Outside the Box

The Smithtown Township
Arts Council is pleased to announce Outside the Box, a fine art exhibition
that will feature four Long Island artists who are stretching the boundaries of
their mediums…experimenting with new modes of display…embracing several media
to reinvent their artwork…combining and working across disciplines. The exhibit
will be on view at the Mills Pond House Gallery Saturday, May 31 through
Saturday, June 28, 2014. This exhibition features the work of Mary Ahern
(Northport), Kyle Blumenthal (Stony Brook), JoAnne Dumas (Wading River) and
Paul Farinacci (Sea Cliff) The Mills Pond House Gallery is located at 660 Route
25A, St. James. Parking is in rear, off Mills Pond Road (directly across from
199 Mills Pond Road). Gallery hours are Monday through Friday,
10am-5pm, and Saturday and Sunday, 12-4pm. Admission is free. Please call 631-862-6575, or visit www.stacarts.com for
further information. 

A traditional Fine
Artist, Mary Ahern spent most of her life painting in oils and
watercolors. In her professional career, she also spent decades immersed in
computer graphics. Today the artist has created Digital Mixed Media Paintings
as a new Genre of Fine Art for herself. Melding digital media & traditional
mediums, Mary constantly explores the mixing of the vast array of new materials
on the market to enhance and expand her creative vision. With a deep interest
in Art History, Mary explores, through Digital mediums, a reinterpreting of the
work of historical artists and genres. Her Digital Mixed Media Paintings build
upon her expertise in classical process, which allows her to create her
compositions and paint directly on the computer using a pressure sensitive
stylus and tablet. Whether creating drawings, watercolor mixed media paintings
or digital art, Mary embraces many styles, mediums and uses very different
steps towards creating her work. “My Art is driven by the pursuit of multiple
passions. In my garden, I grow the delicate and ephemeral models that are the
subjects of my paintings.  I transform them through a complex series of
digital technologies and traditional mediums.” 

Kyle Blumenthal’s life is
steeped in the arts. An Illustrator, a Fine Artist, a Stage Designer and an Art
Educator, she experiments through various media, encouraging the viewer to
contemplate and interact with her paintings. She experiences life as an artist,
always looking at color, shadow and form in order to better portray them on
canvas. Working in many disciplines simultaneously, Kyle paints with oils on
canvas and scrim, sometimes incorporating fabrics and light. Attempting to
capture the personality of her subjects and portray their energy, Kyle selects
unique materials through which her subjects appear to become animated and
sometimes ethereal. Kyle uses combinations of transparencies, and translucent
and opaque materials in her presentations, always searching for new methods to
convey her visions through her art. 

Photographer JoAnne
Dumas has an affinity with nature and, in particular, the waters of Long
Island. Her work with experimental modes of display has allowed her to push the
boundaries of her photography as both medium and art form. Constantly seeking
new ways to engage audiences with her subject, Joann experiments with new
mediums and innovative uses of materials to create her work, hoping that
viewers will feel the swirling of the water, and see the shimmering,
wind-driven ripples of the waters in her exhibited work. “Translucency,
reflections, patterns and forms are what I see when I photograph our local
waters. The tantalizing qualities of water provide an endless source of
inspiration to me. My captured images have led me on an elusive path to
discover mediums that will simulate these qualities of water that I find so
mesmerizing.” 

Coming from a
conventional fine arts college background, Paul Farinacci was taught
the traditions of drawing, painting, photography and sculpture and the use of
(archival) materials and media. His recent series of illuminated architectural
sculptures and mixed media works on paper expand the boundaries of what may be
considered fine art or craft materials, 2D and 3D conventions, as well as,
creating from scratch or repurposing. Starting from a discarded cardboard box,
the artist literally thinks “outside and inside the box” to create his
structures and the hidden worlds within them. He includes drawing, painting,
sculpture, photography and now even video inside and outside these creations.
“My sculptures are built predominantly from newspapers containing the very
stories and headlines addressed in my subject matter.” Constructed from
cardboard boxes and other recycled materials these earth-friendly structures
are then covered with carefully selected written passages from newspapers using
a papier-mâché technique. When paint is applied during the final step, visual
memories of these written words are lost. Yet their memories still resonate in
the completed work. What is depicted examines the effects of media and technology
and the diminishing distinction between our public and private realms.

Smithtown Township Arts
Council is a 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit organization