Fine art, jewelry and gifts will preview on Dec. 6
Gallery 66 NY presents The Symbolic Vocabulary of the Human Spirit and Emotion, where artists Vladas Vildziunas, Konotas Vildziunas, Emil Alzamora, Romy Campe and Michael Gaydos will exhibit quite different versions of the iconic human form and how they view its spirit and emotions. The opening reception for the artists will be on Friday, Dec. 7, from 6 to 9 p.m. at 66 Main St. in Cold Spring.
December will also feature a Small Works exhibit of fine art, art jewelry and gifts. Jewelry artists Veronica Ledovsky and Josanne Mark gather their forms from nature’s elements of bark and stones. Having just graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology, this marks their first debut exhibition.
Artists Kit Burke Smith, Jan Lichenstein, Selen Bayrak, Tracy Strong, Joe Larese, Lisa Knaus and Jeff Glockson are among some of the artists also exhibiting. A percentage of all sales from the Small Works exhibit will benefit the Haldane sophomore class trip. A modeled jewelry preview show will be held on Thursday, Dec. 6, from 7 to 9 p.m.
Sculpture and photography by Lithuanian father and son Vladas and Konotas Vildziunas are part of the main exhibit. Vladas Vildziunas’ primary inspirations are the folk-art carvings and religious wooden sculptures rich in peasant folklore that surrounded him in his native Dabuziai, a scenic rural region of Lithuania, where he was born in 1932.
It is there that Vildziunas developed his own personal style and symbolic vocabulary. Indeed, his early works carried on the traditions of his ancestors in his strong wooden carvings of peasants, children, and madonnas, transmitting a feeling of the total human experience: friendship, warmth and humor, as well as sadness and suffering. This year his Barbora sculpture was featured in Garrison Art Center’s Current sculpture exhibit at Boscobel.
Emil Alzamora, born in Peru and living in Beacon, is interested in exploring what it means to inhabit a human form, often exaggerating or distorting different aspects of the form to reveal an emotional or physical situation, or to tell a story about a predicament or an occurrence. In Alzamora’s sculpture, concept meets craft. He perfected his casting techniques at Polich Art Works, the foundry in Rock Tavern, N.Y.
German native Romy Campe’s painted images of the series Moments represent inward, partially blocked and negative energy. The positive, flowing energy is stopped or reversed into its contrary. The images of Moments are becoming representational; man becomes visible because he is torn away from the “flow of life energy” and looks at himself rather than forward. He is surrounded by the corresponding energy, from which there seems to be no escape.
Michael Gaydos’ portraiture defines the nature of the relationship between many an artist and model — exposed yet somehow distant. Subtly colorful and realistic, his muse glows and emits a strong sense of self while posing always just out of reach. Alive and breathing, though classically painterly, his work expresses why exactly it is that nudes are still as interesting as ever. Gaydos’ home and studio are located in Warwick, N.Y.
Both exhibits can be seen Dec. 2-30. For more information, call Gallery 66 NY at 845-809-5838 or visit the website, gallery66ny.com.
