a yearly exhibition of contemporary landscape painting organized by Albert Shahinian Fine Art, The Luminous Landscape 2014 features a solo exhibition - "Paintings East and West" - by JAMES COE and a group exhibit by regional gallery artists Christie Scheele, Thomas Sarrantonio and Arnold Levine. Also returning is Los Angeles-based plein air master, Karl Dempwolf, to this year's show. The Luminous Landscape opened Saturday, September 13 and will run through Sunday, November 9. A Meet-the-Artist talk and reception with James Coe is scheduled for Sunday, October 19, 2-4p.m.

Honored in 2011 as Master Wildlife Artist by the Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin, James Coe was described by museum director Kathy Foley as "...a painting-lover's dream. His canvases are ethereal, moody, and sensitive all at once."

Whether he is painting the birds for which he was honored by the Woodson, or views of barns and landscapes near his home in New York's Hudson River Valley, James Coe is always seeking to find in his oil paintings a satisfying and poetic harmony. "The subject matter reflects my passions in life: birds, nature, old barns and our endangered rural landscape - but the thread that ties all of my artwork together is more conceptual. My goal is to find in each motif a balance of abstract design and evocative light, and to create a luscious surface of paint and canvas."

Educated at Harvard as a biologist, Coe later earned a master's degree in painting from Parsons the New School for Design, and spent the first years of his career as an ornithological illustrator and field guide author. His Golden Field Guide, Eastern Birds was acclaimed as a 'tour-de-force' when first published in 1994 (a second edition was released in 2001). But the years of painstaking work creating detailed watercolor and gouache illustrations of birds took its toll. Jim renewed his interest in art by taking his oil paints out into the landscape, and he has been painting en plein air and in his studio full-time since 2000.

The Luminous Landscape has brought over 40 artists to the public in its 17 years as a showcase to promote a broader and deeper understanding of - and appreciation for - contemporary realism in landscape painting. Shahinian's primary curatorial focus has been to show original, thoughtful, and well-crafted work by mid- and late-career artists, whose works eschew literalism (and, especially, photorealism), sentimentalism and commercialism. Exhibitions aim to expand the viewer's definition of landscape painting and to help free those perceptions from more literalist notions and historical constraints and stereotypes. Exhibits honor past traditions and encourage a broader, changing definition to unfold. Shahinian also hopes that artists viewing the show will be inspired to resist any shackling to staid and tired aesthetics or expected stylistic approaches and be aroused to seek more personal, less commercial, and deeper levels of self-expression and craft as painters.



July 17 - August 31, 2014

Gala Reception/Meet-the-Artist Saturday, July 19, 5-8p.m.

DON PERLEY
"SOLO: New Paintings"


Albert Shahinian Fine Art opens its summer program with two concurrent exhibits. Both open Saturday, July 19 with a meet the artists reception from 5-8pm. The Solo gallery features new abstract expressionist paintings by Connecticut painter Don Perley. The holdings gallery presents the Annual Summer Salon, a group exhibit showcasing landscapes, works on paper, photographs and sculptures. Exhibits run through Labor Day Weekend.

Don Perley began his artistic journey in 1975 as a maker of conceptual art, collage and painted-collage constructions and, eventually, into experiments in pure painting. Don is entirely self-taught, with no formal training or participation in any arts institution. What he has developed slowly over the years is his own spiritual language laid out in paint, which for him is the truest communication of all.

Perley has had varied gallery affiliations including the Dana Reich Gallery (San Francisco, CA); the Schmidt/Dean Gallery (Philadelphia, PA); The Flow of Art Gallery (Norwalk, CT); and Albert Shahinian Fine Art (Rhinebeck, NY). He recently was awareded a residency and best in show from the East End Arts Council (Long Island, NY). Click Don Perley Artist Page to see images of his work on our site.

MARCH 1 - JULY 12, 2014

Gala Reception/Meet-the-Artists Saturday, March 15, 5-8p.m.

17th Anniversary Salon
& Annual Collectors Sale

NOVEMBER 2 - DECEMBER 31, 2013

(Exhibition is extended through February, 2014)

Opening Reception Saturday, November 2, 5-7:30p.m.

