The State of the Art Gallery is honored to present the 2024 Invitational Exhibit, showcasing the work of seven artists: Stephen Clark, Geena Fratto, Bill Hastings, Charles Heasley, JW Johnston, Jordan Kornreich, and Catharine O’Neill. Media include sculpture, drawing, painting, printmaking, and photography.
The show will run from February 29 until March 31. An opening reception will be held on Friday, March 1, 5–8
Stephen Alexander Clark
Recently, my work has been exploring ideas related to trace, remains, and signs of presence. Specifically, this work seeks to ask what is communicated through the remnants of time? What chronological markers continue and what ones are lost? In the paintings, there is an intentional push/pull of the figure-ground relationship that inhabits each work, functioning as a direct visual correlation for the idea that the past and present affect each other, and communicates a non-linear concept of time.
Geena Fratto
I’m a fine artist. I work in many materials—drawing, painting, sculpture and poetry. Every form demands its own voice/hand but everything I make is related some way or another. I received my BFA from Pratt Institute in 2016.
Bill Hastings
In the age of the Anthropocene, I’m inspired by natural design and rhythms of growth. Human interaction on the environment is unavoidable. Every action has an impact. As a naturalist and gardener, I am always weighing my impact and reflecting on the larger picture. My sculptures have been utilizing a ubiquitous material that seems unavoidable in contemporary culture: plastics. These sculptures employ recycled polyester-based products designed for gardening and consumer appetites. Through a process of repetition, the work becomes a meditation on where we are in this era, while realizing these works could be easily recycled into something new.
Charles Heasley
My recent work uses a combination of nineteenth century photomechanical processes, newer technologies and a blending of both the analog and digital. It is an attempt to develop not simply a reflection of reality, but rather, to emphasize abstracting as the primary act. A reality reflected through photomechanical constructs. These pieces are a culmination, personal rumination on concepts of space/time.
JW Johnston
My ongoing project, Home Body, explores imprints of time and life—evidence of my parents’ lives—throughout my boyhood home. I preserve the evidence because getting rid of it would erase some of my parents’ story and I yearn for the illusion of permanence. I am all too aware that life is ephemeral.
Jordan Kornreich
The paintings and drawings I make as a studio artist often oscillate between representation and abstraction. In my practice, both processes are equally involved with the complex challenges of translating visual experiences into physical works that speak of their own making as both image and object. Developed in response to mid 20th century hard-edge abstraction, these non-representational paintings and drawings are shape driven works that aim to hold a light which gels simultaneously in reference to both the sky at twilight and the backlit nature of computer screens.
Catharine O’Neill
Putting a cat in a painting is usually the right thing to do. Humans, flowers, birds can also be good. Still, cats are best.
