August 2024
Emerging Artist Showcase
Five local emerging artists
August 2 - August 29
Opening Reception on Arts Night Out
Art has always gone hand in hand with community, from the first cave paintings to the Eastern Island Statues. Artists of every status represent the physical voice of their community at that time—and emerging artists are stepping stones into the realm of that expression. In this exhibit, the art of each individual artist is not sectioned off, but organized according to how each painting communicates with the other. If artists from different backgrounds can still find connection through different pieces, then we as a community can find connection to one another. Supporting art, and embracing emerging artists, is one of the many ways we can push back against toxic individualism.
-Forrest Graey
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Debra Hoyle is an artist and writer from Western Massachusetts with a studio/gallery in the small hill town of Conway. Conway sits on the South River, about an hour east of the Berkshires. Currently she is exploring mixed media using collage, monoprints, and acrylics. Her inspirations come from the beauty of the natural world, a love of history, memoir, mark making, color, texture, and the movement of energy. Pieces often begin with an idea and a personal process which then lead into an unplanned, intuitive unfolding. Debra usually works in series, and formal elements such as design, composition, value, and color are always considered. Her many layered pieces invite the viewer to connect with a sense of mystery and discovery. Art is at the core of the way Debra perceives life. She is mainly self-taught and has studied with a number of artists both in person and online. She has also worked in oils, pastels, and watercolors. Some influences are the abstract expressionists and contemporary artists such as Louise Fletcher, Jane Davies, Judy Woods, and Nicholas Wilton. Debra has exhibited at the Hosmer Gallery in Northampton, MA (solo show), Blake and Co., Orleans, MA, The Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester, VT, A3 Gallery, Amherst, MA, Northampton Center for the Arts, Northampton, MA, and at libraries in her area. Debra has also had a healing arts practice for over 30 years, and has a degree in art history.
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Forrest Graey (she/they) is a hobby artist who enjoys writing and cycling in her spare time. As someone on the spectrum, when she paints she finds it’s easier to cultivate inspiration by giving herself over to hyper-fixations and seeing what inspiration comes from them. While she is not currently painting, she is creating another piece of art in the form of her debut novel, “Bloodwater”.
You can follow her writing process on Instagram, @author.forrestgraey
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Kari Giordano is a visual artist and educator working in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Her primary work is within the digital realm and she creates photographs and graphic design for commercial and personal use. Her current digital photography work, False Moons, comments on our search for social connection and aims to communicate our search for both individuality and group identities, and how we’re driven by instinct, experience, and collective consciousness.
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Rosetta Marantz Cohen has lived and painted in Northampton for 34 years. Her art celebrates the pleasures of everyday life in this community and the intimate world of her own painting studio–a converted garage behind her house. She finds humor and solace in very small things, and seeks to convey those feelings in her work.
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Ruthie Baker is a photographer and mixed media artist working primarily with analog and alternative photographic processes. Her work combines photography, collage, poetry, and sculpture, exploring how analog photographic processes can be combined with other mediums to create something strange and new.
Ruthie is interested in capturing the mundane experiences of daily life to examine themes of memory, tradition, self, and family. Her work centers on the emotional significance of modest objects and interpersonal relationships, as well as the fragility of human life.
She received her Bachelor of Arts in Film and Media Studies from Emory University and is currently a final-year MFA Candidate at The University of Massachusetts - Amherst.