MAXWELL FINE ARTS is pleased to announce its SPRING 2006 Peekskill exhibition, “UNEXPECTED VISITORS: An Uncanny Art Show,” which will be on view in the Carriage House Gallery and adjoining Sculpture Garden from APRIL 22 through JULY 2, 2006. The public is invited to meet the unexpected visitors/artists/curators at a reception on Saturday, April 22, 2006 from 2-6 PM.

“UNEXPECTED VISITORS” has been organized by its curators, Dana DeVito (in the Carriage House Gallery) and Coulter Young (in the Sculpture Garden), as an invitational group show featuring various “quirky” drawings, paintings, collages, assemblages, photographs, mixed media and sculptures created by over 35 emerging and established artists from Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Yonkers, New Rochelle, Brewster, Croton, Peekskill, Buchanan, Lake Peekskill, Cold Spring, Beacon, Newburgh, Nyack, the upper Hudson Valley, Baltimore, Canada, and Paris, France. The curators are defining “quirky” artwork, as that which on many interpretive levels, taps into the uncanny and the visually startling.  Invited artists have been encouraged to personally interpret the show’s title and rationale with work that is imaginative, unique and especially uncanny.  Maxwell Fine Arts is certain that the art works of these artists will both entertain and intrigue. 

This show will be featured as part of Peekskill’s Annual Open Studios Weekend on June 10th and   11th, and Peekskill’s First Fridays on May 5th and June 2nd from  5 to 8 PM where the videos “Mitosis, ”Spin Cycle” and others by Gene Panczenko will be projected on the barn wall in the parking lot of the sculpture garden (A MUST SEE EVENT).

The artists invited to participate in this uncanny Peekskill art show include:

Anna Adler, Christ Albert,  Michael Ricardo Andreev,  Liz Surbeck Biddle,  Michael Biddle,  Benedicte Bresson,  Dina Bursztyn,  Benoit Bussiere,  Richard Butler,  Diego Corredor,  Ronny Cutrone,  Larry DeMico, Simon Draper,  David Fox,  Thomas Halsall,  Grace Knowlton, Eric Laxman,  Natalia Leginowicz,   Leslie Lew,  Barbara Lipp,  Andrea Mihalovic, Jessica Miller-Smith, Wilfredo Morel, Sonya Nevers,  Gene Panczenko, Gina Pierleoni,  Michael Pilon,  Ed Radford, Victoria Ramos, Katrina Rhein,  Tricia C. Riebesehl,   Dakin Roy, Alexandra Rutsch,  Berit Schumann,  Tom Smith,  Sone Tower, James Tyler, William J. Whalen,  Coulter Young, and more unexpected visitors could stop by?

The Gallery Hours are Sat & Sun 12-5pm, and  First Fridays 5-8pm, May 1 & June 2,  and also by appointment.  MFA @ 121 is open daily (restaurant hours).

Bruce Waldman is an illustrator and fine artist who maintains his studio in downtown New York City and lives in New Jersey.  Bruce was brought up in a Jewish enclave in the South Bronx, across the street from the Bronx Zoo, by Russian/Polish Jewish immigrant parents.  His background as a youngster playing on the streets of the South Bronx is instrumental to the drama he develops in his present works.  Their impact on the viewer immediately brings to the fore a felt narrative.  Often Waldman borrows from the great stories of the past like Don Quixote, or reflects on the 50’s jazz scene of Greenwich Village, or imagines what the animals of the Bronx Zoo would look like in the wild, or draws from his somewhat dark memories of his immigrant past.  Even his landscapes devoid of human presence speak to the human condition.  Often his subjects reflect a tortured existentialism that reminds the viewer of Camus’ The Stranger. In the series featured in this exhibition entitled ‘HORSES’ Waldman presents us with poetic images of equestrian energy and passion that often overshadows the rider or human companion, allowing for a narrative where the horse dominates.  And yet, the narrative being told by his subjects is not the only story being told.  Waldman’s subjects are props for his personal feelings or as he says it “I think of my work as dealing with the turbulence of my emotions . . . whether I am doing a figure, an animal, or a landscape, I am viewing it from inside my soul.”

“HORSES” will open with a unique reception in the gallery at 121 on Saturday, February 18th between the hours of 2 and 5 PM, which is open to the public.  The artist will be present, as well as the co-directors of MAXWELL FINE ARTS. The opening will feature “American Miniature Hors D’ouevres” such as mini big macs, mini kobe corn dogs and mini maryland crab cakes,  created by Chef and Partner Peter DeVito of 121 Restaurant (the brother of co-director Dana DeVito) and Executive Chef Steven Brigante.  Along with these innovative hors d’ouevres, 121 will be showcasing a new house Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc by the glass.  The exhibition will be on view to the public daily at 121 until April 23rd, 2006.

