Van Loen Gallery’s new art exhibit

The Island Now

The Alfred Van Loen Gallery will host a new art exhibition, Layered Perceptions, that will launch with an artists’ reception on Saturday, Dec. 8, from 2 to 4 p.m., and be on display through Jan. 2.

The exhibit features prints by Chris Ann Ambery and textile and mixed media art from Valerie Zeman. Both artists choose to work in mediums that allow them to manipulate and transform the elements using various techniques. This enables them to bring new textures and subtleties to their surfaces.

Through dye and discharging agents, inks, paint, graphite and other media, Zeman’s textile art gives dimension to feelings in the same way that a poet draws us in through language. She adds layers and textures that she says bring a sense of meditation to her work, and the machine stitching corrals an an overarching cohesiveness. Her compositions include varied techniques and extensive detail woven into each piece.

Zeman’s work has appeared in galleries and juried exhibits in many Long Island venues, as well as in Manhattan. She is associated with Surface Design Association, Studio Art Quilt Associates, East End Arts, Huntington Arts Council, Art League of Long Island, and the Textile Study Group of New York.  In addition, Zeman teaches workshops at her Long Island studio in such techniques as low water immersion dyeing, screen printing, arashi, and itajame shibori, soy wax resist, breakdown printing and paper lamination.

Ambery draws her inspiration from subtleties and continual changes in structure, shape, line and texture.  “My work is not a rendering of place,” she says. “Rather it is a journey into the residual memories and emotions that have been imprinted on me as I pass through.”

Ambrey’s current body of work has been focused on solar plate etching and its wide range of uses.  “This non-toxic printmaking method is extremely versatile,” she says.  “It can be used to create intaglio as well as relief prints.  It does not use the many toxic chemicals and solvents necessary in traditional etching.  All that is required is sunlight, water and imagination.”

Ambery’s work has been exhibited in galleries and magazines throughout the United States and Korea. She has been awarded the Marilyn Goldstein and Jacqueline Frank Award for Graduate Art History and the O’Malley Grant for her graduate work in printmaking.

Currently, she works with Master Printmaker Dan Welden, teaches printmaking and painting at St. Joseph’s College, the Art League of Long Island and East End Arts, and teaches art history at Nassau Community College.

A multi-disciplinary artist and educator, Ambery was born and raised in Queens and currently lives in Smithtown. She received a BFA in illustration from Parsons School of Design, studied with the Passalaqua School of Drawing and Illustration, and received an MFA in printmaking from LIU Post.

The Alfred Van Loen Gallery is located in the South Huntington Library at 145 Pidgeon Hill Road in Huntington Station.

Gallery hours are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sundays 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

 

Share this Article