Central Park

Arboreal: A Group Exhibition

The Arsenal Gallery is pleased to present Arboreal, a group show of artists Barbara Andrus, Avy Claire, Nancy Manter and Adele Ursone. Working intuitively, and responding to nature and our fragile balance within it, they have produced a striking variety of paintings, photographs, drawings, video and sculptures that relies on the shared vocabulary of trees. In visual language, alternately bold and nuanced, their independent artistic voices render a rich aesthetic tableau. Inspired by the urban and rural forest, these works raise our awareness of our environment, its resilience, complexity and majesty. The exhibit is on view from September 17 to October 28, 2010.

Andrus reconstructs the forest experience through site-specific sculptures made of found branches and twigs, the most vulnerable yet fertile elements of the tree. Claire uses written transcriptions of often disturbing contemporary news reports to build visual armatures of trees of beauty and poetry. Manter photographs trees through marks in the ice, snow, and rain droplets on her car windshield, layering her imagery to signify our imprints on place and nature. Ursone delineates intimate details of tree branches, and crops her compositions, to produce focused views of stark quietude that illustrate the power of nature to transport us in the urban landscape.

For this exhibition in the heart of Central Park, the four artists have created new artwork inspired by one of New York City’s greatest assets—its trees. There are 5.2 million trees in New York City’s five boroughs. Approximately half of them live within the Parks system—24,000 trees in Central Park alone—and MillionTreesNYC is planting an additional 600,000 in Parks throughout city (an additional 400,000 with private partners).

Barbara Andrus’ work has been shown at Amelie A. Wallace Gallery at SUNY College, Old Westbury; Hillwood Art Museum; Elizabeth Harris Gallery; DM Contemporary, Saint Peter's Church and Maiden Lane Gallery. She holds a BA from Sara Lawrence College and continued her education at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, concentrating in sculpture and drawing.

Avy Claire has exhibited her work at Topaz Arts, Waterfall Arts, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art and Cynthia Reeves Gallery. Her installation, For The Trees, will be exhibited at the Woodstock Byrdcliff Guild October – November 2010. She holds a BFA from Carnegie-Mellon University and continued her study of photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Nancy Manter has exhibited her work with Dieu Donne Papermill, with whom she recently published the book titled Water Prayers, and Snug Harbor Art Center, among others. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of Art; The Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and National Museum of Art, Washington, DC. Manter holds a MFA from University of Wisconsin and a BFA from University of New Mexico.

Adele Ursone’s work has been shown at the College of the Atlantic, Mary Delahoyd Gallery, Poughkeepsie Art Museum Gallery, and Turtle Gallery. She holds a BFA in painting from the Pratt Institute. Ursone is represented by DFN Gallery in New York.

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Harlem Meer Center (formerly Lasker Rink)

Harlem Meer Center