ArtistTalk & Closing Reception with Leslie Bender

Saturday, December 21, 4-6p.m.

LESLIE BENDER:

Involutions - Invocations

In our Upstairs Galleries, 22 East Market Street,
Suite 301, Rhinebeck, NY.

A major solo exhibition of new paintings on paper and canvas, "Leslie Bender: Involutions - Invocations," opened at Albert Shahinian Fine Art on Saturday, November 2. An ArtistTalk and reception is set during the Rhinebeck Third Saturdays ArtWalk on Saturday, December 21, 4-6p.m.

Leslie Bender is one of those rare artists whose work consistently delves below surfaces - whether materially or psychologically - to mine and realize the varied existential meanings that her life experiences have taught her or pointed to. Her focus has always been on figurative work - especially with subjects that place the visual scene squarely in public places where individuals interact, both intimately and intentionally, or by chance: clubs and cafes, the Jersey shore, the local swimming pool, the circus, concert halls and dance stages. A second body of work moves the human "action" via the visual language of ancient myth, fantasy, and the surreal. Her work is always working on several levels and is informed by her lifelong personal relationships, disappointments, internal crises, hard-won insights and triumphs over that which often cripples the soul and crushes the spirit.

Bender's abilities with materials are varied and expert: as draughtsman, printmaker, muralist, scenic designer and, above all, painter. She is a prodigious, consistent talent. "Involutions-Invocations" - curated by Albert Shahinian - brings together several strains of new work by the artist. As paintings, they are break-through, as Bender moves past a tighter style to a looser, gestural, impulsive and layered way of working her materials and subjects. As markers for her current state of mind and spirit, they show a maturing sense of self and acceptance of the world at large, a certain lightness in the shadows and a clearer understanding of the tension between responsibility, writ large, and the unfettered impulses of personal and expressive freedom. There is always more than meets the eye in these paintings, something that delights the eye, taps deep emotions and excites the imagination.

Below are summaries of the past year's exhibits:

AUGUST 15 - OCTOBER 27, 2013

Opening Reception Saturday, August 17, 5-7:30p.m.

ArtistTalk & Closing Reception with Tom Sarrantonio & Kate McGloughlin,

Saturday, October 26, 4-6p.m.

THE LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE 2013

16th Annual National Invitational Exhibition

Featuring

Thomas Sarrantonio (Rosendale, NY)

Kate McGloughlin (Olivebridge, NY)

Karl Dempwolf (CA)


In our Upstairs Galleries, 22 East Market Street, Suite 301, Rhinebeck, NY.

Celebrating its 16th year as a yearly exhibition of contemporary landscape painting organized by Albert Shahinian Fine Art, The Luminous Landscape 2013 features two Ulster County artists, Kate McGloughlin (Olivebridge, NY) and Thomas Sarrantonio (Rosendale, NY), and returns Los Angeles-based plein air master, Karl Dempwolf, to this year's show. The Luminous Landscape opens Saturday, August 17 with a reception from 5-7p.m. and runs through October 20.

The Luminous Landscape has brought over 40 artists to the public in its 16 years as a showcase to promote a broader and deeper understanding of - and appreciation for - contemporary realism in landscape painting. Shahinian's primary curatorial focus has been to show original, thoughtful, and well-crafted work by mid- and late-career artists, whose works eschew literalism (and, especially, photorealism), sentimentalism and commercialism. Exhibitions aim to expand the viewer's definition of landscape painting and to help free those perceptions from more literalist notions and historical constraints and stereotypes. Exhibits honor past traditions and encourage a broader, changing definition to unfold. Shahinian also hopes that artists viewing the show will be inspired to resist any shackling to staid and tired aesthetics or expected stylistic approaches and be aroused to seek more personal, less commercial, and deeper levels of self-expression and craft as painters.

