TROY ART!

Anne Ackerson

Artist Statement

I am a re-emerging artist, having returned to painting in January 2021 after a decades-long hiatus. This was a goal of mine for several years, but it took a global pandemic to bring it to reality. My renewed journey has reignited my love of color, composition and texture, using the enduring lure of the landscape in abstracted form as my focus. I am exploring my relationship to the natural world – a world in peril due to climate change and one that will be forever changed before my lifetime is over. That said, painting is joyful work for me – challenging, intuitive, often serendipitous, yet purposeful work – and I relish what I can capture on paper and canvas.

Artist Bio

Anne Ackerson has a BA in Art History and has led small history museums and historic houses across upstate New York for about half her professional life. She also served as director of the Museum Association of NewYork and most recently as the executive director of the Council of StateArchivists, a national organization. She is currently a full-time consultant and contractor to cultural organizations, specializing in organizational management, board development, and strategic planning.

Returning to painting in January 2021, after a decades-long hiatus, was a big and much-anticipated step for Anne. She works primarily in acrylics/mixed media on paper.

Anne is thrilled that her paintings are collected across the US.

She lives and works in Troy, NY.

Michael Barrett

Artist Bio

Michael Barrett was an executive director of the Burden Ironworks Museum in Troy, New York. For the last several years, Michael has been working as a sculptor.

Abraham Ferrero

Artist Statement

Bright Ideas is an interactive sculpture that is a metaphorical idea generator and while there is no electrical hooked up to this switch, it instead harnesses people’s internal power to spark the light bulb in their heads...so Flip The Switch! 

Artist Bio

Abraham is a graduate of SUNY Fredonia (BFA) and SUNY Albany (MA & MFA). Ferraro has exhibited internationally, nationally, and extensively in New York State, with 24 solo performance / exhibitions at galleries such as Artists Space in NYC, Rochester Contemporary Arts Center in NY, and The Gallery at Penn College in Williamsport, PA. He is in collections at Working Artist .org in WA, Albany Institute of History & Art in NY, and Washington Jefferson College in PA. Ferraro has been published in Climbing Magazine (USA), Climb Magazine (UK), Hyperdrawing: Beyond the Lines of Contemporary Art (UK), Gambling the Isle (Colorado), 365 Artists 365 Days (Wisconsin). His videos have been featured on the homepage of YouTube.com several times. Awards include Best In Show at the Made In NY Exhibition at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center 2010 & 2012. He was a resident Artist at Sculpture Space in 2006. Currently, Ferraro is the Shop Supervisor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences managing a shop he designed and built from scratch. 

Jeanne Finley

Artist Statement

Like an editor, the photographer should be invisible. Photography isn't about me; it's about the world out there. Or about you, the viewer of it.   

I look for the here-and-now of the world. If I have a subject that I return to photograph over and over, it's people in the “street”(definition fluid), where life happens with every step. Mostly I characterize my eye as eclectic (or democratic): every subject gets a chance to stand up and be seen.  

Most of the time it’s the world that presents the complexity of elements necessary for a “good” photograph, but sometimes I abstract it from its conventional bones. Sometimes I use Photoshop to enhance,or achieve an emotional response, or make something suddenly beautiful that might otherwise be ordinary.

Artist Bio

Jeanne Finley is a writer/editor-turned-photographer who has exhibited her work since 2015 in galleries and venues in the Capital District and beyond, most recently at Albany Center Gallery’s upcoming Members Show, RVE Gallery’s Another Upstate NY Group Show in Albany’s Warehouse District, and at Martinez Gallery’s online exhibit New Work, New Directions. She also contributed the cover photo for the anthology Bending the Arc: Striving for Peace and Justice in the Age of Endless War (SUNY Press), and both photos and by lined articles in Washington Report for Middle East Affairs. Her website is www.jeannefinley.com

George Hofmann

Artist Bio

George Hofmann trained at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico as well as Akademie der Bildenden Kuenste in Nuremberg, Germany. He later spent time teaching at several institutes including Pratt Institute, Yale University, and Hunter College. George's work is also part of many important collections among abstract expressionist circles.

Anne Hohenstein

Artist Bio

Anne Hohenstein is an artist who paints and creates sculptural assemblages. She's also a published poet, a nurturer of living things, including animals, a woman of commerce, and a lawyer. Hohenstein obtained degrees from Brown University and UC Berkeley School of Law. She lives in Troy, NY.

Conard Holton

Artist Statement

I seek a sensual visual beauty that expresses contact between humans and the rest of nature—in both farmland and wilderness. My current work explores memory as evoked through the illusion of space in a painting—primarily of the mountains, waters, and farmland in the Adirondacks. A painting may be well advanced before I uncover the sometimes-buried memory that is inspiring me. The welcome challenge is then to probe deeper into the space with shapes and values, and the lush colors of oil paint.

Artist Bio

I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, in a pre-sprawl, bucolic landscape that encouraged my attachment to the outdoors. The farmlands andAdirondack Mountains of upstate New York are often the subject of my work.I received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, and have studied painting at the Aegean School of Fine Arts and with several notable regional artists. My paintings have been in many group shows and juried exhibitions in the region.

