Going Global: Contemporary Fine Art From Around The World

Going Global

Contemporary Fine Art From Around The World, From Princeton, New Jersey to Reykjavik, Iceland

Global - Bronze by
Richard Erdman

SAKSONS.JPG (11340 bytes)
Tuscalum © 1989 Robert Sakson

Exhibit at Pringle International Art and The Williams Gallery

8 Chambers Street, Princeton NJ
Mary Lou Bock & Debra Pringle\Curators

November 27, 1999 to January 22, 2000

Opening Reception: Saturday November 27, 1pm - 5pm

Gallery Hours:
Mon. - Sat- 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM

From and About Princeton are artists Michael Berger, Jane Eccles, Richard Erdman and Robert Sakson. A representative selection of their works gives the viewer a rich and varied perspective of regional art and artists. Michael Berger, Jane Eccles and Robert Sakson present scenes and historical landmarks of Princeton and the surrounding area. Each artist uses a different medium (digital painting, pastel or watercolor) to effect their unique creations. And introducing, new to the gallery, Richard Erdman. He may best be recognized by his sculpture "Rumba I " an 8 foot high carved figure of African Granite which graces the Princeton University Campus. The work on exhibit is a collection of delicate, graceful shapes cast in bronze.

From Further Afield are four internationally prominent artists Tanya Kohn, Karolina Larusdottir, Salvatore Magazzini and Mary Stork. The common element found in the work of the overseas contingent of the show is their dominant use of color. Gallery newcomer, Salvatore Magazinni’s colorful paintings of Italy and Morocco are exhibited. Hand-painted etching by the celebrated Icelandic artist, Karolina Larusdottir promise to capture the imagination. Nude drawings by English artist, Mary Stork are also on show. The nature-inspired painting of Mexican artist Tanya Kohn resonate with color and motion.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Michael Berger is fascinated with the creative opportunities that new technologies offer to an artist. As one of the inventors of Polaroid Corporation's 35 mm instant slide film, Berger has had experience in blending art and science to create new images as well as new imaging systems. For years, Berger used camera and darkroom techniques to evoke impressionism. Today he has added digital paint to his palette, allowing him to explore new approaches to imaging. His recent series of Princeton scenes such as the Princeton University Arch, Nassau Street and the Dinky Station offer an impressionistic rendering of familiar places. View more Berger artwork in the online gallery.

Mr. Berger has lectured throughout the US and internationally on his very personal approach to imaging. He states, "The impressionist painters took advantage of the new technologies of the late 1800's - new brushes, new pigments - and discovered new ways to interpret what they saw. I see us, 100 years later, at the same point, but working with electronic color to produce new visions of the world around us. I use digital technology to go beyond the camera lens, revealing the ordinary images from our everyday life as really extraordinary events." Back to top.

Jane Eccles first came to Princeton in 1978 where she began to do landscape drawings and paintings of the surrounding area. Since moving to Cape Cod in 1990, she continues her work there but returns to Princeton each year to capture in pastel the drama of the changing light, weather and natural environment. Certain sites have earned an almost magical significance for her as she returns seasonally to see "what can be mined". She notes, "The landscapes of today - for that matter the landscapes of Mercer and Hunterdon counties are not what they were when first moving to Princeton in 1978… The persistent lure in the subject of landscape painting is the drama: changes in lightfall and weather and in the imperceptibly shifting topography".

Ms Eccles is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College. She has been awarded a fellowship in Graphics by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and her work is in the collection of the Newark Museum, Firestone Library, and the Zimmerli Museum, as well as many private and corporate collection. Back to top.

Richard Erdman, internationally acclaimed artist, makes the impossible occur on a routine basis. From the seemingly grounded to the truly ethereal, his sculptures express a vitality which transcends their temporality. The inspirations for his creations are multi-faceted and varied. They do however have a common thread evolving from the artist’s own reverence for nature. Erdman’s creative process is a veritable conversation with the medium, suggesting form and essence while listening to and feeling the response.

Educated in the United States, Erdman traveled to Italy - first to Florence and later to Carrara, which is the worlds finest source of stone.. Following an apprenticeship with master stonecutter, he establish a studio in Carrara and to which he returns to work for a portion of each year. The mastery and spirit which the artist’s work exudes has created an enormous international following. Richard Erdman’s sculptures can be found in museum, corporate and private collections throughout the world. Back to top.

Tanya Kohn was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia and later emigrated to Ecuador. She studied plastic arts in Ecuador, the USA, Switzerland and France, following which she was invited by the International Organization for Cultural Promotion of the Mexican Foreign Relations Ministry to present her first show in Mexico, and subsequently took up permanent residency. She has shown extensively in Museums throughout Mexico and South America.

The recurring theme of Kohn's paintings is nature: earth, sea , sky, or water. Both in content and technique her art reflects a spiritual quality in which the viewer is invited in to become a spectator. In her canvases and works on paper Kohn uses and often combines a variety of mediums and techniques (oil, mixed-media, serigraph, collage) to realize her intention. Of her work she says, "Real, authentic artistic expression is, above all, introspection. It is an encounter with ones self. It is an intent to communicate something profound and yet personal." Back to top.

Karolina Larusdottir, originally from Iceland, draws inspiration for her colorful and thought provoking etchings from her her childhood memories of growing up in Reykjavik. Ms. Larusdottir received her formal art education at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford and at the Barking College of Art also in England. She is a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers Association in Iceland.

Ms. Larusdottir effectively combines remembrances of her past with a wonderfully absurd imagination to create works that are narrative and intriguing. An angel partaking in chocolate, an angry customer at a restaurant, or a man with many things to ponder are al images to be seen in this artist’s series of work.

Karolina Larusdottir exhibits regularly in her native country, throughout the United Kingdom and in the United States.

Salvatore Magazzini: The painterly landscapes of Salvatore Magazzini are vivid expressions of his attachment to some of the world’s most beautiful territory. Masses of color are predominant in his work and provide the impat for the Italian and Moroccan vistas that he loves to paint. Recognized as an Italian colorist, Magazzini creates images that express his emotional reaction to landscapes where he has discovered serenity in an otherwise frenetic world.

Over the span of his 30 years as an artist, Magazzini has increasingly moved away from realism towards a style that balances abstraction and the figurative. In many ways, his style has followed the path of his own personal maturation where he has sought to balance emotion and reason: the culmination of which has been success in simplifying his life and his work.

Salvatore Magazzini’s paintings are included in major collections in Italy, France, Switzerland, Morocco, England and the United States.

Robert Sakson first began a series of commissioned paintings for The Williams Gallery in 1997. This portfolio of twelve watercolors has been presented as a portion of a show at Bristol- Myers Squibb in an exhibition titled "Historic New Jersey: A Contemporary View", as well as at Merrill Lynch & Company and The Nassau Club of Princeton. Sakson is one of New Jersey’s most accomplished watercolorists. A Fellow of the American Watercolor Society and New Jersey Watercolor Society, he has received extensive recognition over many years from critics, collectors and peers.

The selection of works on exhibit reflects Sakson’s lifelong interest in and love of the history of buildings and historic landmarks. Some of his watercolors are executed as spontaneous on-location studies, while other are carefully defined and historically researched for completion in his studio. Among the paintings to be on display are the Albert Einstein House 1998, McCarter Theatre 1998, and Morven 1998 . Back to top.

Mary Stork trained at the West of England College of Art in Bristol, England and at the prestigious Slad School in London under Henry Moore and frank Auerbach. Since then Ms. Stork has spent much of her career in the artisan community of St. Ives, Cornwall in England.