Thomas Sarrantonio

Thomas Sarrantonio studied Painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where his teachers included Wil Barnet and Sidney Goodman. He also holds degrees in Biology and English. His paintings have been exhibited widely and he is the recipient of numerous honors including a Pollock-Krasner Award and a Visiting Artist Residency in Normandy, France. He teaches in the Art Department at SUNY College at New Paltz and lives in Rosendale, New York, with his wife and children.

The paintings of Thomas Sarrantonio seek to mediate between realms of external perception and internal reflection. They present themselves as meditations on nature and self. Choosing humble, often overlooked subject matter, such as the overgrown grasses at the edge of a field, he attempts to translate the dynamic processes of Nature into the stasis of physical matter on a painted surface. Small works are produced directly from Nature while large paintings are studio productions that utilize memory, experience, imagination and conceptual ideas to negotiate the terrain of contemporary painting. The paintings are offered to the viewer as templates to provoke active participation in the process of seeing and quiet contemplation of the mysteries of consciousness.

Kate McGloughlin

Kate McGloughlin was born in 1962 and is a native of Olivebridge in New York's Hudson Valley. She graduated from the University of Arizona at Tucson with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Drawing & Painting in 1985, where she studied with Bruce McGrew and Robert Colescott. In 1991 she was awarded The Yasuo Kuniyoshi Scholarship to study printmaking with Robert Angeloch at The Woodstock School of Art, where she currently teaches Printmaking, Landscape Painting and is President of the Board of Directors.

McGloughlin has been included in Who's Who in American Art since 1999, and Who's Who in American Women since 2005. As Co-Director of Destination Arts Creative Workshops, she teaches landscape painting and printmaking workshops in Italy, Mexico, Ireland and the United States. Kate is represented by galleries in the Northeastern United States, and abroad.

Karl Dempwolf

Karl Dempwolf is a longtime member of the California Art Club and a master painter steeped in the tradition of painters including William Wendt, Franz Bischoff, Hanson Puthuff and Guy Rose. As a colorist he is more resonant with 20th Century Expressionism, and the boldness of his work is much more sympathetic to aspects of Modernism than a reprise of older styles. Also an avid plein air painter, Dempwolf exploits the scenic beauty of the California coast, its valleys, mountains, and - occasionally - urban boundaries. Dempwolf continues to travel around the country to work on location at National Parks and other scenic areas. He currently makes, carves, gilds and finishes his own frames - a tribute to his high standards and respect for the Arts and Craft traditions his personal art (and sense of craft) draws from. Karl has garnered many awards and a loyal collector base for his work. Karl's last showing at this gallery was in 2002.

Over the years Dempwolf has participated in exhibitions including: the Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles, the Frederick R. Weisman Museum at Pepperdine University in Malibu, the Phippen Museum in Prescott, AZ, the Carnegie Art Museum in Ventura County, CA, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, and the Pasadena (CA) Museum of California Art.

Dempwolf's work can be found in publications from North Light Books, entitled Art from the Parks. His paintings are in the permanent collections of large corporations, among them McGraw-Hill Publishers and the National Park Foundation. Dempwolf's newly published book, A Painter's Journey, is available through the gallery or his web site.

JUNE 15, 2013 - August 11, 2013

Opening Reception was Saturday, June 22, 5-8 p.m.

Meet-the-Artist Talk & Rectption: Saturday, July 27, 5-7p.m.

Yale Epstein

Re-Imagings: Recontectualized Photographs

FEBRUARY 17 - JUNE 1, 2013:

Our 15th Anniversary Salon and Annual Collectors Sale continues through June 1!
OPEN HOUSE & RECEPTSION on Saturday, May 18, 5-8p.m.
Featured is work by 25 of the gallery's key artists, whose work has formed the core of more than 110 curated exhibits since 1998. Also on view are many items from our extensive holdings

The ANNUAL SALE Specials: One-Time 20% discount on most any single artwork of your choosing (excludes bronzes)
Or...One-Time 15% discount on Total of a single invoice (includes multiple items of your choosing!)

NOVEMBER 17, 2012 - Extended through FEBRUARY 10, 2013

Opening Reception was Saturday, November 17, 5-8 p.m.