Tina Lincer

Artist Statement

My passion comes from integrating bold color, texture and form in a variety of subject matter, including landscapes, portraits, florals and abstracts. Working primarily in oil, both on canvas and on wood, I traverse between representational and expressionist. I am inspired by artists as diverse as Henri Matisse, Helen Frankenthaler, and Milton Avery. Painting is as much about intuiting, experimenting and expressing oneself as it is about composing the perfect picture, and I remain open to experimenting with all kinds of mark-making. I often incorporate metallic paint, graphite and other materials in my works. I love how Frankenthaler challenges the artist to“go against the rules or ignore the rules; that is what invention is about.” 

Artist Bio

A love of images and words has always been a central part of Tina’s life. A painter and writer, Tina grew up drawing and creating stories on the stoops of her native Queens. At the University at Albany, she earned a B.A. in English and studio fine arts, and then embarked on a long career in journalism and communications.

Tina reconnected with her art in the early 2000s, gravitating toward the oils she studied in college. Her paintings range from abstract florals to portraits in lonely landscapes. She also makes small collages and mixed media works. She is a board member of Albany Center Gallery and an enthusiastic supporter of numerous other arts groups. In addition to the Martinez Gallery and ACG, she has exhibited her work at Clement Art Gallery, The Gallery at Spencertown, Fence Show Select, the National Bottle Museum and Laffer Gallery. 

Tina continues painting while writing and editing full-time as associate director of communications and marketing at Union College. Her freelance articles and essays have appeared in the Albany Times Union, New York Daily News, Writer’s Digest, The Sun magazine, and dozens of anthologies and other publications. In her spare time, Tina enjoys gardening, reading, baking, and traveling with her family.

Gary Masline

Artist Statement

I paint with the understanding that art is meant to provoke a response, and my hope is to stimulate a dialogue with viewers responding to my use of color, light, and even body language, to establish image, illusion, or icon. The vibrant palette and intense light of the American Southwest have affected my work, and I believe the Southwest is one of the earth's centers of spiritual energy, which animates artistic awareness. Realizing that a painting can feign a reality which the viewer may never have experienced or seen, I assert that people can nonetheless be profoundly affected by southwestern images serving as emblems or totems, with the symbols or gestures in paintings generating highly individual "stories."  Prior to beginning to paint 27 years ago, I was a screenwriter.  Now, my narrative paintings still at times feel like films…just one frame at a time.

Artist Bio

Gary Masline is a painter who works exclusively with oils on canvas.  A resident since 1979 of the Capital District, his paintings have been included in juried exhibitions across New York State, receiving awards at the Mohawk-Hudson Regional Exhibition, the Arts Center of the Capital Region's "Fence Select Exhibition," and from Albany Center Gallery.  In 2010, the Albany Institute of History and Art named Gary one of "Tomorrow's Masters Today,"  and in 2001 he won the readers' poll for "Best Visual Artist" in "Metroland," theCapital Region's former weekly arts and entertainment newspaper.

Gary Masline's previous creative incarnation was as a screenwriter, and he reasons that painting is a consistent development stemming from that history.  If one thinks of Gary's paintings as consisting of line/drawing, pigment/color, and story/narrative, his work reveals him still "making films"...now just one frame at a time.

Mark McCarty

Artist Statement

For me, photography is the only way to capture an instant in real time and in real space that shows the miracle of matter coming together to form a meaning. A moment of clarity. A perfect composition of hairs on a human head, or birds on the wing, a moment that says this is real, and it is more perfect than could be imagined. A god’s-eye view.

Artist Bio

Mark is a photographer from Albany, New York who has exhibited around the country. He does freelance photography and also works on commercial and advertising projects nationally and world-wide.

Roxanna Melendez

Artist Bio

Roxanna Melendez is a visual artist, who often uses Caribbean themes in her paintings. Born in Puerto Rico, she graduated with an MSW from Columbia University and studied art at Hunter College and at The Art Students League. Melendez has exhibited in Long Island, New York City, Woodstock, and the Capital District. Her bold paintings depict real life events within a personal symbolism. Melendez explores her cultural roots and her life in New York City through paintings with strong figurative and narrative elements.

Alexis Mendoza

Artist Bio

Since arriving in New York City from Cuba in the mid 1990’s, Alexis Mendoza has carved a path as a painter, art writer, and independent curator. He trained as a conservator and graduated from college in Havana. He exhibits in museums and galleries worldwide.

Alberto Mijangos

Artist Bio

Born in Mexico City, Alberto Mijangos studied in the 1940's at San Carlos Art Academy and the School of the Chicago Art Institute. Mijangos belonged to the generation that came after Rivera and Siqueiros; he knew Tamayo whose influence he felt as a young painter. Mijangos matured as an artist in San Antonio, Texas, and considered himself both Mexican and American. His work, abstract with decidedly figurative elements, is that of a master artist.

