Stone Quarry Hill Art Park’s next exhibition, The Contemporary Portrait and Figure, highlights 14 artists whose explorations of the portrait and figure are as diverse as their subjects. From super-realism to abstract, mixed-media to oil-on-canvas, the exhibition displays a cross-section of the philosophies and techniques of contemporary art. The show opens on Sunday June 13 with a free wine-and-cheese reception from 3 to 5 p.m. in the Art Park’s John and Virginia Winner Memorial Art Gallery. It runs through Sunday July 11. The exhibition features artists: Romare Bearden, Jane Woodruff Carroll, Bob Dacey, Grace Hartigan, Darryl Hughto, David Kassan, Kevin Mayer, Paul McCormack, Katie O’Hagan, Susan Roth, Sarah Sheer, Sharon Sprung, Gary Trento and Jerome Witkin.
New-York City artist Romare Bearden is known for transforming the medium of collage. In 1987, he was honored with The National Medal of the Arts Award. He died in 1988.
Cazenovia-artist Jane Woodruff Carroll has devoted herself entirely to portraiture and is noted for her paintings in oils and watercolors.
Syracuse artist and Syracuse University professor Bob Dacey works in all mediums, but prefers watercolors. He is a Gold and Silver Medals recipient from the Society of Illustrators in New York City.
Grace Hartigan, who died in 2008, earned her reputation as one of the New York School of artists who emerged from New York City during the 1940s and 1950s.

Canastota artist Darryl Hughto is renowned for his abstract and representational art. A painter and printmaker, he obtained the Theodoran Award from the Guggenheim Museum in 1997. His wife, artist Susan Roth, is also in the exhibition.

Brooklyn artist David Kassan studied at Syracuse University under two other featured artists, Dacey and Witkin. Kassan’s realism aligns itself with the philosophies of the Ashcan School of American Realists. Freeville artist Kevin Mayer is an adjunct lecturer at SUNY Cortland whose work is influenced by his studies of the Old Masters when he was a copyist at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Glenham artist Paul McCormack works in oils and watercolors and received his formal art training at the DuCret School of the Arts, where he later became a faculty member.

Beacon artist Katie O’Hagan started sketching subjects as a child in her father’s pub in a small village in northern Scotland but didn’t seriously consider herself an artist until she took to oil painting in 2004. She studied with McCormack.

Canastota artist Susan Roth has three acrylic paintings in the show that weren’t intended to be portraits, but because of their proportions and style became considered portraits by observers. Her husband, artist Darryl Hughto, is also in the exhibition.

The show’s only non-New York artist, Sarah Sheer, lives and works out of Pittsburgh, Pa. She is a figurative painter who studied with Dacey and Kassan at Mystic Mountain Arts in New Woodstock.

Brooklyn artist Sharon Sprung was one of 50 finalists in a portrait competition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. She prefers to work from life for her figurative paintings.

Skaneateles artist Gary Trento specializes in drawing, anatomy and painting. He is professor emeritus at Syracuse University and has painted the university’s chancellor, Nancy Cantor.

Syracuse artist Jerome Witkin is known for how his art addresses the moral dimensions of modern times. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and he teaches at Syracuse University.

The Art Park is open year-round with the John and Virginia Winner Memorial Art Gallery open Tuesday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. April through November. It is located one mile east of the village of Cazenovia off of U.S. Route 20.

For more information, call 315-655-3196, email office@stonequarryhillartpark.org or visit the Art Park online at www.stonequarryhillartpark.org.
 


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