Three-month art gallery exhibit features collaboration of eight artists

“The Unspoken no. 42,” mixed media on panel by Joshua Hogan and Brenda Stumpf.

“The Unspoken” pairs artists to
create visual stories

“Visual communication is the key to conveying a case for change -- and often the strategy that provides direction for that change. When blended with verbal and kinesthetic language, visual language becomes the tool that not only creates an effective dialogue around issues but also identifies actions for improvement. As we continue to become a multicultural society, understanding how people communicate visually is crucial to our understanding of one another.”
— Curatorial Statement, The Unspoken exhibit

UPPER BURRELL, Pa. -- The pairing of eight artists on collaborative pieces using different mediums is the focus of a special three-month exhibit in the art gallery at Penn State New Kensington.

“The Unspoken” runs from July 1 to September 26, and features 45 works of Kyle Ethan Fischer, Joshua Hogan, Kuzana Ogg, Jennipher Satterly, Nicole Schneider, Romi Sloboda, Brenda Stumpf and Shawn Watrous, instructor in art at the New Kensington campus.

According to Nicole Capozzi, owner and director of BoxHeart Gallery in Pittsburgh and curator of the exhibit, the artists are communicating visually with “stories, not statistics” and “people, not programs," The humanity aspect of the show dovetails with Penn State’s mission of service to the community.

“This human focus reflects the culture that Penn State New Kensington manifests within its community,” Capozzi said. “We are excited to present a coherent concept of artwork with a look and feel that reflects the embracing personality, the innovative spirit, and the mission of the campus."

The pieces on display are collaborative efforts by two artists. Artwork started by one artist was finished by another. Individually, the artists told their stories through a variety of visual styles, experiences and expressions. Together, the artists’ stories evolve and are open to new interpretations. The hybrid pieces give audiences a new way of looking at familiar objects.

The first artist defined the medium, which is the material used for the piece and technique used by the artist, and constructed an original piece that showcased the artist’s creative processes. The second artist took control of the artwork–in-process and continued the visual dialogue by implementing local experiences that added new meaning to the piece. The finished product is a different version of the same story.

“Each work of art expresses the artists’ subject in the context of their values, culture and events specific to their lives,” Capozzi said, “The resulting artwork is a stunning and fascinating display of form, color, texture and composition, processed as another form of language with its own vocabulary, grammar and syntax.”

The artists previously exhibited “The Unspoken” at Capozzi’s BoxHeart Gallery in April and May.

An artists’ reception is slated for Friday, Sept. 18, in the gallery. The time will be announced at a later date. The exhibit and reception are free to the public. The art gallery is open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., weekdays and noon to 5 p.m., weekends.

“We relish the opportunity to present a visual message of modernity, simplicity and sophistication while focusing on the artists and the stories they tell,” Capozzi said.

For more information, contact Tina Sluss at 724-334-6056 or tms57@psu.edu

For photos of the exhibit, visit http://psnk.smugmug.com/

 “Wayfarer Series,” textile, found object, paint by Kyle Ethan Fischer and Joshua Hogan,

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Artists

A sculptor from Pittsbugh, Kyle Ethan Fischer mimics elemental processes like erosion, deposition, combustion, and cooling in his art making. His sculptures' structures are attended through the adoption of various man-made grids like antique needlework, beadwork, chicken wire, or diagrams of nanotubes, military weapons, and silica. Through additive and deductive manipulation of both the process driven and structural building blocks, Fischer can mutate the outcome creating imagery that is more poetic than didactic and redistributes the selective bias of the subject matter. Often Fischer seeks to entwine crisis and distress as nourishing parts of the system achieving integration of the self and ultimately the community. Fischer received his BFA in painting from the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts in Connecticut. For more information, visit www.kylefischerart.com

Joshua Hogan is an abstract, contemporary painter from Pittsburgh. His s paintings start wet on wet with fluid mark making -­- a mix of runs, drips, and splatters -­- slowly forming mysterious shapes he calls “wayfarers”. As Hogan paints, he turns the picture plane until his wayfarers begin to interact. Using a limitless palette, he layers transparent color to create perceptional dimension around the wayfarers. Hogan intends for them to be in continuous movement, traveling through a vast, abstract landscape. Hogan uses a variety of painting techniques, from a dry brush over wet paint to a palette knife with textured color. These techniques emphasize his wayfarers. They now communicate feeling through the glow of paint. Hogan’s progression from an earthly, ascetic palette to a chromatic, synthetist palette demonstrates how color possesses meaning in the same manner as form, subject, and composition. This deliberate color consciousness brings to life contemporary issues of our cultural infrastructure by illuminating these fluid, organic existences that take shape on his canvases. Still relevant symbols of modern life, Hogan’s wayfarers flutter, float, and fly about capturing the ephemeral experiences of life. He received his BFA from Carlow University in 1997. For more information, visit www.joshuahogan.com

