Three Artists, Three Visions at JCC

Three very different and very evocative art exhibits open Sunday at the Gaelen Center for the Arts at the Leon & Toby Cooperman JCC, 760 Northfield Ave., West Orange, with an opening reception at 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Collage artist Lisa Suss, the visual arts manager and curator for the JCC, talked about how each exhibit came about.

"First, a 30 piece exhibit of Judy Targan's current oils on wood is in the Gaelen Gallery East running through Oct. 24," Suss said.

"Targan is a well known, long time member of the art community who has exhibited worldwide. When I saw one of her works at an earlier JCC show, having her art the sole focus of a major show clicked in my head. Now her show is up, and it's gorgeous."

Targan, of South Orange, is represented in museum, corporate and private collections. She has had a long association with the Newark Museum.

Targan's early work was as an engraver and commercial artist. When her own children, now grown, were young, she began to paint art for children.

Later, Targan became fascinated by Persian miniature paintings, the inspiration for the landscapes that she is bringing into the Gaelen Gallery East through October.

"I call my works 'Landscapes, Landshapes.'  I keep the forms and colors of nature, but explore the geometric shapes that underlie nature," Targan said.

"Some of my works are larger, but these pieces are mostly 12-by-12 inches, and 2 inches deep. They have a dimensional quality, they seem to float on the wall."

Targan talked about some of her working methods.

"I have a wonderful carpenter who constructs a wooden base that I heavily seal with gesso before starting to paint," she said.  "There is lot of drying time, so I work on groups of three or four paintings at a time, often on a similar theme—forests, a night sky."

The second exhibit, "My Home Is Gone - Remnants of Jewish Poland," by writer and photographer Barbara Krasner runs in the Arts Lobby & Roland Exhibition Center through Oct. 24. Suss brought it to MetroWest after its having been shown at the Bridgewater Jewish Community Center in 2009.

Krasner traveled to Poland in 2008 while researching a young adult novel set in her grandparents' village, northeast of Warsaw. She saw the views described by Holocaust survivors in the village's memorial book.

Her photographs capture a sense of lost world. "While I was in Poland, I felt like I had come home," Krasner wrote.

Eric Beckerich's intriguing mortar and mixed media pieces make up the third show, on view in the Arts Lobby and Steiner Court Showcases from Sept. 12 through Jan. 2.

"I discovered  Maplewood's Eric Beckerich and his sculptures at the South Orange Studio tour this past June. I knew I had to have him at the JCC," Suss said.

"Much of my work is meant to be held and played with, like some kind of fine art toys," Beckerich said.

"My works have a quantum nature about them that incorporates elements of architecture, painting, drawing and sculpture. They are at once ancient and modern."