Collage works by internationally recognized artists to be displayed at Kean University, Union News Daily
Union News Daily – September 9, 2023
UNION, NJ — The Galleries at Kean University features the top artistic talent in the medium of collage this fall with the National Collage Society: 39th Annual Juried Exhibit at the Liberty Hall Academic Center gallery through Saturday, Sept. 30.
An opening reception, free and open to the public, was at LHAC on Kean’s Union campus on Wednesday, Sept. 6.
The exhibition includes 55 high-quality works by a wide range of artists that exemplify this often understated, yet challenging and highly rewarding art form. Collage offers artists unparalleled opportunities to create textured concepts and designs.
Professional artist and Kean alumna Barbara Minch served as adjudicator of the exhibition.
“I have significant experience working in collage. The array of work and professionalism displayed by the artists in this show was impressive,” she said.
Suran Song, Rustbelt Reaganomics for Election Day, 2021. Gesso, paint, cardboard box, sundry shipping materials 54 x 54 inches
Artists winning first, second and third place were Kenneth Falana, based in Florida, and Sheryl Renee Dobson and Suran Song, both based in New York. Falana is a contemporary printmaker, retired art educator and self-described colorist who draws on remembered experiences from his childhood to inform his own improvised style, which he calls “silkscreen construction collage.” Song melds art and sound into her work and uses her routine mantra meditation practice to inspire her creative process. Dobson, an abstract expressionist painter and collagist, explores human microcosms that exist within a divine macrocosmic background.
Other artists featured in the exhibition are New Jersey’s Kasandra Pantoja, who received honorable mention for her textile on canvas piece, “She Is…The Future,” and Gayle Gerson, of Colorado, who won The President’s Award, granted by Gretchen Bierbaum, president and founder of the National Collage Society.
“It’s an honor to host this exhibition, celebrate the work of so many talented artists, and to promote the advancement of collage as a major art medium,” said Lynette A. Zimmerman, executive director of the Liberty Hall Academic Center and the Galleries at Kean.