As a biomorphic painter, the forms in Kuzana Ogg’s artwork refer to living entities. The cycle and development of plant life, and the derivative idea that biological and botanical entities share fundamental similarities, are two recurring themes in her work. In current works, long-standing motifs of mangos converge with newer imagery of fields and architecture. This gives voice to a third theme, concerned with our ability to live harmoniously with each other and with nature. Color and its application remain focal points of Ogg’s work. Textile design devices such as block print, ikat, and repeats are also prevalent. However, in the current work, pattern is disrupted; partially obliterated in some areas, completely articulated in others. Mark and imagery are developed through an indirect method of ghosting colors and line fragments. This layering and attention to stroke, produces a lustrous and complex surface, open to interpretation. The titles of Ogg’s paintings reflect the enigma of language in general and those foreign to her in particular. They were chosen randomly to express the incidental manner of acquiring language: first as a child in India, and subsequently as an adult living and traveling through various countries. Ogg graduated from SUNY Purchase in 1995. Shortly thereafter, she moved to South Korea and spent six years living in historic Kyung Ju before returning to the United States. Ogg has participated in several residencies, the most recent in Sri Lanka. Her work has been exhibited, published, and collected both nationally and internationally. She lives in Bakersfield, California. For more information, visit www.kuzanaogg.com

Truly a painters' painter, Jennipher Satterly's work reminds others of the act of painting itself. The gliding of wet strokes of color across a surface and the subtle smell of linseed oil are drawn to mind. Classic formal issues of painting are paramount in every piece. Not to be confused as a photorealist, Satterly's composition and use of color clearly demonstrates that her artistic point of view is that of a painter rather than a photographer. Always a celebration of color and light, the technique of wet into wet painterly realism, where the gesture of stroke is loose looking up close but from a distance really fuses the imagery together, is truly championed in her work. Her technique is her subject. It is revealed through the diverse collection of objects, places, and people she chooses to paint. Whether it is a sparkling piece of glass or dappled sunlight across an intricate maze of pipe work on an oil rig, the paintings serve as documents of her vast visual experience. Satterly received her BFA at SUNY Purchase and her MFA from the Glasgow School of Art. Her work has been exhibited in Germany, Scotland, Israel, China, and United States. Most recently, she presented her solo exhibition, “Luxe”, at Tria Gallery in New York and exhibited her works at the Parallax Art Fair and New York Affordable Art Fair. For more information, visit www.jenniphersatterly.com

 “Morning Song,” mixed media on canvas by Kuzana Ogg and Jennipher Satterly.

Nicole Schneider received a BFA and a MFA in printmaking from Kent State University. In 2013, she opened Black Balloon Editions, a fine art print shop and gallery in Ohio City, a year later. Black Balloon provides artists with a project driven workspace in which to fully develop an idea and produce a finished body of printed work during an intensely dedicated period of time. For more information, visit www.nicolemschneider.wordpress.com

Romi Sloboda spent her childhood living in the United States and Seoul, South Korea, her mother’s native city. She studied printmaking at Washington University in St. Louis and Santa Reparata Graphic Arts Centre in Florence Italy. After living in Paris during a residency fellowship at the Cité International des Arts Foundation, Sloboda returned to the U.S. and moved with her husband, artist Chip Dunahugh, to Philadelphia where they resided eight years before moving west. She currently lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Over her career, Sloboda’s artwork has shifted from a focus on printmaking to painting and mixed media. During her residency at CentralTrak, Sloboda pursued an alternate line of investigation -- a series of sculptures that reflect her longtime interest in vessels, layering, translucency, and the merging of different materials. Antique Korean ceramic vessels have served as reference points in Sloboda’s artwork because they figure prominently in her childhood memories. The shapes of these mundane stoneware jars and cups continue to serve as vehicles to investigate pattern and form in her artwork, as well as departure points to investigate ideas about containment and loss. For more information, visit www.romisloboda.com

