(JERSEY CITY, NJ) -- On Tuesday, November 19, the Dineen Hull Gallery at Hudson County Community College bids farewell to the “Relatable” Exhibition with a closing reception from 4:00pm to 7:00pm. The exhibition features emerging and established artists who live or work in New Jersey. The exhibition highlights the age-old question, “Does art imitate life or does life imitate art?” Come by to meet the artists and get one last look at their incredible artwork. Light refreshments will be served.
Artists in the exhibition include Beth Achenbach, Pat Lay, Michael Lee, Ibou Ndoye, Taezoo Park, Jon Rappleye, Freddy Samboy, and Jim Watt.
Beth Achenbach developed an eye for photography while working in a one-hour film lab in Chicago during the 1990s. The Jersey City artist experiments with various subjects, mediums, presentations, and equipment. Her camera is an extension of her observations, capturing beauty in still life and street portraits.
Jersey City resident Pat Lay is a retired Montclair State University art professor and graduate of Pratt Institute and Rochester Institute of Technology. Made of fired clay, computer parts, and other elements, her sculptures are hybrid, post-human power figures with cross-cultural references that question what it means to be human.
Michael Lee holds an MFA in Painting from Hunter College. He is an adjunct instructor at Hudson County Community College and Montclair State University. Lee uses graphite, acrylic, china marker and India ink for his drawings. His materials include paper and wood in multidimensional effects for objects.
Ibou Ndoye was born in West Africa. He combines modernism and traditionalism in a unique style of glass painting exhibits internationally. The Jersey City resident and painting instructor breaks and layers glass to create textures and effects, while incorporating copper wire, wood, bone, animal skin and other materials into his art.
Taezoo Park breathes life into obsolete technology to create art. He collectively uses compact discs, old televisions and monitors, and other items to design an Artificial Intelligence “Digital Being” born from the past. Park holds an MFA in Digital Arts from Pratt Institute in New York and a BFA in Animation from Hongik University in South Korea.
Jon Rappleye creates surreal “homespun fairy tales,” mixed-media sculptures and paintings that use imagery found in art history, literature, biology, and folklore to portray the cyclical nature of life and death. His art draws from anatomical detail of Audubon illustrations and the hallucinatory world of Salvador Dali. Rappleye is an HCCC instructor and holds an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
HCCC alumnus Freddy Samboy utilizes spray paint on plywood and newspaper to transport cartoon characters and cultural icons into mixed-media art that conveys messages of hope, freedom, imagination, and power. The Jersey City graphic artist uses pop art style in his portraits of civil rights leaders, athletes, presidents, and entertainers.
Jim Watt is an architect and artist based in Asbury Park. His paintings, ink washes, and travel sketches are an exploration of space, form, and material. Watt has been featured in The New York Times. He approaches art without a structured, planned intention, instead playing in the tension between thought and instinct. He was recently a guest on the HCCC video podcast “Out of the Box”
“Relatable” also debuts an installation featuring Wenning Boards, a New Jersey and Oaxaca, Mexico-based partnership which began when the skateboarding community in Oaxaca helped HCCC Director of Health-Related Programs Kathleen Smith-Wenning with the annual Three Kings Fiesta at Oaxaca Streetchildren. The skateboards on display are inspired by renowned Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada featuring designs by Ivan Rivera and Jesus Alejandro Limeon.
Photo I.D. must be shown when entering the Hudson County Community College campus. All events are FREE and open to the public.
For up-to-date program and event information, visit www.hccc.edu/cultural-affairs.
The closing reception takes place in the Dineen Hull Gallery, 71 Sip Avenue, 6th Floor in Jersey City, New Jersey.
