RoCA re-opens with 3 Exhibits

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Viewing begins Sept. 10 – visitors must call to schedule an appointment

After the long Pandemic Shutdown, Rockland Center for the Arts is happy to announce that it is opening up its classroom and gallery exhibition spaces. Visitors will need to schedule an appointment to see the exhibitions in order to limit the number of people in the gallery at any given time. This September RoCA will present three exhibitions: Kris Campbell’s LOOK AT ME, Leslie Fandrich’s FEMININE PERCEPTIONS: Beauty and Nonsense  and Contemporary Rockland Artists: RoCA Faculty Exhibit.  The Faculty Exhibit will be on view Sept. 10 thru Sept. 24. Imaginary Beings and Feminine Perceptions will be on view Sept. 10 – Oct. 4, 2020.

CONTEMPORARY ROCKLAND ARTISTS: RoCA Faculty Exhibit celebrates the present vision of the teaching artists at RoCA.  The exceptional faculty actively creates, teaches and exhibits throughout the U.S. and the Hudson Valley.  We are proud to list just a few of these accomplished teachers:  Marlene Krumm-Sanders’ open ceramic sculpture forms are depictions of provocative architectural abstractions that play with tension between solid and negative spaces while simultaneously creating an illusion of defying gravity, and appearing to displace weight and push volume.   Grids of lines wrap their way around the exterior of the object.  The final sculptures are calm and content.   Sanders studied at Parsons and at the American College in Paris, France.   She exhibits extensively.

Jane Chang’s Chinese Brush Paintings are based on one of the most renowned approaches to painting. It unifies what were considered the highest forms of creativity in China: painting, poetry, and calligraphy. Known as the “Three Perfections,” the painting style combines these disciplines to depict nature as a stylized extension of the emotional world of the artist.  Chang studied master classes with Madame Aixinjueluo Hinyi, a descendant of the imperial Qing Dynasty, China.

LOOK AT ME: Works by Kris Campbell  is about seeing and being seen: This exhibit asks the viewer to go beyond judgement to become aware of what is seen, how something is seen, while actively engaging in the experience of the outward—and inward—gaze.

Kris Campbell creates meaningful visual experiences that connect to the soul, time, space, and the human experience. Campbell takes a delicate, nominal craft, and, using yarn on screen assembles large works that take up space and demand to be seen.  The consistent cross stitch throughout creates a smooth surface that highlights the color variation, evoking waves of light, and molecular energy. In some places the screen is left bare, allowing for a space beyond the surface of the work to be seen in the way a soul searches beyond the surface.

LOOK AT ME’s pieces were selected for inclusion to invite the gaze: The Shephard beckons; See Me confronts; Me,Too accepts; Fairy Light basks; The Doll (work on paper) questions the value of the gaze. Campbell invites the viewer to suspend judgement and look at—and through— the work, and within.

In THE FEMININE PERCEPTION:  Beauty and Nonsense, Leslie Fandrich tells stories of the feminine deploying collage, by drawing connections to the boundaries of the female body and the ways in which women are viewed – or not viewed – in today’s society and media.   Working with a wide range of printed media, including maps, vintage newspapers, fabric patterns, old book pages, music sheets, advertising ephemera and images of women appropriated from fashion, her works appear both modern and timeless.

Fictional tropes taken from movies and books often serve as her titles.  Through them she explores the ways in which our visual language has provided a disservice to more than half the human population. Her  intent is to question and transform the way women are respected in our culture and reflected in our media. Questions she asks are: What do women need to do to hold power? How do powerful women make others feel? How does feminism intersect with racism, gender roles and other forms of oppression? How do women increase their value in a society that frequently de-values them?

We invite you to view these exhibits of extraordinary artists.  The CONTEMPORARY ROCKLAND ARTISTS exhibit will be on view Sept. 10 – Sept. 24.  LOOK AT ME and THE FEMININE PERCEPTION will be on view Sept. 10 – Oct. 4.   Free to the general public, the gallery is open by appointment only.  There will be a limit on visitors in the space at all times, in alignment with current social distancing protocols.  Visitors are required to wear masks upon entering RoCA and while in the gallery.  To schedule a visit or for more information contact: Rockland Center for the Arts, 845-358-0877, info@rocklandartcenter.org.   Rockland Center for the Arts is located at 27 S Greenbush Rd., West Nyack, NY 10994.  Gallery hours are:  Mon.-Fri. 10-4; Sat. 1-4 p.m.