The College of Saint Elizabeth’s (CSE) first Faculty Art Exhibition is on view now at the Therese A. Maloney Art Gallery in Annunciation Center on the College campus through August 16, 2008. The showing is free and open to the public.

 

 

  

Will Suarez’s oil on canvas painting entitled, I Bring the Day Behind Me 

(Photo by Courtney Smolen)

 

Gallery hours for this exhibit are Tuesday – Friday, 1 – 8 p.m. and Saturday – Sunday, 5 – 8 p.m. Visitors may also call for an appointment at (973) 290-4315.

 

 

  

CSE Therese A. Maloney Art Gallery currently features art work by faculty members of the College’s Art Department. (Photo by Courtney Smolen)

 

The exhibit features work by faculty members of the College’s Art Department. Media include, oil and watercolor painting, ceramics, and handmade paper, encaustic, and wire mixed media pieces.

 

 

  

CSE faculty and artist Raul Villarreal’s self-portrait, No Longer (In)Visible, now on display. (Photo by Courtney Smolen)

 

Faculty members in the exhibition include: Elaine Chong, Todd Doney, Anne Haarer, S.C., Will Suarez, Raul Villarreal and Barry Zawacki – all New Jersey artists.

 

According to Virginia Fabbri Butera, Ph.D. Director of the Maloney Art Gallery, each faculty member brings a unique element to the showcase:

 

• Elaine Chong of Summit, uses handmade paper, wire, encaustic (wax), oil and charcoal, to create unusual and layered evocative abstract images. Delicate holes in the paper, copper wire grids, circles drawn in the encaustic as well as intense flashes of pigment, animate her work. She draws and paints her pieces to record the improvisational and ritual moments of everyday life.

 

• Todd Doney of Gillette, displays three landscape paintings which continues his investigation of trees, water, light and reflections, but with an underlying irony. The subject of his work is an oil spill behind his house in the Great Swamp which threatens the equilibrium between nature and man. The damage is signaled by disturbing plastic sheets and yellow bands of caution tape – attempting to contain the problem and keep people out.

 

• Anne Haarer, a Sister of Charity, who painted the triptych, Four Seasons of Learning, now hanging in the lobby of Annunciation Center, presents a collection of detailed watercolor and oil paintings which continue to document her love of nature and the seasons. Autumn trees, the campus during winter, the College’s Fatima Shrine, the Shakespeare Garden decked in springtime flowers, and views of the summer ocean are part of her all-encompassing vision.

 

• Will Suarez of Jersey City, uses bold bursts of yellow and red to counter more subdued areas of brown, black and dark green in his large abstract paintings based on animated forms and patters in nature. The interweaving shapes create a hypnotic and exotic perspective, jostling the viewer’s vision as though they are on an amusement park ride.

 

• Cuban-American artist Raul Villarreal of Verona, uses his imagery in symbolic ways to express the longing and conflicted notions of emigration and the current socio-political reality. The color turquoise, a palm tree, an image of an actual heart, and an oar refer to a state of nostalgia as well as the actual and/or metaphoric journey of emigration and self-definition.

 

• Barry Zawacki of Mountain Lakes, studied Japanese ink brush painting, ceramic techniques and raku firing methods. His ceramic sculptures all reflect this Asian aesthetic.