Artisan Gallery is Broome County Arts Council’s hub for art retail from local artisans and curated monthly exhibitions by local, regional, and national artists. Visit each month on First Friday, during special events, and for daily visits Tuesday – Saturday. The gallery and classroom spaces feature lectures, workshops, demonstrations, live music, poetry, and more throughout the year.
223 State Street, Binghamton NY
Tuesday – Saturday | 11am – 3pm
Thursday | 11am – 8pm
Artisan Gallery is made possible by the generous support of M&T Bank.
Andrea Kastner
Elegy
Opening Reception: Friday, December 6 from 6-9PM
On view through December 27
The city is a text being written and re-written, with evidence of revisions in every delicate scar traced on a brick wall. As buildings are torn down, façades exposed, garbage collected and dumped in the landfill, drafts and corrections to the city are made visible. These paintings are an elegy to the shadow city, the secrets and ghosts in crumbling factories, in windows and mirrors that appear as portals to alternate worlds.
Andrea Kastner is a painter whose work focuses on the overlooked corners of urban spaces and the sacred nature of rejected things. Kastner’s interest in our material waste has taken her to residencies at municipal landfill sites through the Haliburton School of Art and Design and the Klondike Institute of Arts and Culture. Andrea’s work has earned many artist residencies, exhibitions, and grant awards.
BCAC Members’ Juried Exhibition
November 2024
Opening Reception Friday, November 1 from 6-9PM
The Broome County Arts Council invites members to participate in its Annual Members’ Juried Exhibition, on view November 1 through November 30, 2024 in BCAC’s Artisan Gallery and Art Path Gallery. The exhibition will be juried in categories of: sculpture, painting, photography, drawing, and mixed media. Cash prizes will be awarded in all categories.
This year’s jurors include: Alexandra Davis, Richard Henry, and David Zeggert.
Broome County Arts Council members play a vital role in bringing arts to the community. Artist members share creative energy in many diverse ways across a broad spectrum of mediums and styles. These works are a passport to social perspectives, a conduit to community enlightenment, and the heart of our organization. Entry in the annual members’ exhibition is one of the benefits of being a BCAC member. This year’s show features over 90 pieces created by our members. We are proud to showcase our visual arts members at Artisan Gallery!
Join us First Friday, November 1 for the opening reception.
Thank you to Garufi Law P.C. for their sponsorship of this year’s exhibition.
Rude and Bold Women Visual Art Show
Closing Reception on Thursday, October 24 from 6-8PM
Closing Reception & Artist Talk for Rude and Bold Women Visual Art Show is coming up on Thursday, October 24 from 6-8PM. Join us to view the show, meet the artists, and hear the People’s Choice Award announcement. The Rude and Bold Women Visual Art Show was born in the summer of 1996, the brainchild of artist Susan Jablon. It was revived by a small committee of women in 2001, and has been highlighting rude and bold art by women ever since. This annual exhibition continues to delight and provoke visitors with its broad spectrum of media and messages. More of the unexpected, the bold, and the utterly original is on display again this year, as Rude and Bold continues striving to present the most cutting edge work of local, regional, and national woman artists.
Palette Play: Ceramics for Every Space
Matthew J. Wilson
September 2024
Opening Reception: Friday, September 6th from 6-9PM
This collection offers a multi-sensory journey through a series of unique interior installations, each meticulously crafted from ceramic and inspired by a distinct color palette.
Step into diverse interior worlds, each one rendered in intricate ceramic forms that mirror and transform various design styles. From the raw unfinished look of Rustic design to the clean line and graphic patterns of Modern, each installation is a dialogue between hue and form, inviting you to experience how color can redefine space and aesthetic.
Explore how the soothing tones of a monochromatic palette can evoke calm and clarity, or how a burst of contrasting colors can invigorate and energize. Witness how ceramic pieces can be reimagined to embody the essence of a color, while paying homage to the interior design styles that influence them. Welcome to a space where artistry meets architecture, and where every ceramic piece tells a story in color.
Artist Statement:
I have engaged deeply with the medium of clay, and through my explorations, I have found profound inspiration. The remarkable fluidity of clay allows it to effortlessly embody the essence of various materials, whether they be man-made, synthetic, or natural. In my creations, I endeavor to highlight this extraordinary versatility.
It is my hope that viewers will experience a sense of familiarity within the style of my work. My intention is to reimagine the traditional forms of functional ceramics, inviting a shift in the viewer’s perception. Through my art, I aspire to reveal and celebrate a renewed understanding of this material, offering a fresh lens through which its possibilities can be appreciated.
Matthew Wilson, born in 1987 in Elmira, New York, is a versatile artist whose journey has taken him through various vibrant locales including Alexandria, VA, Wellfleet, MA, and Barcelona, Spain. Currently residing in Binghamton, New York, Matthew’s passion for art ignited at an early age, leading him to explore numerous mediums throughout his educational journey. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in Ceramics from The State University of New York at Oswego, followed by a Master’s in Art Education. His artistic development continued with classes at The Art League and Torpedo Factory, coupled with practical experience gained as an intern at Shenfeld Studios, a renowned tile and restoration ceramics studio. Additionally, his studies in Barcelona and travels across Europe, South America, and Asia have enriched his understanding of diverse cultures, further influencing his unique artistic voice.
