The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz is pleased to announce the opening of the 2019 installment of its Hudson Valley Artists exhibition series, featuring work by 17 regional artists.
“Madness in Vegetables: Hudson Valley Artists 2019” opens with a gallery reception on Saturday, June 15, from 5 – 7 p.m., in The Dorsky’s Alice and Horace Chandler Gallery and North Gallery. The exhibition will be on view through Nov. 10.
Exhibiting artists: Bob Barry | Julie Evans | Mara Held | Virginia Lavado | Elisa Lendvay | Scott Serrano | Claudia McNulty | David Nyzio | Phyllis Gay Palmer | Libby Paloma | Lauren Piperno | Jackie Shatz | Linda Stillman | Jean-Marc Superville Sovak | Christina Tenaglia | Scrap Wrenn | Roberta Ziemba
About the Exhibition
“I am dreaming of the trees that devote themselves to an unending search for aerial balance…Such is the life of a fig tree, like a poet’s: the search for light and the difficulty of remaining in it. There are apple trees that prefer the beauty of their fruit to the maintenance of their balance and so they break. They are mad.” – Francis Jammes, “Pensées des Jardins” (1906)
mixed media stipple drawing, text, and handmade frame, courtesy the artist
The title “Madness in Vegetables” cites a poem by Francis Jammes, a French writer born in 1868, who is best known for his turn from the Symbolist movement, instead drawing inspiration from the natural world and a rustic life far from the decadent center of Parisian literary circles.
Jammes locates the vertical nature of the tree as a site for the imagination, inspired by its determined ascent towards air and light, and the mystery of the subterranean earth where roots converge and pulse with energy.
“Madness in Vegetables: Hudson Valley Artists 2019” shares Jammes’ interest in our otherworldly entanglements with vegetal life, and the endless potential for imagination that is found in the darkness of the underbrush and lightness of the overstory.
Artists in the exhibition address the enticing beauty and repellent brutality of nature; the political and civic implications of choosing a rural life; our rapidly changing climate; the wild character of plants, gardens, forests, and fauna; the relevance, power and forms of anthropomorphic mythmaking; and poetic and fantastical interpretations of the woodlands.
About the Hudson Valley Artists series
Hudson Valley Artists exhibitions are open to all emerging and mid-career artists with an active art practice in Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, and Westchester Counties.
Exhibited works will be eligible for acquisition into the museum’s permanent collection, thanks to the Hudson Valley Artists Annual Purchase Award supported by the Alice and Horace Chandler Art Acquisition Fund.
About the Curators
Alyson Baker founded River Valley Arts Collective in 2018 after serving as the Executive Director of The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (2011 – 2017) and as Executive Director of Socrates Sculpture Park (2000 – 2011).
Candice Madey founded and directed the pioneering and internationally acclaimed Lower East Side gallery On Stellar Rays (2008 – 2017), and more recently joined River Valley Arts Collective, a nexus for artists and artisans of the Hudson Valley to connect with each other and their community generative and transformative ways, as the Collective’s curator and programs director.
About The Dorsky Museum
Through its collections, exhibitions and public programs, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz supports and enriches the academic programs at the College, presents a broad range of world art for study and enjoyment and serves as a center for Hudson Valley arts and culture. The museum is widely recognized as the premier public showplace for exhibition, education and cultural scholarship about the Hudson Valley region’s art and artists from yesterday and today. With more than 9,000 square feet of exhibition space distributed over six galleries, The Dorsky Museum is one of the largest museums in the SUNY system. Since its official dedication on Oct. 20, 2001, The Dorsky has presented more than 100 exhibitions, including commissions, collection-based projects and in-depth studies of contemporary artists including Robert Morris, Alice Neel, Judy Pfaff, Carolee Schneemann and Ushio Shinohara.
Museum Hours:
Wednesday–Sunday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Closed Mondays, Tuesdays, Holidays, and Intersessions.
Special Summer Days: Open Saturdays and Sundays only in August
For more information about The Dorsky Museum and its programs, visit http://www.newpaltz.edu/museum, or call (845) 257-3844.
