fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Submit Your Event
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Send Letter to the Editor
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Our Newsletters
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s UP
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Subscribe to the What’s UP newsletter
  • Opinion
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log Out
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s UP
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Subscribe to the What’s UP newsletter
  • Opinion
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log Out
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

Waxing poetic

by Paul Smart
April 1, 2016
in Art & Music, Entertainment
0
Rita Bernstein, Before the Move

The Hudson Valley has been a hotbed for visual art in the encaustics medium for years now. The initial reasoning is simple: R & F Paints, in Kingston, is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of the beeswax-and-pigment combinations, as well as a leading school for artists seeking to introduce the ancient form – which adds layers of translucence (and possible new imagery) to base works (and reaches back, historically, to ancient Greek art).

Another factor has been the growing tendency amongst those working with photographs to find new ways of manipulating their imagery. The old days of the photo as captured truth are long gone; and concurrent with both the emergence of digital manipulation as a worthy artistic tool and the resurgence of archaic photo processes as a means of personal expression comes a whole new genre of art photography enamored with the various ways in which encaustics can add literal layers of other forms and processes to what one does, allowing the photograph itself to become merely a tool in a greater, more fluid means of making art.

Starting this Saturday, December 15, Galerie BMG in Woodstock is hosting its own group exhibition of photo artists working with encaustics, to run into February. And like so much that this beautiful, intimate and friendly gallery does, it places an emphasis on pictorial beauty over concept and plays to a feminine lightness within the work to be shown.

Leah Macdonald, who has been with BMG for years now, creates sensuous narratives of women, while Rita Bernstein invokes dreamlike explorations of the complex mysteries of the human psyche. These ephemeral bookends of the new show encompass more traditional botanical compositions by Christa Kreeger Bowden, portraits by Hope Kahn and photomontage landscapes by Kara Taylor – although everything on view treasures exploration and depth of personal narrative over the purely pretty.

This, like all that BMG’s Bernard Gerson curates and shows, is art with a capital A, geared toward age-old attributes of ageless beauty, layered understanding and the search for spiritual knowledge (without a religious bent, mind you). The high concepts and ironies of the contemporary scene are, by and large, not the dominant forces in these gentler works.

“PhotoEncaustics,” reception Saturday, December 15, 5-7 p.m., on view December 14-February 11, Friday-Monday 12 noon-5 p.m., Galerie BMG, 12 Tannery Brook Road, Woodstock, (845) 679-0027, www.galeriebmg.com.

Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since 1972. We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive.
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher

Paul Smart

Related Posts

Top-tier classical musicians play Saugerties this Sunday
Art & Music

Top-tier classical musicians play Saugerties this Sunday

September 19, 2025
Seven-artist exhibition opening reception in High Falls this Saturday
Art & Music

Seven-artist exhibition opening reception in High Falls this Saturday

September 19, 2025
Kingston Pop Museum hosts group exhibition opening reception this Friday
Art & Music

Kingston Pop Museum hosts group exhibition opening reception this Friday

September 18, 2025
Farm & Flea Spring Market at Basilica Hudson
Art & Music

Basilica SoundScape 2025 hits Hudson this weekend with an explosion of experimental media

September 18, 2025
Indian music showcase this Sunday in Woodstock
Art & Music

Indian music showcase this Sunday in Woodstock

September 12, 2025
Meadowlark Festival features over 36 performers in Stone Ridge this weekend
Art & Music

Meadowlark Festival features over 36 performers in Stone Ridge this weekend

September 11, 2025
Next Post

Bob Draffen retrospective

Weather

Kingston, NY
82°
Sunny
6:39 am6:59 pm EDT
Feels like: 82°F
Wind: 10mph NNW
Humidity: 35%
Pressure: 29.97"Hg
UV index: 3
SatSunMon
72°F / 43°F
72°F / 45°F
75°F / 57°F
powered by Weather Atlas

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Our Newsletters
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Art
    • Books
    • Kids
    • Lifestyle & Wellness
    • Food & Drink
    • Music
    • Nature
    • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Subscribe to Our Newsletters
    • Hey Kingston
    • New Paltz Times
    • Woodstock Times
    • Week in Review

© 2022 Ulster Publishing