“HOMELAND SECURITY GARDEN” by New York City artist Chang-Jin Lee was originally installed as a Public Art Project at The World Financial Center Winter Garden as an investigation of our political and psychological in/securities in the post 9/11 world.  Lee conducted  workshops with individuals from many different ethnic backgrounds.  These individuals donated items that somehow related to personal notions of safety.  From these objects, artworks were created by Lee that reflected the donors’ individual and collective perspectives.  These artworks became known as “Safety Kits.”  Some of these Safety Kits will be installed in Maxwell Fine Art’s Carriage House Gallery, as they were in the World Financial Center, in a maze that forms a garden evoking a sense of home while at the same time, representing the difficulties of navigating the world’s current complexities.  The viewer of “HOMELAND SECURITY GARDEN” strolls through the garden maze as an exploration of varied yet collective voices that bring up issues of freedom of speech, security and insecurity,  cultural and economic values, and individual and collective expression.  Ultimately, the installation is a celebration of  the variety and multitude of individual voices—what freedom and democracy is based on.  

“THE CATHOUSE ASSOCIATES,” which are Peekskill artists’ Dana DeVito, Marcy B. Freedman and Carla Rae Johnson, collaborated on a extended project that has lasted several months.  Leaving a stack of large drawing paper in their designated “Cathouse” behind Maxwell Fine Arts gallery, which was originally an old outhouse, each artist would come by at their leisure and take a few blank sheets of paper, bring these back to their individual studios and develop an image on each, and bring them back to the Cathouse.  Another Cathouse Associate would take these “unfinished drawings” back to their studio, adding their personal “finishing touches” to the works, and again, bringing them back to the Cathouse for another Cathouse Associate to add or subtract as they wished.  This collaborative process, that echoes the Surrealist’s Exqusite Corpes method of drawing on another’s drawing, continues to the present.  For the Peekskill Project, these “completed” drawings will be installed floor to ceiling in the very Cathouse in which the project took place.  The Cathouse Associates have pooled their talents and their interests into a production of  diverse drawings that explore formal issues of composition through realistic and abstract imagery while playfully revealing their individual visual thinking and their collective social consciousness.  During the inauguration weekend of the Peekskill Project 2006, September 16th and 17th, the Cathouse Associates will have a presence throughout Peekskill, thanks to a mysterious character named “Mark Territory” who will roam the streets of Peekskill inviting everyone to visit “The Cathouse.” 

ADDITIONALLY: During the evening hours of the Peekskill Project 2006 at Maxwell Fine Arts on Saturday, September 16th, New York City’s renowned multimedia artist Paul Clay will project a series of new sound and video pieces entitled “Writing by Cutting” onto the exterior wall of Maxwell Fine Arts’ Carriage House Gallery, from DARK to 10 PM.  A public reception for these projections will be held in the parking lot of Maxwell Fine Art’s.   

Maxwell Fine Arts Sculpture Garden will feature an exhibition of figurative outdoor sculpture curated by Jo-Ann Brody and entitled “Conversation” during the Peekskill Project 2006; this show will continue through December 10, 2006.  A public reception for “Conversation” will be held on the FIRST FRIDAY in October, October 6th from 5-8 PM.  Paul Clay’s videos “Writing by Cutting” will be shown from dark till 9:30 PM on FIRST FRIDAY, October 6th as well.

121 Restaurant and Catering in North Salem, NY in association with Maxwell Fine Arts in Peekskill, NY, is pleased to announce its Fall 2006 art exhibition “Selected Paper Works” by William C. Maxwell, which will be on view from September 1, 2006 thru November 2006.  121 Restaurant has scheduled a unique reception to celebrate this remarkable exhibition on Saturday, October 14, 2006 from 2-5 PM.

Maxwell’s artwork installed at 121 is a visual summary of his philosophical interests in man’s quest for perfection. The “fools” quest, necessary and absurd, becomes the fodder of contemplation in these works.  The incessant venture for the perfect that inevitably ends in imperfection forms the “subjects” of these colorful and playful monoprints, drawings and paintings on paper.  Maxwell has been exhibiting his artwork nationally and internationally for over 35 years.  His work is widely collected by museums, corporations, and individuals.  He is a Professor of Art at The College of New Rochelle and Co-Director, along his wife, Dana DeVito, of Maxwell Fine Arts gallery and sculpture garden in Peekskill, NY.