Open House (11a.m-5p.m.) & Reception (5-8p.m.) was Saturday, December 15

DAVID EDDY

TODD GERMANN

Two Solo Exhibitons of New Work


In our Upstairs Galleries, 22 East Market Street, Suite 301, Rhinebeck, NY.

Albert Shahinian Fine Art closes its 15th year with two solo exhibitions of contemporary work. Featured are artists David Eddy and Todd Germann. The show opens Saturday, November 17 with a reception from 5-8p.m. and runs through December 31. Additionally, an open house and reception is planned for Saturday, December 15, 5-8pm, in conjunction with Rhinebeck/Red Hook Third Saturdays ArtsWalk. Eddy has been regular exhibitor at the gallery for the past ten years. This is Todd Germann's first major solo exhibition. (See their Artist Pages in the "Representing" section of our website.)

Continuing in the gallery's back room is "The Luminous Landscape 2012" with new and recent landscapes by Gary E. Fifer (VT) and Karl Dempwolf (CA). Additional work by Christie Scheele, Alex Martin and our stable of artists are also accessible in our back gallery. Albert Shahinian Fine Art Upstairs Galleries is a third floor walk-up at 22 East Market Street, Suite 301, Rhinebeck, NY. Current hours are Thursday-Saturday, 11-6; Sunday, noon-5 & by appointment or chance. (845) 876-7578.

David Eddy

David Eddy is a self-taught painter whose talent, vision, and very hard work have paid off handsomely - both in the number and scope of gallery representation nationally and by an enduring and growing recognition of the quality and sophistication of his work. Most of Eddy's paintings center on figures, solo or in groups, and may include animals within the overall narrative of a piece. There is a child-like, naive quality to his work, but the modeling of facial expressions and the delightful complexity and subtlety of the whole speak to a creator with deep insight, expert craftsmanship and uncompromising integrity; and, also, quite a sense of humor and whimsy.

Todd Germann

Formally educated and working as an architect, Todd is a completely self-taught painter who started exploring fine art while working on his thesis in 2004. That lack of training allows for his art to be untainted by precedent or instruction. He describes his painting process as "reactionary" - whether to a free-form line, a rigid architectural pencil line, a form, a color or a texture. Not predetermined, his paintings come about from first creating a "landscape" of texture and color, then adding to that basic design with a number of compositional elements, which goal is the desire to achieve a harmonious composition. His non-objective paintings are beautifully balanced, energetic, complex and, also like Eddy's work, whimsical; as such, they are wonderful foils to Eddy's figurative scenes.

SEPTEMBER 29 - NOVEMBER 11, 2012

Opening Reception Saturday, September 29, 5-7:30p.m.

THE LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE 2012

15th Annual National Invitational Exhibition

Featuring Karl Dempwolf (CA) & Gary E. Fifer (VT)


In our Upstairs Galleries, 22 East Market Street, Suite 301, Rhinebeck, NY.

Celebrating its 15th year as a premier exhibition of landscape painting organized by Albert Shahinian Fine Art, The Luminous Landscape 2012 features artists Gary E. Fifer (VT) and Karl Dempwolf (CA). More than 40 recent plein air (painted outdoors on location) paintings highlight two contemporary artists who each are intimately connected to, and influenced by, an important historical style/school of American painting.

The Luminous Landscape has brought over 35 artists to the public in its 15 years as a showcase for contemporary landscape painters working within and beyond historical styles. This year's exhibit is an especially significant one, bringing together two long-time friends of the gallery - each with over 35 years of experience, and from very diverse backgrounds and personal styles - for a delightful "east-west" visual dialog.

Karl Dempwolf

Karl Dempwolf is a longtime member of the California Art Club and a master painter steeped in the tradition of painters including William Wendt, Franz Bischoff, Hanson Puthuff and Guy Rose. As a colorist he is more resonant with 20th Century Expressionism, and the boldness of his work is much more sympathetic to aspects of Modernism than a reprise of older styles. Also an avid plein air painter, Dempwolf exploits the scenic beauty of the California coast, its valleys, mountains, and - occasionally - urban boundaries. Dempwolf continues to travel around the country to work on location at National Parks and other scenic areas. He currently makes, carves, gilds and finishes his own frames - a tribute to his high standards and respect for the Arts and Craft traditions his personal art (and sense of craft) draws from. Karl has garnered many awards and a loyal collector base for his work. Karl's last showing at this gallery was in 2002.

