Monmouth Arts To Open Annual Member Exhibition In Red Bank

RED BANK, NJ — Monmouth Arts is set to celebrate the opening of its annual member exhibition this fall.

On Sept. 11, Monmouth Arts is inviting the public to join them in their celebration of FEAST, an exhibition featuring work by 45 Monmouth Arts members and reflecting the "creativity, diversity, and vibrant artistic spirit of Monmouth County."

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The celebration will be held at the Oyster Point Hotel, overlooking the Navesink, which features rotating exhibitions in its public spaces as well as an artist-in-residence program.

At the FEAST opening reception, guests will be able to experience the artists' interpretations of this year's theme while enjoying refreshments, live music by A REAL HUMAN JAZZ BAND, and the opportunity to meet many of the featured artists.

The exhibition will remain on view through Nov. 2, officials said.

FEAST is guest-curated by Tova Navarra, an award-winning artist, writer, and educator.

She is the author of more than 30 books, including "New Jersey Artists Through Time" and the recently published "New Jersey Masters: A New Legacy of Visual Arts."

Navarra has exhibited extensively throughout the Northeast while continuing to contribute to the region's cultural landscape as a juror, curator, photographer, and writer.

This year's call for art generated the highest number of submissions to date for Monmouth Arts, presenting Navarra with an especially rich and challenging selection process.

"I pored over the submissions for any pieces that carried the theme…from concept to canvas and medium," Navarra said. "I read every artist's statement. I contemplated every image and selected the ones that slipped right into the traditional mode as well as the ones that challenged and stirred my imagination to a boiling point."

Navarra has described FEAST as an exhibition that embraces a wide range of emotions, perspectives, and interpretations.

"FEAST serves both positive, happy images and negative, disturbing vantages–all engaging, informative, surprising, dark," Navarra continued. "Make no mistake: FEAST artworks could smile at you or turn any which way on a dime to confront you."

The resulting exhibition invites visitors to consider both literal and metaphorical forms of consumption: what we crave, what we value, and what shapes our relationship to material and symbolic abundance.

Now in its ninth year, the Monmouth Arts annual member exhibit was renamed in 2022 in memory of Dr. Charles Sills, who was a painter, sculptor, collector, and supporter of the arts.

He retired from his role as the Chief of Surgery at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch in 2000.

His work has been shown at many galleries in Monmouth County, and he won awards from New York's Allied Artists of America and Knickerbocker Artists.

The FEAST opening reception will take place from 6-8 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 11, at the Oyster Point Hotel in Red Bank. The event is free and open to the public.

To learn more about Monmouth Arts, you can visit their website.