Spring Affair: Contemporary Art of the Hudson Valley

June 1-30
Gallery Hours: Saturdays and Sundays,1:00-5:00pm or by appt

Guest curator Tim Ebneth is an artist, illustrator, designer, and art instructor who lives and works in Kinderhook, NY, set out to explore what it means to be a contemporary artist working today. “It was an ambitious task,” he says, “so it proved challenging to limit the exhibition to a small group of artists. I am thrilled that all 10 artists agreed to participate and share their unique visions, which include themes of identity, memory and remembrance, joy, nature, and spirituality.”

From flowers to horses to pears, Kim Bach’s paintings are studies in motion. The Hudson, NY-based artist says, “The act of painting is an energetic and transformational process. My initial impulse is usually an attempt to give form to an imagined dance going on in my head.” A recipient of a residency at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY, Bach studied at the California College of Arts & Crafts and received an MA from Long Island University, Brooklyn.

In the spirit of the New York School and in the tradition of plein air painting, Hudson Valley-based artist Mary Breneman creates evocative oil paintings that celebrate the beauty of the natural world. At once representational, abstract, and emotionally expressive, her compositions are inspired by life and sketches or photographs taken on meditation walks through nature. “My paintings are pure expressions of where and who I am,” says the artist.

A graduate of the ‍Rhode ‍Island ‍School of Design, Peter Hoffman considers himself to be a sculptor and painter in equal parts. His sculptures from the 1980s, when he was living in New York City, reflected the strong geometry of the urban environment, but upon moving to Columbia County, more organic and less structured elements began to influence him. “A successful work of art for me,” he says, “is one that makes a direct visual connection, both engaging and quieting the mind simultaneously.”

Artist Gretchen Kelly has an extensive background as a fashion and home goods designer, creating pieces for Oscar de la Renta, Adrienne Vittadini, Anne Klein, Target, Kohls, and more. Her watercolor and acrylic paintings are infused with feelings of spontaneity and whimsy as she endeavors to capture the gestures and nuances of fleeting moments. Inspired by the beauty of what is natural in the world, she embellishes what she sees with her own personal touches of color, pattern, and ornament.

Catskill, NY-based artist Joe Mama-Nitzberg received his MFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. He creates in an array of forms and media, including photography, video, and collage. “To inspire curiosity, investigation, empathy, and hope are among my greatest desires,” he says. “I propose positions in my work, but I do not directly advocate for them…I want my work to speak to a diverse community and be a space where anger, grief, joy, healing, and humor coexist.”

Linda McNutt is an artist and designer who works and lives in a converted dairy barn in Claverack, NY. A longtime meditation practitioner, she explores the idea of integrating the artistry of textile work and the spiritual. “I [am] passionate about hand stitching, drawn to the tactile beauty of the assemblage of textiles and the use of ‘stitch’ as a drawing medium and art form and also as a means of personal expression and transformation,” she says. “I believe stitching and sewing is a healing act…It is a tactile form of poetry that becomes a way to make spirit visible.”

Christine Mottau lives and works in New York City and Spencertown, NY, and was educated at the Art Institute of Boston and the Museum School of Fine Arts in Boston, MA. At the Academy, she will exhibit a series of oil paintings about chakra theory-based meditation. “The connection between color, light, and creativity is inherent in chakra theory and spiritual realization,” she says. “The emergence of consciousness through the practice of meditation is presented through the construct of the painting, whereby the painting emerges from itself.”

Robin Rice is a fine art photographer and a gallerist based in New York City and Hudson, NY. Her photography is cinematic yet unstaged, the images are reminiscent of classic films, such as the high noon shadows cast against the desert sands in Sergio Leone’s “A Fistful of Dollars.” Her photography is unedited and born simply from the magic of in-camera composition. When speaking about how she works, Rice quotes Edward Steichen, who once said, “When that shutter clicks, anything else that can be done afterward is not worth consideration.”

Marc Swanson lives and works in Catskill, NY, where his artistic practice includes sculpture, drawing, installation, and video. He works with wood, plaster, paint, fabric, paper, stones, and other materials. As a queer artist, he is very interested in dualities. The urban/rural and nature/culture inquests have been his main explorations along with issues of identity and community, the eternal and the immediate, strength and fragility, the past and the present, and urban versus rural economies.

Moscow-born visual artist and writer Anya Ulinich holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from the University of California, Davis. When Russia began its military buildup to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ulinich, whose family is from Eastern Ukraine, began making paintings that addressed the sense of alienation she felt as she watched the destruction of her homeland by her other homeland while surrounded by the leisure and luxury zeitgeist of the Hudson Valley.