Over the years Dempwolf has participated in exhibitions including: the Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles, the Frederick R. Weisman Museum at Pepperdine University in Malibu, the Phippen Museum in Prescott, AZ, the Carnegie Art Museum in Ventura County, CA, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, and the Pasadena (CA) Museum of California Art.

Dempwolf's work can be found in publications from North Light Books, entitled Art from the Parks. His paintings are in the permanent collections of large corporations, among them McGraw-Hill Publishers and the National Park Foundation. Dempwolf's newly published book, A Painter's Journey, is available through the gallery or his web site.

Please click on an image below to display a larger version above. Samples of Karl's frames are included.

Karl Dempwolf spent his childhood growing up in the picturesque Bavarian countryside. At the age of fourteen he and his family immigrated to the United States on the Steamship America. Dempwolf received his B.A. from California State University Northridge, CA, where he will always be recognized as that institution's first All American Athlete.

Dempwolf continued his art education by attending Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California, getting his Masters degree in 1974. Also in 1974, he won the coveted CINE Golden Eagle award for his film, "The Story of a Craftsman". The same film also won the Silver CINDY award and Best of Show at the Bellevue International Film Festival in Washington State. His film career ended when painting became his passion. Wendt, Rose, Puthuff, Payne and Ritschel became his artistic icons. We are honored to host this exhibition of his work!

Gary E. Fifer

Gary Fifer, a protege of Arthur Maynard, paints from the east coast tradition of Impressionist and post-Impressionist landscape painting, whose roots draw from the likes of Willard Metcalf, Frank Dumond, J.H. Twachtman and Robert E. Owen. Fifer is strictly an on location painter, almost always finishing a work in one sitting - his aim to capture the moment as accurately as possible. A long-time Mid-Hudson Valley fixture in the art scene, he relocated to Vermont six years ago to explore new topographies and subjects. Fifer's painting style is loose and free, worked with a limited palette but very true to the natural beauty and emotion of his subjects. Albert Shahinian Fine Art is Gary's sole representative. This is his first major exhibit with the gallery since 2008.

(All paintings by Gary Fifer can now be found under the REPRESENTING menu: Gary E. Fifer.)

Gary Fifer's more specific artistic lineage with the American Impressionists (who painted in New York and Connecticut during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) is as follows: a long-time protege of Arthur Maynard who, in turn, studied under Frank V. Dumond and was, himself, taught by Willard Metcalf. Dumond was an instructor at the Art Students League of New York (ASLNY) and the Ridgewood Art Institute, in New Jersey. Fifer also studied with Frank Mason at the ASLNY and, later, at the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts in New York.

Gary has taken Best of Show awards from the Rye Arts Center, the Kent Art Association, Kent, Connecticut, and the Ridgewood Art Institute. He has taught studio and en plein air workshops at the Garrison Art Center in Garrison, NY, and the Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester, VT. He has lectured and demonstrated on location at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Gary now resides in southern Vermont, where he paints and gives private lessons. Albert Shahinian Fine Art is Fifer's sole agent. All inquiries about his work and person should be made through the gallery, (845) 876-7578.

