Pages

Thursday, January 13, 2011

NEW EXHIBITS @ HUNTERDON ART MUSEUM

Hunterdon Art Museum
                                     center for art, craft & design

 

New exhibitions: Paintings and sculptures that reflect the realm of dreams

The Hunterdon Art Museum is pleased to announce the opening of

  • Mindscapes: Paintings by Marzie Nejad on January 23–April 3
  • Sarah Stengle: Useless Tools on February 27–June 12

A reception for both is set for Sunday, February 27, from 2 to 4 PM

Flying cactus

Marzie Nejad, Flying Cactus, 1989; Oil on canvas; 36 x 36 in.; Courtesy of the artist

Marzie Nejad calls her paintings "mindscapes" because they depict the landscape of the imagination. The unexpected and seemingly impossible scenes she creates require us to suspend reality and enter the irrational world of dreams. Like dreams, these paintings are not easily explained and are open to a multitude of interpretations.

Much of Nejad's striking imagery emerges from her unconscious mind during early morning reveries. These waking dreams--a mix of memories, fantasies, wishes and fears--provide the subjects for her paintings. Like a photographer traversing the landscape of the mind, she takes snapshots of the scenery she imagines and records these visions on canvas.

Tool - Sarah Stengle

Sarah Stengle, Useless Tool #13: Tool for Existing; Beyond Paper, 2010, Chrome plated steel architectural fitting w/glass coyote eyes and a found handle; 9 x 3.5 x 3.5 inches; Photo: Cie Stroud

Useless Tools is an exhibition of sculptural objects by Sarah Stengle, based on or adapted from hand tools whose functions are either impossible or negated by their transformation into art objects. There is a tool for objectifying desire, a tool for obliterating regrets, a tool for inserting the sky into your brain, and even a tool to restore virginity, among others. To accompany the exhibition, Stengle has designed and produced an artist book in the form of an instruction manual in which she creates elaborate scenarios and tips for employing these useless tools. 

Sarah Stengle lives in Princeton, New Jersey and maintains a studio nearby in Trenton. She designs books as a profession in addition to creating her own artist's books. She studied metal-smithing at Carnegie-Mellon University, and earned an MFA in sculpture at the School of Visual Arts. She has exhibited regularly and her work is included in the collections of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Pierpont Morgan Library among others.

Also opening on February 27 is Claybodies: Reinterpreting the Figure.

 

Located at 7 Lower Center Street in Clinton, NJ, the Museum's hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, contact the Museum at 908-735-8415. Suggested admission to the Museum is $5.