Known for her abstract, intricate and complex use of nontraditional materials, Brenda Stumpf’s artwork is pervaded with mythic and historic figures, sacred texts and alchemy. Steeped with both intensely personal and archetypal associations, her artwork fundamentally deals with the process of transmutation. As the artist said, “For me there is a profound healing in the creation of art. It provides for the simultaneous healing of one’s life, ancestral lineage, and collective pain body. Creating art is a mystical and potent act.” Stumpf’s artwork has been included twice in the International Assemblage Artist Exhibition in Berlin Germany, and the Midyear Exhibition at Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio. Jerry Saltz, art critic for New York Magazine, juried her sculpture in the group exhibition, “Taboo,” at Studio Montclair. In 2009, her artwork was selected for the Colorado Art Open juried by Christoph Heinrich, director of the Denver Art Museum, and Michael Chavez, former curator of the Foothills Art Center. Stumpf has shown extensively in Denver, including solo exhibitions at Walker Fine Art and Ironton Gallery. Her artwork has been featured in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Scene Magazine, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Free Times, Rocky Mountain News, Westword, and Denver Post. Stumpf's artwork resides in numerous public collections, including St. Vincent Charity Hospital, Trinity Cathedral, Ellet Library, and Eastern New Mexico University, as well as in over 250 private collections. After living and working in Denver for the past seven years, Stumpf recently moved to Stanton Heights in Pittsburgh. For more information, visit www.brendastumpf.com

In his paintings, Shawn Watrous uses a combination of mediums and surfaces, including acrylic, graphite, patterned fabric, printing ink, charcoal, drawing and print papers, translucent vellum and digital photography printed in transparent polyester film. Each of these elements contains their own information, whether in terms of color, shape, mark, or gesture, representation or abstraction. Through a process of layering the bits of information together, Watrous is juxtaposing aspects of geometric abstraction, gestural expressionism, and photographic representation as a means of creating images that deal with memory and identity. Watrous received his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2002 and his MFA from Kent State University. He taught at Kent State University before moving to Pittsburgh to teach at Penn State New Kensington. Watrous is also a member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and has worked in the entertainment industry as a scenic painter. He has worked in the art department of three feature films -- The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Abduction, and I Am Number Four. For more information, visit www.shawnwatrous.com

Watrous joined the New Kensington campus faculty in 2014. Following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Bud Gibbons, he showcased his work with a solo exhibition in November in the campus art gallery. Watrous took over the teaching responsibilities of Gibbons, professor emeritus of visual arts, who retired in June. Watrous' art has made it to the big screen. He has sold and rented pieces to the film industry for use in movie sets. In addition, his work can be found in the Cleveland Clinic Collection, and BoxHeart Gallery. The artist resides in Springdale with his wife and son.

 
 “Accumulative Series no. 5,” mixed media and collage relief over paper by Nicole Schneider and Shawn Watrous,

Curator

Nicole Capozzi is the owner and director of BoxHeart Expressions, a fine art and fine craft gallery. BoxHeart features the work of regional, national and international artists working in a wide variety of media -- ceramics, painting, jewelry, glass, wood, paper, textile, sculpture, metal and assemblage. Capozzi earned a bachelor’s degree in studio art from Carlow University. Since 1998, she has curated, coordinated, and hosted over 200 exhibitions for artists, providing an outlet for conceptually engaged and aesthetically resolved exhibitions that reflect contemporary art issues and relevancy to the community. In addition to working as a gallerist, Capozzi is an art consultant, providing curatorial and project management services to clients in need of help determining which pieces of artwork to acquire. She also offers custom framing, art installation and painting services.

BoxHeart Gallery

Located in the 4500 block of Liberty Avenue in the Bloomfield section of Pittsburgh, BoxHeart Gallery’s current exhibits are Erin Treacy’s “Dismantled and Reclaimed” in the main gallery and Jim Studeny’s “You Only Live Twice” on the second-floor gallery. Both shows run from July 14 to Aug. 21. Treacy’s work features paintings and paper assemblage. Studeny’s art includes Japanese woodblock inspired paintings. A reception for the artists is set from 5 to 8 p.m., Saturday, July 18, at the gallery. For more information, call 412-687-8858 or visit http://www.boxheartgallery.com/welcome.html

Box Heart is a term used when the pith (soft core occurring in the structural center of wood) falls entirely within the four faces of a piece of wood anywhere in its length. For example, a sawn timber with the pith in the center of both ends of the beam is a “boxed heart.”

 "Kuro 2.13," mixed media on paper by Kuzana Ogg and Romi Sloboda.