"Two Friends-New Journeys in Painting" - August Exhibition at Bernardsville Library

Bernardsville Public Library is pleased to present an exhibition of pastel paintings by New Jersey artists PJ Aduskevicz and Olya Powzaniuk during the month of August. The opening reception, to which the public, is invited, will be held on Monday, August 10 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm.

PJ Aduskevicz, a resident of Clinton, had a long career at AT&T and a subsequent successful consulting career, but then decided it was time to turn her attention to her first passion: painting. While she was consulting, she made time to study painting, learn the techniques, and how to best execute her ideas. She studied with Julie Friedman, PDA, BFA, John Traynor, Casey Kline, and others. “To sustain my joy of painting, I focus on color, its harmony, shapes and simplification,” said Ms. Aduskevicz, “Color to me is a plaything to experiment with different hues, color over color, values, etc., to see what will emerge. I am always surprised when I let loose and see what happens…I enjoy truly plein air experience and paint outside whenever the weather allows.” Ms. Aduskevicz won first prize at the Pastel Society of New Jersey (PSNJ) member show; Third Place at the Highbridge Paint-Out, and Honorable Mention at the Flemington Art Show.

Olya Powzaniuk, a resident of Basking Ridge, is a pastel painter, traveling explorer, artist and opera buff. She was born in New York City and raised in Philadelphia in a bi-cultural setting. Her adventures in art began at the Ukrainian Art Institute which was the artistic space for Ukrainian artists in diaspora. Here she had her first workshops in drawing, wood-carving, watercolor, lithography and making pysanky. She pursued her love of art, taking college art classes, and she discovered sculpture at Temple’s Tyler School of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. After teaching and getting her MBA, she came to New York to work for AT&T. A few years ago, she embraced retirement and dove into pastels, explaining, “I wanted to explore dense color down to my fingertips and it seemed less complicated than oil painting!” Ms. Powzaniuk devotes her time to pastels and painting outdoors; she is currently a member of the PSNJ and the Pastel Society of America and heads up the NJ Society of PleinAir Painters, a group of local PleinAir artists.

The show will be on view from Saturday, August 2 through Saturday, August 29 in the library’s Community Room, during regular library hours, unless a meeting is in progress. For further information, please call the library at 908-766-0118.

Image: “Closing Up Monet’s Pond” by Olya Powzaniuk