Jam-packed full of art: Check out Buffalo Arts Studio’s 34-artist fall lineup

Buffalo Arts Studio announced its exhibition series for Fall 2019, spanning September through November, and includes exhibitions featuring Phyllis Thompson, Paloma Barhaugh-Bordas, and Buffalo Arts Studio’s 32 Studio Artists.

Phyllis Thompson, Making Memories, and Paloma Barhaugh-Bordas, Understory, will both be on view at Buffalo Arts Studio from September 27-November 2, 2019 with the opening reception on M&T Fourth Friday, September 27, 2019 from 5:00-8:00pm. There will be artist introductions at 6:00pm.

(Title Image)
Phyllis Thompson, Making Memories
Paloma Barhaugh-Bordas, Understory
September 27-November 2, 2019
Opening Reception: M&T Fourth Friday, September 27, 2019, 5:00-8:00pm

Phyllis Thompson (Buffalo) uses monotype printmaking to construct images rooted in childhood memories that focus on experiences both real and imagined with family and friends. She uses a monotype process akin to the direct process of collaging, because, like memory, it is an imperfect system that often brings forth surprising results. Her process includes visual elements such as patterned fabric, textured papers, and faded photographs to construct portraits of ancestors she has never met. These ancestors, whose solemn, reserved eyes stare forward into time, envision a moment where they may be both physically and systematically unshackled.
Thompson’s spiritually present predecessors are abstracted; falling back and melding into wallpaper that is replete with vines, curlicue and blocks of color, all of which recall the artist’s earliest explorations in monotypes. The work presented therein becomes meditations on individuals, feelings, memories, and experiences, which are replayed through visual representation and allusion. This exhibition was made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; administered by Arts Services Initiative of Western New York.

Paloma Barhaugh-Bordas is also a printmaker who uses multimedia monotype and collage to construct historical narratives. Where Thompson focuses on a largely domestic past, Barhaugh-Bordas’ work looks more to place than time. Her work adapts and appropriates the horticulture of the many regions she has called home and traces the self-conscious search for cultural roots as a first-generation American. Barhaugh-Bordas uses print media to investigate and inform the meaning and purpose of her serial works, which are full of repeated symbols, definitively graphic marks, and a flip-flop of translations from paper to press and back. Rather than creating multiples from a single image, she often works in series, reproducing imagery and symbols across multiple prints. As a result of this cyclical process, her work is at once both familiar and unsettling.

(Image above)

The Poeta Project
October 8-November 1, 2019
Reception: M&T Fourth Friday, October 25, 2019, 5:00-8:00 pm

Buffalo, NY educator and poet, Karen Eckert, started The Poeta Project in response to a need she saw in high schools: students holding back creatively and giving up too easily.  Combining poetry, art, and education, this exhibition is a “call and response” between Eckert’s’s poetry and work from local artists.  To start, 17 poems were given to 17 different artists.  Artists had to use the title of the poem as the title of their artwork and draw inspiration from the piece (either title, overall theme, one line, etc.) and create a work of art.  In turn, they gave Eckert one original work and Eckert had to find inspiration from that artwork (color, theme, one aspect, etc.), use their title as her title, and create a poem.  All 68 works will be on display within the Buffalo Arts Studio Community Space from October 8-November 1, 2019 with a reception on M&T Fourth Friday, October 25, 2019 from 5-8pm
The process of using each other’s medium to craft new work demonstrates the ways one can find inspiration  in new sources and the value in taking risks, persevering, and ultimately learning about yourself and your practice.  Eckert is using the project as a model for unit plans that educators can use to replicate the process in their schools. Through the Pollination Project grant Eckert received in November of 2018, she was able to create a website that will house the units and serve as the basis for continuing this project in the future.

Participating artists include:
Monica Angle, Tricia Butski, Markenzy Cesar, Emily Churco, Charlie Clough, Matt Grote, Evan Hawkins, Sarah Liddell, Michael Mararian, Anne Muntges, Esther Neisen, Maria Pabico LaRotonda, Peter Sowiski, Kelly Vetter, Joe Vollan, Alexa Wajed,, Muhammad Zaman

(Above)
Annual Studio Artist Show and Sale
November 16-December 21, 2019
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 16, 2019, 5:00-9:00 pm