2004 Arsenal Gallery Exhibits

December 14 - 30, 2004

Wreath Interpretations, No. 22

Parks celebrates the onset of winter with an exhibition featuring over 20 wreaths made of unusual materials, including fused glass, silvery, plaster cast fingers and toes, and model trains. Many participating artists use their wreaths to delve into broad contemporary themes. At the center of "One Nation, Indivisible?," papier-maché faces of Kerry and Bush morph into one. "Red Tape, Blue Tape, Urban Landscape" uses building materials to represent the constant building and demolotion of New York's urban architecture.

Image: One Nation, Indivisible?, Jonathan Kuhn, Papier mache, paint, buttons, neckties

View all of the wreaths in the exhibit

November 11 - December 9, 2004

The Transformed Flower: A Digital Journey, 1629-2004
Rudi Wolff

Rudi Wolff's digital prints begin with scans of woodcuts from John Parkinson's The Garden of Pleasant Flowers, published in London in 1629. Wolff's iris plants reinvent Parkinson's botanical illustrations for the contemporary eye, while retaining the graphic clarity of original woodcuts. In Wolff's visual improvisations on his Elizabethan source, flowers are magnified, transformed with color, and outlines are redrawn to capture the chaotic energy of a verdant natural world. "I see flowers for their natural eloquence, their vigor, their centrality to our life," says Wolff. "By stripping away the familiar outlines of the flower, I hope to open up an entirely new visual and metaphorical landscape."

Image: Last Bloom, 36" x 26", Giglé on coated canvas

September 9 - October 21, 2004

Public Pleasures: Street Life and City Places
Bonnie Steinsnyder

Public Pleasures: Street Life and City Places, a one-person show of paintings and drawings by Bonnie Steinsnyder, features over twenty works depicting the vibrant street life of New York City's parks and other public places —from the Hall of Ocean Life at the American Museum of Natural History to Carroll Park in Brooklyn. Steinsnyder's work is influenced by American Realism and Medieval books of hours, prayer books developed in the 14 th century with meditations appropriate to seasons, months, days of the week, and hours of the day. Steinsnyder presents the human narratives that play out on street corners and parks in a sequence of views within single paintings. The multiple scenes within each painting are framed with decorative brushwork and borders of found objects that accentuate an aspect of the scene and make the place depicted more tangible.

Image: The Museum of Natural History, 47" x 30", oil on canvas

June 17 - September 2, 2004

Going Coastal - The Beaches of New York City

The New York City Department of Parks & Recreation is proud to present Going Coastal: The Beaches of New York City.Celebrating the start of summer, the exhibition features 92 archival and contemporary photographs, vintage postcards, historic renderings, as well as artifacts and memorabilia representing the vital role that beaches play in the life of the city.

Image: Bathers at Orchard Beach, Pelham Bay Park, the Bronx, circa 1938-39, neg 16041, Max Ulrich, New York City Parks Photo Archive

April 29 - June 10, 2004

Central Park: Two Views

Central Park: Two Views features the work of photographer Monica Götz and painter G. Scott MacLeod. Götz and MacLeod coordinate their artistic sensibilities to capture the timelessness of Central Park and its historic architecture. Götz exploits mysterious light affects of pinhole photography to create evocative images of Central Park's bridges and historic rambles. Working directly from her photographs, MacLeod reinterprets each image in paint. Where the atmospheric photographs seem to recall another time and place, MacLeod's colorful paintings depict the same ideas with a vivid immediacy.

Image, Top: Untitled 14, 2002, Monica Götz, Gelatin Silver Print

Image, Bottom: Bethesda Bridge, 2003, G. Scott MacLeod, Oil on masonite

March 3 to April 8, 2004

Portraits of a Garden

"Portraits of a Garden" features botanical illustrations by members of The Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Florilegium Society. Created by some of North America's most accomplished botanical artists, the paintings and drawings in the show depict the variety of plants grown in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in glorious detail. The Florilegium Society was founded in 2000 to record the beauty and diversity of plants grown in the Garden. The exhibition includes 49 drawings and paintings by 31 of the Society's more than 40 members. The result of an extraordinary collaboration of gardeners, botanists and artists, the exhibit provides an unparalleled anthology of botanical illustrations drawn from life.

Image: Magnolia grandiflora Watercolor, Jessica Tcherepnine, © The Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Visit the Brooklyn Botanic Garden website to learn more about the Florilegium Society

February 5 - February 26, 2004

Eyes of My Father

In celebration of Black History Month, the Arsenal Gallery is pleased to present Eyes of My Father, an exhibition of over forty artworks by Parks employees, retirees, and senior members at recreation centers throughout the city. The exhibition features photographs, paintings, quilts, masks, and drawings. The exhibition is organized by Parks & Recreation's Ebony Society Black History Committee.

Image: Grandma's Love by Al Williams

January 8 - January 22, 2004

The Big Picture: Art from Parks Afterschool

Weekday afternoons at recreation centers throughout the city, children ages 6 to 13 enjoy free classes in athletics, arts, and academics under the auspices of Parks & Recreation's afterschool program. A legion of professional artists and teachers expose their students to a variety of styles and techniques, seeking to help them improve their powers of observation and expression.

This exhibit, located at Central Park's Arsenal Gallery and on view from January 8 to January 22, brings together the program's best work from sites in all five boroughs. It represents a collaboration between Parks Afterschool and the Computer Resource Centers program.