Drawn to Precision: In Monochrome

July 6-August 4
Opening Reception: July 6, 4:00-6:00pm
Gallery Hours: Saturdays & Sundays, 1:00-5:00pm or by appt

This exhibition co-curated by Munya Avigail Upin and David Lesako, demonstrates the fine art that artists, with extraordinary skill, can produce using simple materials.
“We have seven artists whose work is very different except for dedication to extreme detail and expressive line quality,” says Lesako. “I’m intrigued by the diversity of drawing styles and how they communicate emotion,” adds Upin. “Drawings can be representational, abstract, fantastical, and even shocking. The artists in this exhibition are extremely thoughtful and talented.”

Stephanie Anderson

A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Stephanie Anderson is an illustrator and painter represented by Bernay Fine Art. “Before the camera, artists were the interpreters of the visual world…this endeavor required a good deal of artistic license, an amalgam of the true with the imagined that sometimes involved the coexistence of incompatible elements,” she says. “My own drawings and paintings within this tradition often consist of scenes common to all living things—building shelter, gathering food, caring for the young, and dealing with conflict and threat. They are moments outside of reality, but still recognizable in our current time as artists continue to bring into focus the real, the possible, and the fantastic around and within us.”

Ario Elam

Artist, composer, and author Ario Elami is a graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts’ graduate program through Tufts University. “My artwork mainly explores architecture as visceral and botanical analogy—the tension between human design and nature on the verge of reclaiming its birthright…one can review the body itself as a bound up architecture — erotic, excretory, and orificial — with all of our desires and fears placed upon it,” he says. “In some of my latest artwork, I’ve focused on structures of the exquisite corpse variety and notions of the grotesque. These pieces are rendered more playfully and graphically, emphasizing the sensual aspects: ribs, bulges, holes, hair.”

Melissa Forbes

Melissa Forbes is an artist, yogini, author, and world traveler. She has received numerous grants and fellowships, including ones from Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Good Work Institute. She creates mandala paintings, drawings, and etchings for meditation, awakening, and grounding. “The spiral representing the movement of energy and life lies at the heart of the feminine imagery with color and light,” she says. “Drawing connects me to my higher self and spirit, transforming my state of consciousness and allowing me to offer something pure on the terrestrial realm. The artwork helps raise one’s vibration when they are viewed. Moving from the microcosm to the macrocosm.”

Douglas Gilbert

Douglas Gilbert’s graphite drawings are abstract, figurative, and expressionistic, exuding a sensual, electric, and spiritual energy that transcends subject matter. He began his art education at LaGuardia School of the Arts in New York and later earned a B.F.A. and B.A. in art history from Cornell University. “Inspired by nature, quantum physics, mythology, and the human condition, my images come to life through the convergence of thousands of visible straight lines,” he says. “The textural aspect of the line work invites viewers to get lost in the randomness of specific areas, creating opportunities for contemplation and connection.”

Maja Kihlstedt

Sweden-born artist Maja Kihlstedt explores the organic world, finding beauty in seemingly inconsequential organic matter. She began her artistic studies at the Danish Art Academy before journeying to the United States to study at New York Studio School and later Yale University Summer School for Music and Art. She describes her current work as being “about micro cosmos, the kind that is all around us but is often not possible for the eye to see in its intricate and microscopic detail.” She says, “I have come to be endlessly fascinated by the tiny in nature and in discovering how much information it holds with its complex structures and perplexing patterns. The challenge has been to translate and make these drawings on a larger scale.

Monica Miller

Monica Miller most recently exhibited her artwork at Joyce Goldstein, Thompson Giroux, and Albany Center galleries. She was director of the Harmanus Bleecker Center of the Albany Institute of History and Art and produced exhibits for “Readings Against the End of the World.”

At the Academy, she will show pieces from “Sintne Angeli (Are they Angels?),” which was a series of charcoal drawings she created after the deaths of her parents. “The drawings were made to calm my broken heart,” she says. “The image of a sacred being doing personal chores (ironing a shirt) came to me while I sought solace in the former Malden Bridge Methodist Church.”

Kate Minford

Kate Minford is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and certified hypnosis practitioner. She studied at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Divine Feminine School of Hypnosis. Her art practice draws from mysticism, healing practices, spirituality, handcrafts, folk art, psychedelia, metaphysics, storytelling, and energy work. She views her art as “messages to her future incarnation or past selves” and aims for it to “challenge conventional boundaries, inviting viewers to embrace personal growth and transformation through acts of attention, gratitude, wonder, and connection with the natural world and themselves.”