This month, the Gallery in the Glen Rock Public Library features Arlyne Berzak, a New Jersey native and a long-time resident of Bergen County representational artist working in oil on canvas and 3D mixed media. Arlyne’s oil paintings are traditional realistic landscapes and her most recent work are paintings of locations in Bergen County. Although oil painting is her first love, her concern for the environment led her to mixed media/collage where she uses various paper materials from old books and magazines a recyclable material. Although created from repurposed paper, some pieces are built up to create a 3rd dimension to a wall hung piece. These pieces are coated with self-leveling gel and then varnish to create elements that look and feel like porcelain. Her colors have been influenced by the brilliant colors of the Fauve movement. The patterns are reminiscent of Matisse’s use of textile patterns and colored cut outs. Her mixed media work has been described as a fearless combination of strange and unique elements which create her own brand of surrealism. Arlyne’s exhibition, through the month of January, can be seen during regularly scheduled library hours.

Springboard is a unique group of seven women artists with varied art backgrounds, and from Bergen County and beyond. They are featured in The Gallery during the month of December.

Lydia Baldassarre, Emily Gilman Beezley, Vicky Katzman, Jennifer Merz, Elizabeth Robles, Kathy Rupff, and Joy Soo comprise the group of oil painters, illustrators, watercolorists, collagists, and digital artists with art ranging from realistically rendered watercolors to expressive oil paintings, from handcrafted collages to compelling abstract compositions. While some members are full time artists, others combine their artmaking with demanding careers in textiles, dentistry, or education. Their work can be found in children’s publishing, on home products, in local exhibitions, and in private collections. They are friends and colleagues brought together by a desire to propel themselves to greater skills and accomplishments, and by a passion to share their art with others.

As part of Vicky Katzman’s ongoing study of the native trees of New Jersey, in these linoleum cut prints she explores the form and pattern found in the fruit of 3 trees; Horse chestnut, Pignut hickory, and American sycamore. These prints are in the image accompanying this post.

This month’s artist featured in the Gallery is Soo Kim, a mixed media artist working with pigmented alcohol inks and using a heat gun to create “flow” across the page, creating composition as they dry. Soo blends colors or adds touches of gold and fine lines to create a story. Her exhibition, through the month of November, can be seen during regularly scheduled Library Hours.

Soo Kim was born in Korea and educated in California during her elementary school years. When she returned home, she spent six years at Sunhwa Art School in Seol, the most prominent fine arts school in the country. Through the school’s international affiliation, she then studied at Parsons School of Design in New York City. Joining the fashion industry, she became an art director for Revlon. She spent time building brand stories for fragrance brands and executed campaign concepts from start to finish. Most often she would collaborate with artists and illustrators, and this led her back to her roots to become a full-time artist/teacher.

More information can be found here.

The Friends of the Library, in collaboration with the Arts Council of Glen Rock, announces the reopening of The Gallery in the Glen Rock Library on October 1. The exhibition entitled “The Artists of Glen Rock” spotlights resident artists’ entries for the 2021 town calendar as well as their other works. Gallery hours coincide with the Library’s posted schedule.

Thirteen Glen Rock artists (several are members of the Arts Council) will show in the month-long exhibition: Yuliya Abova, Byron Arnao, Katherine Battle, Jennifer Collins, Karen Delaney, Michele Goycoolea, Lisa Hahn, Suzanne Kaselow, Michele Keller, Oxana Katsov, Peter Liman, Patricia Smythe, and Carol Trugman. Work styles are varied - from photography to relief print making, stained glass, watercolor, acrylic, oil, digital cyanotype, and oil and ink.

The Arts Council was formed in 2019 to nurture, advance, and bring to light artistic and creative endeavors happening in Glen Rock. The Council promotes, supports, and celebrates all forms of the arts.

The Gallery was established through a partnership with the Friends of the Library in 2006. Maintained by the Friends, it is a designated space and carries with it an opportunity to enhance the Library itself, and at the same time to enhance patrons’ cultural experiences. It has become a creditable exhibition space attracting artists within the local are community, norther New Jersey, and throughout the New York metropolitan area. The establishment of The Gallery further defines the important place the Library holds to all citizens of the community.

Joy Yoo, a Ridgewood dentist, loves painting outdoors to capture the light and air. She wants to preserve the memory of the quick changing moments to an everlasting visual object, “Art.”

In this exhibition, she expresses the poetic winter scenery; quiet evening and long winter night, snow covered mountains and hills, and the gray sky filled with upcoming snow.

Another group of paintings at the show is to bring you a bit different light and air of southwestern desert, Ghost Ranch in New Mexico where she visited for painting last fall. Magic of art will take you there. You will feel glowing red rocks, dry wind, and Rio Chama.

Lastly birds are her favorite motif. Duck portrait shows off the jewel of colorful feathers while a group of Canadian geese hang out on the marsh. Then you will finish the tour with a deep sense of “Joy of Solitude.”

Hope this art brings you peace and healing!

Springboard, a local artist networking group, presents new artwork.

Elizabeth Robles’ passion for painting and art has always been in her soul even before art school. States Robles, “I am inspired by what I see all around me in this beautiful world while plein air painting, working in my art studio, or working from my photos. There is always something I need to capture in paint, something I need to express, something that calls me to pick up my brushes and paint. For me it’s like breathing, something I must do in my life and what I was meant to do.”

Emily Gilman Beezley is a Glen Rock oil painter, printmaker, and mixed-media artist specializing in one-of-a-kind vibrant dreamscapes and travel-inspired artwork. Always drawing on personal experience, her goal is to create a lasting image of the joy I feel when embracing the beauty and wonder of the world.

Jennifer Shaw Merz is a painter, illustrator, teacher, and published author-illustrator of picture books with art degrees from Marymount College, the College of New Rochelle and F.I.T. For this exhibition, Ms. Merz has chosen to display detailed pencil studies of musical instruments, created for her Etudes Series. This black and white linear work is a departure from her usual torn-paper collage pieces.

Joy Yoo is an outdoor painter who brings the air and light of nature right into viewers’ minds. At this exhibition, she is exploring Canadian Rocky’s winter; snow covered mountain and tree with icy blue shadow. Then she wants to warm you up with sunlit trees on a snow-laden hill on Paramus Road. In between her paintings, she is working full time as a dentist in Ridgewood.

Lydia Baldassarre has been creating art since childhood. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts, she began her formal training and has never stopped. This exhibit combines abstract expressionism with collage pieces of her original artwork.

Vicky Katzman’s work is rooted in her fascination with the plant kingdom. By combining different methods of capturing visual information (in the garden vs. in the studio, ink on rice paper vs. acrylics on canvas), this series of paintings explores the nature of time. Vicky earned her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.