Opening Reception: February 4, 6 - 8 pm
Octavia Art Gallery is pleased to present Celebration, featuring artworks by eleven national artists including: Muffin Bernstein, Sara Carter, Marina Dunbar, Shirine Gill, Diana Greenberg, Betsey Gravatt, Ken Nahan, Tom Nussbaum, Max Ryan, Sam Schonzeitz, and Grant Wiggins.
Celebration is an exhibition that reflects the joie de vivre during the Mardi Gras season, concentrating on the celebration of life through art. Within this exhibition, each invited artist has worked with us to thoughtfully contribute artworks to healthcare facilities throughout New York and New Jersey. Octavia Art Gallery curates artworks from these artists and artists around the world to provide soothing and healing environments for patients and administrators. Our approach is to provide artworks that have an inspirational effect on the well being of others. Research concludes that art can change an individual’s physiology and have a calming and therapeutic influence. Through a careful selection of artworks and commissioned pieces, the gallery focuses on works that transcend the viewer.
The eleven artists exhibited in Celebration have diverse backgrounds and are at various points within their artistic careers. What ties these artists together through Celebration is that they all have donated time, tender, and talent to uplift the spirits of others in order to celebrate life through art.
Betsey Gravatt, Ken Nahan, and Tom Nussbaum are known for their abstract works, which explore the interaction of form and color. Establishing their own stylized vernacular through which they investigate varying concepts, their works are exploratory rather than didactic. These artists often utilize non-traditional media such as foam, string, plastic, wire, and vintage maps with traditional drawing and painting.
Muffin Bernstein, Max Ryan, Sam Schonzeitz, and Grant Wiggins share an interest in dynamic compositions, clean lines, and repetition of form. While working in varying media, their painting, photography, and mixed media works incorporate the energy of contemporary graphic culture while utilizing architectural elements and themes from nature.
Artists Sara Carter, Marina Dunbar, Shirine Gill, and Diana Greenberg create lyrical abstractions with depth, energy and an ethereal nature. Through both photography and painting, patterns from nature are morphed into abstracted color field studies, creating works that are independent from the original visual references.
This Mardi Gras season, we present Celebration to inspire, uplift, and rejuvenate our senses and our souls though the beauty and power of art.
