Autumn 2023 Exhibitions

Upcoming exhibitions

 Driven to Abstraction

September 23 – November 12, 2023

Driven to Abstraction showcases the broad range of styles artists use to express their visions and views without illustration. This exhibition, which is curated by Lisa Breznak, highlights the unique working methods of nine artists by choosing multiple works by each to give visitors an in-depth view of the many varied materials, aesthetics, approaches, and versatility included under the umbrella term “abstraction”.

Each group of artist’s works presents the opportunity to see into the thought processes, emotions, scale, and techniques that individual artists use to viscerally communicate ideas and experiences when language is inadequate. By including contemporary abstract painting, drawing, photography, and sculpture, this exhibit demonstrates how far and wide the roots of this distinctive mid-20^th century movement in American painting have spread and expanded the concepts and acceptance of non-objective imagery.

Artists: Gerard Amsellem, Sam Bartman, Ivy Dachman, Mikel Frank, Nils Hill, David Link, Rita Maas, Erna Marcus, and Kurt Steger.

Gerard Amsellem was born in Morocco and lived the first 25 years of his life in Paris.  In 1982, he moved to the U.S. Amsellem has been painting for most of his life and studied at the University of Paris, where he earned his M.A. in French literature and art history.  His work has been exhibited in Paris and locally at GAS Gallery and Studio, South Orange Performing Art Center, and other notable galleries. He is also a filmmaker and in 2013 produced and directed a short film called Bartleby.  Amsellem has created a successful film club called La Cinematheque, which meets at South Orange Performing Arts Center.  He currently teaches French and World Film Classes at Livingston High School in Livingston, NJ.

Sam Bartman described himself as an outsider and self-taught experimentalist. His keen observations and fearless manipulation of materials and imagery resulted in engaging and beautiful expressionistic paintings that are bold, skillful and exuberant. Mixing resins, varnishes, automotive paints, and artist oils with water-based materials, Bartman practiced a visual and technical alchemy with his “special sauce” that enhanced drying and made reproducible chemical reactions that inspired his visual experiments.  During his 60-year long career, he created over 2,000 works and exhibited frequently in the greater metropolitan area.

Ivy Dachman is a Manhattan native and received her BFA in Painting from Cooper Union, and her MFA from Queens College, CUNY.  Dachman’s paintings walk the line between deliberation and spontaneity.  She develops her compositions with pentimenti, as she first paints the canvas with a brightly colored wash of oil and wax and then “draws” on the surface and “washes” it again.  In this way, she builds and rebuilds the composition.  Dachman has been in numerous group shows, including at The Drawing Center, the Katonah Museum of Art, and the Hudson River Museum, and solo exhibits at the Garrison Art Center and AIR Gallery in Brooklyn.  In 1998 Dachman was awarded a NYFA Fellowship in Painting.  She has work in several public and private collections, including the Nevada Museum of Art, Price Waterhouse Coopers, and Metro Media.

Mikel Frank is an experienced artist professional, who has dedicated his life to studying, teaching, and working in the arts.  His passion for art was compounded by his 29-year tenure at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  He moved to Charlotte, NC in 2015, taught art at two local colleges, was in the class of 2021 ArtPop Street Gallery, and is a member of Global Art Project.  He is a board member of the Guild of Charlotte Artists and has exhibited both nationally and internationally.  This exhibition, along with Frank’s solo works, displays his love of collaboration, as several were done with Gerard Amsellem or with “frags.”  Frank does not make sketches before starting a work but makes a mark or glues something down, then responds to it with another mark or addition in a dialogue that is emotionally and intellectually responsive to the act of creating.

Nils Hill was born in New York and received a BFA in Sculpture from Philadelphia College of Art and an MFA in Sculpture from Indiana University. Commenting on his paintings, Hill stated that they “do not represent anything other than what they are: paint on a rigid support. The paintings do not signify anything other than how they work in the world. They do have an evocative power, which can evoke a spiritual or emotive response.”  His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows in spaces including The Berkshire Art Museum, The Katonah Museum of Art, Pace University, and The Arts Exchange, and elsewhere in the United States.

David Link studied painting, drawing, and sculpture at SUNY Purchase.  He was greatly inspired by artists such as Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, Donald Judd, Tony Smith, and Sol LeWitt, and the Minimalist Movement in Sculpture.  Link’s work is about form, space, and color, as he explores subtle differences in angles and proportions. His goals are elegance and the simple harmony in form.