Previous Exhibition:

Upstairs Gallery: JULY 21 - SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

In Our Holdings Gallery: Ongoing from September 29, 2012

ALEX MARTIN (1931-2010) In Memoriam: Pastels

CHRISTIE SCHEELE: New & Recent Pastels

Alex Martin (1931-2010)

Alex Martin was Professor Emeritus of Painting and Drawing at SUNY, New Paltz, NY. He retired in 1996 after 33 years teaching and continued to paint avidly beautiful landscapes in the Hudson Valley and Ireland. This is the first of several planned exhibitions showcasing Martin's long career. Featured in this exhibit are approximately thirty pastels drawn from the artist's plein air portfolios and sketchbooks that relate to some aspect of - or activity on - the Hudson River in its run through the Poughkeepsie/Hyde Park region. Nearly all of these paintings have never been shown and are stylistically more "daring" and free than what collectors of Martin's work may associate with his work. The largest pastels are 11.5 x 17 inches yet express a wonderful spaciousness and feeling of movement that relates to his large canvases. Martin's work is in a number of collections including: The Whitney Museum of Art, NY; Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY; American Telephone and Telegraph, NY; University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA; Tulane University, New Orleans, LA; and Pepsico, Denver, CO.

Please click on an image below to display a larger version above.

Christie Scheele

Christie Scheele presents new and recent pastels that draw inspiration from Cape Cod, the Catskills, and the greater Hudson Valley region. This is her first all-pastel showing in many years. Interestingly, her first major exhibition was a joint showing with Alex Martin when both artists were represented by Jim Cox Gallery in Woodstock. The stylistic differences between the two artists are great and highlight, wonderfully, how very different visions of similar terrain can each be so visually and artistically satisfying. Additional work of Scheele's can be viewed on her "Represented Artists" page on this web site. Scheele is a mid-career painter whose work has garnered a venerable reputation in the Northeast and is now entering major public and private collections. Those include: Queens Museum of Art, Flushing, NY; Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, TX; Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY; Astoria Savings Bank, Queens, NY; James Gleich & Cynthia Crossen, Garrison & NYC, NY; Keihin Hotels-Executive Group, Takanawa, Japan; Dutchess Community College Permanent Collection, Poughkeepsie, NY; American Airlines at Kennedy Airport, Queens, NY; Club Financiero Genova, Madrid, Spain; Waterford Crystal, New York, NY; Albert Shahinian, Rhinebeck, NY; Bessemer Trust Co., New York, NY; Mark Ruffalo, New York, NY; Julio Mendoza-Sanchez, Madrid, Spain; Bessemer Trust Co., San Francisco, CA; Nikkei Nihon Keizai Shimbun America, New York, NY; Kelsey Grammer, Malibu, CA.

Please click on an image below to display a larger version above.
(Additional paintings by Christie Scheele can be found under the REPRESENTING menu.)

We are in process of redesigning our web site and will be adding more information and photos in the months ahead. 


January 2024 - January 2025

Happy New Year 2024!

January

13

3-5p.m.: Opening Reception for "Polly M. Law - New and Recent Works", "William W.Underhill - Cast Sculptural Pieces", and the gallery's "26th Anniversary Exhibition".

March

10

2-4p.m., Meet-the-Artist Conversation/Demonstration with artist Polly M. Law (during her solo exhbition). Masks recommended when inside the galleries.

April

28

2-4p.m.: Meet-the-Artist Program and Reception for William W. Underhill with daughter, Sarah Underhill, & longtime friend and catalog photographer, Brian Oglesbee. Masks recommended when inside the galleries.

April

28

Closing Day for the gallery's "26th Anniversary Winter Salon".

May

3

Opening Day for the gallery's "26th Anniversary Spring Salon".

June

30

Closing Day for "Polly M. Law - New and Recent Works", "William W.Underhill - Cast Sculptural Pieces", and our "26th Anniversary Spring Salon & Sale".

July

6

Opening Reception, TBA, First Summer Exhibition.

November

28

Closed for Thanksgiving Day (Reopen Friday at 11a.m.)

December

??

Annual SINTERKLAUS Festival and Parade, Village of Rhinebeck. Gallery open 11a.m.-8p.m.

??

TBA: New Winter hours: Friday - Saturday, 11-5; Sunday, 11-4. Off-hour visits and/or curb side pickups by appointment via cell: (845) 505-6040.

December

25

Gallery will be closed December 25th and January 1st. Holiday schedule TBA in the fall.

Happy New Year 2025!

January

1

Closed for New Year'sDay.

Our upcoming 2025 schedule will be posted later in 2024.