Martin Rubio

Artist Bio

Martin Rubio is a sculptor born in Puerto Rico and based in New York City, where he moved to with his parents as a child. Rubio obtained his BFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. A part of the Nuyorican movement, he became a founder of El Taller Boricua in 1969 together with other noted artists of his generation. Rubio quickly established himself as an artist of public art; his public work is in NYC, Japan, and Venezuela. Rubio has  exhibited in many institutions, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, NYC, Gallery Tom, Tokyo, Japan, Instituto de Cultura, San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Wadsworth Museum in CT, and the Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan. His collectors are global as well, coming from Japan, France, Venezuela, and the United States. 

George Simmons

Artist Statement

I work in a variety of media: Photography, drawing, collage, painting, sculpture, print making, and performance art. My work is both abstract and figurative. Often autobiographical, my work explores personal issues of conflicting cultural values and racial identity.

Artist Bio

I was born in Port-of-Spain Trinidad, and was raised in Barbados, and North East USA. I recently retired as Director of Photography with the NYS Assembly and now live in Conway, SC.

I earned a B.S. in Marketing and Photography from Hampton Institute, a Masters in Studio Art form The University of Wisconsin Madison, with further study in art from The Empire State College's Studio Semester in New York City.

Armando Soto

Artist Bio

Armando Soto is an artist and painter who was born in New York City of  Puerto Rican parents. Soto received his BFA in Art History and Drawing/Painting from Pratt Institute in New York City. One of the founders of El Taller Boricua in East Harlem in 1969, Soto became identified with the Nuyorican movement in the arts. Soto’s work is primarily inspired by mythical characters from African and Taino cultures. His work has exhibited regionally in Upstate New York, New York City, and in Vermont. Soto now teaches in the Capital Region of New York, especially at the Arts Center of the Capital Region where he holds studio classes for the public and teaches privately.

Grace Tatara

Artist Statement

I have an abstract eye that I use with various mediums. I focused on painting through college and a few years after. Then metal and rust became inspiration. I used inks and chemicals over the sheet metal. The remnants of rust I found became sculptures, pieced together in new ways other than their original purpose. Most recently, I have turned to photography. Still inspired by rust, decayed objects in their new settings are what I capture. 

Artist Bio

Grace Tatara graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Painting concentration from Sage College of Albany in 2009. She received Magna Cum Laude with Program Excellence Honors and the Department of Visual Arts Award for Excellence in Studio Fine Arts. 

While in school, Grace worked at Opalka Gallery as a gallery assistant. That is where she expanded her love of art with the creative work involved with shows. 

After college, Grace worked at the Arts Center of the Capital Region and Martinez Gallery in Troy. In 2012, she was a grant panel member for the NYS Council of the Arts. And in 2013, she was the News and Information Coordinator for Art de Cure. Grace has guest curated a show at Tempo Fine Arts in Tannersville. For the past thirteen years, Grace has shown her art throughout upstate New York.

In 2013 Grace became a certified framer at Michaels. She has been the framing manager there since 2017.

Jaqueline Watsky

Artist Statement

Each piece has a story to tell. Sometimes the story is the joy imparted by nature, other times the complexity of the human spirit and the times in which we live. Each piece is woven with a variety of materials, using traditional art materials with recycled objects, expanding the creative vocabulary from two to three dimensions. The ordinary becomes the extraordinary and a new reality is constructed for mundane objects. Pieces are rich in color and texture, many reaching off the canvas into the viewer’s space. Regardless of what the piece is made of, the focus is on what the piece evokes.

Artist Bio

Jacqueline lives in upstate New York and has been creating visual images since childhood. She has worked in a variety of media, both two and three dimensional. Her formal art education began at the age of nine studying life drawing and oil painting at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. While in high school, she attended New York University painting classes and continued her formal art education at Hunter College, BA, Art, and Brooklyn College, MA,Art.  In addition, Jacqueline holds an associate degree in Business and interior design certification from the New York School of Interior Design.

Passionate about the power of art, she founded and curated Art de Cure from 2010 – 2017 and taught art at the secondary and college levels. Jacqueline has worked as both an interior designer and graphic designer, presented talks about art, judged area shows and volunteered as a docent at the Albany Institute of History and Art.

Mary Wheeler

Artist Statement

My paintings range in many styles. The results are based on my mood that day and what excites me in that moment. I love the balance of color and composition, and a piece is not finished in both painting AND jewelry until I have achieved that goal

Artist Bio

Based in upstate New York, Mary Wheeler, has been an area artist since the 1980s. Working in several different mediums early in her career, she fell in love with metals and established herself as a Silver and goldsmith for several years. Noticing her Jewelry designs were becoming more abstract in style, Mary decided to change direction and go back to her first love, Painting.

Working mostly with Acrylic paint, Mary's style and subject matter vary from Abstract to impressionism. She is always exploring creative avenues in her work, making her style uniquely her own. Abstract will always be her first love, but as her work progresses she frequently finds herself pulled in different directions. Giving each piece a life of it's own.