Rita Maas is a visual artist who works with photography, drawing, and printmaking to playfully construct conceptual based imagery. Working within predetermined systems she embraces elements of chance and disorder, often adapting reductive forms. How information is received, filtered and retained are persistent themes of her practice, as she examines the spaces where slippage and illegibility occur.  Born in New York, Maas received her BFA in Photographic Studies from the School of Visual Arts. She later earned her MFA in Visual Arts at Lesley University College of Art and Design.   Her work has been widely exhibited and has won several awards, including a 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts.

Erna Marcus was born and raised in Amsterdam. At Leyden University she pursued a BA in Sinology.  During her year as an exchange student at Nanjing, Marcus documented her experiences with her first camera, a Canon AE1.  Her years as an early childhood educator in a public school in Washington DC helped hone her skills in observational photography, as she learned to see anew the commonplace and everyday with the eyes of a child.

Kurt Steger, a native of Southern California, began working in construction in his early 20s.  His passion for woodworking led him to sculpture and design, and he has crafted a life and career centered around art, design, and community.  His distinctive style is a fusion of many interests, including shamanism, Western psychology, and environmental issues.  His sculptures often incorporate performances of rituals and rites of passage, always with the intention of healing and the release of burdens.  Steger’s work is in private, public, and museum collections, and in 2017 he received a NYFA Sculpture Grant.

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Mitche Kunzman: Purgatory

Hays Gallery

Exhibition: September 30-November 12, 2023

An exhibition for all those not good enough for heaven—but not bad enough for hell.

Landscape has become my starting point in painting—but it wasn’t always that way for me—there was always abstraction.  There are no truly straight lines in nature—they are just a conceptual overlay—abstract borderlines that we place upon nature.  The abstract elements in my paintings suggest borders that are linear and measurable—straight lines that intrude on nature.

There is nothing we connect with more universally than the ordinary earth that we stand on—the early is the glue that binds every human.  There is nothing more commonplace than landscape and paradoxically nothing more profound.                       -Mitche Kunzman

The contemporary artist Mitche Kunzman has been described as a “Romantic Conceptualist” by The New York Times. His refined landscape paintings are filled with beautiful atmospherics that are exceptional.  Kunzman brings a notable range of experience in the art world through his years working in the art market and as an appraiser, particularly in the areas of Indian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian paintings and antiquities, as well as Old Master and Contemporary artworks.

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The Canopic Jars by Devin Siglock

Goelet Gallery

Exhibition: September 30-November 12, 2023

The Canopic Jars were conceived as props for a short, avant-garde film, but grew beyond that project to become a separate body of work.  Inspired by specimens in formaldehyde jars, these artworks combine visual beauty with a dash of repulsion.  Bright colors clash with odd textures, creating lively objects that appear frozen in space and time.

Devin Siglock is a multimedia artist who lives and works in Los Angeles.  As an undergraduate, he studied film at the University of California at Berkeley.  He then completed a post-baccalaureate program in sculpture at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon.  Siglock loves to experiment with different materials and working methods.  His artworks vary from detailed, photorealistic representations to completely non-objective inventions.

Accompanying Programs:

Exhibitions Opening

Saturday, September 30, 1-5pm

Free with museum admission

2:30pm Gallery Talk by Mitche Kunzman

3:30pm Driven to Abstraction Gallery Talks by David Link and Rita Maas, followed by conversation with Ivy Dachman, Nils Hill, and Erna Marcus

Artists’ Reflections: Exhibition Talks

Saturday, October 28, 2pm

Purgatory, Mitche Kunzman

Call & Response, Rita Maas

Time and the Gravity of Space, Kurt Steger

Free with museum admission

These illustrated talks by three exceptional artists whose works are currently on view at the Hammond reflect upon the ideas behind and artistic processes used to create their artworks.  These talks will be followed by a Q&A panel.

The Aesthetics of Abstraction

An interactive performance by Marcy B. Freedman

Sunday, November 5, 1-5pm

Free with museum admission

Marcy B. Freedman is an artist and an art historian. Her passion for abstract art has been manifest in lectures, curatorial projects, and in her own paintings, photographs, collages, and small sculptures. Freedman will spend four hours in the galleries, engaging in conversation with any visitor who wishes to speak about the pros and cons of non-representational art.

The Visual Passion Duo: No Limits

Sunday, November 12, 3pm

Mikel Frank and Gerard Amsellem, the Visual Passion Duo, present a demonstration/performance of painting together using everything, everywhere, all at once.  Musical accompaniment by Chick’s Candy Store.

Free with museum admission