"Currents" - Modern Art Exhibition Opening

"Currents" - Modern Art Exhibition Opening

Opening Reception: Friday, July 13 @ 7pm

Exhibition Duration: July 13 - September 11

Curator: Kathryn Mecca

Alfa Art Gallery is proud to present Currents, a group exhibition featuring the works of Helen Zajkowski, Maria Giancola, Jorge Cruz, and Chris Minervini.

An acute vanguard of works from wide ranging media, Currents offers a definitive sample of the state of modern art making. Whether it be through their processes, materials, or subject matter, these artists thrive on and respond to contemporary culture in innovative ways.

Helen Zajkowski’s award winning sculptures comment on modern day enigmas and dilemmas. In her Found Objects series, she juxtaposes unrelated objects in new and surprising ways, creating imagery charged with irony and humor. The biblical cycle of creation and destruction is at the core of this body of work. Once functional and full of purpose, these objects have since been discarded -- an act that symbolically threatens their very reason for being. But by rearranging their components in peculiar ways, Zajkowski manages to create fantastic amalgams full of new and surprising meaning. Helen received her MFA at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 1994. She has since exhibited her work internationally, and this past year, her work was featured in the WCA National.

Maria Giancola is a painter, graphic artist, and printmaker. Her abstract paintings and collages find their inspiration from contemporary magazine advertisements and the figure. These works feature extreme chiaroscuro lighting, and are developed using an accidental approach, in which she combines non traditional materials to produce unexpected results. Parallels between Giancola’s pieces and the non traditionalist pop art of James Rosenquist and Wendy White are especially fitting. Maria received her BFA at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 2011 and currently works as a graphic artist with The Sawtooth Group, an advertising agency based in Red Bank, New Jersey.

Christopher Minervini received his BFA at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 2010. His passionate dreamlike collages combine photography with painting techniques to meditate upon the irreversible effects of war on both the environment and its inhabitants. These pieces mature and develop gradually, blossoming at last with intimate significance. His vibrant and playful palette grapples with his blunt and sometimes conflicting imagery. The effect is a manifestation of cognitive dissonance -- an eerie discomfort born from an attempt to reconcile idealistic hopes for a world burdened with harsh realities.

Jorge Cruz has been working in stained glass for over 20 years. His distinct figurative compositions cultivate powerful and emotional imagery in this historically charged medium. Although Cruz utilizes a minimalist aesthetic, his works communicate a spiritual and mythological narrative. This is due to the stylized and primeval aura of his stained glass figures. Their palpable ethos make it difficult not to identify with their triumphs and tribulations. Jorge is currently the artist in residence and gallery director of Abbey Hill Gallery in Easton, Pennsylvania.

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