Matthew’s artwork has been showcased in juried exhibitions throughout New York, garnering numerous awards and honors. He has held multiple solo exhibitions, with work included in the permanent collection at the University of Oswego. Through his business, Wilson Ceramics, he offers his creations for sale in local storefronts. Currently, Matthew imparts his knowledge and passion for art as a high school art teacher at Chenango Valley High School, always on the lookout for new artistic opportunities and endeavors.
Ellen M. Blalock
Home to Home: A Refugee’s Journey
August 2024
Opening Reception: Friday, August 2nd from 6-9PM
Photographer Ellen M. Blalock has been documenting the life of Salat Ali for the last six years. In 2018, she was invited to travel with him to his birth place, Dagahaley Refugee Camp in Dadaab, Kenya, to document his very personal journey to reunite with his mother, siblings, and other family members after being away for 13 years.
Home to Home: A Refugee’s Journey is a record of the difficulties to survive through hard times, and of living between two cultures. It is also a celebration of the family’s love and commitment to one another.
Ellen M. Blalock is a narrative artist and documentarian who believes the job as an artist is to listen, and tell stories of the ignored, and underrepresented, to raise awareness of human conditions, social injustices, and cultural diversities. Her focus is the African diaspora, particularly the African American experience in the United States, and female identity and power.
Screen of Memory
J E N P E P P E R
July 2024
Opening Reception: Friday July 5 from 6-9PM
Artist Statement: Grounded by a history in fibers, my drawn and three dimensional works explore intersections between the body, the world, and the making of language. Photographic documentation serve as place card holders of memory. My works depict temporal processes that cannot be fixed and are virtually impossible to harness: weather patterns, water currents, land shifts, steam, lines that author language, each in suspended activity. Objects and ideas extend endlessly outward. Permanency remains on the move. Disparate ideas come together in attempts to witness potentiality: Stasis and buoyancy, mimesis, semiotics and cerebral abstraction. Tactile surfaces and forms and ideas are caught between states of having been to just this side of becoming. The flatness of a picture plane gives way to spatial illusion once a mark is drawn upon it. The distance between the surface tension of water and marble is simply time. My work’s interconnectedness speaks to evolutionary processes as much as to revolutionary ones.
J E N P E P P E R is a Canadian-born artist who works in mixed media. Her work is included at the Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. A solo installation was mounted in the Everson Museum of Art and was reviewed in Sculpture magazine. She has participated in many artist residencies all over the world as well as the recipient of several grant awards. She was a professor of studio art at Cazenovia College and most recently a visiting professor and gallery director at Pratt Munson in Utica, NY. Her work can be seen at www.jenpepper.com
Painted From Life
Daniel Fox
June 2024
Opening Reception: Friday June 7 from 6-9PM
Motivated by a love of art and nature, Daniel Fox has continually pursued oil painting over his life. His paintings have appeared in national juried exhibitions and have won numerous awards.
Artist Statement:
I paint all my paintings from life. I either set up flowers or still life objects in a north light window or I go out on location. I never bring a camera or a cell phone with me when I paint. I try to find something in the given world that I can interpret in an artistic way, always keeping in mind the importance of line, color, and the pattern of lights and darks. Depending on the day or the arrangement, I notice different things or emphasize different things. I also need to use memory and imagination. I take my cues from all of the great artists, both realist and abstract, whose works have inspired me. I also feel the need to express gratitude for living in a way that I feel I can make some contribution.
Daniel Fox was born in Hartford, Connecticut, spent early childhood in Boston, and then moved to rural upstate New York, where he has lived since. Motivated by a love of art and nature, he has continually pursued oil painting over his life, while earning his living as a newspaper pressman, construction worker, and finally running a printing department at a SUNY college. Although mostly self-taught, he did early on luck into a painting experience in Provence, France, when he and his wife Nancy accompanied Boston artist Judy Ryan when she was scouting out locations for an upcoming workshop that she would be teaching that summer. He has also had the great opportunity of learning from master artist TJ Cunningham on location in his native Vermont on numerous occasions. Daniel’s paintings have appeared in national juried exhibitions in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Rockport, Massachusetts, and Old Lyme, Connecticut. He exhibits at outdoor shows during the summer. He has won numerous awards including Best in Show, Best Oil, Best Flower Painting, and honorable mention.
2024 BCAC Flower Show
Annual Spring Exhibition
May 2024
Opening Reception: Friday May 3 from 6-9PM
“Spring is far more than just a changing of the seasons, it is a renewal of the spirit.”
– Tori Sorenson, Nick of Time Foundation
The annual BCAC Flower Show highlights the beginning of spring. This group exhibition is a collection of visual artworks celebrating florals, nature, and new life. This year, fifty regional artists have contributed work in a variety of styles and mediums with one Best in Show prize awarded.
Join us for an opening reception on Friday, May 3 from 6-9PM!
byCONTRAST
SAQA Quilt Exhibition
On view through April, 2024
Opening reception: Friday April 5 from 6-9PM
ByCONTRAST is the inaugural exhibition for SAQA NJ/NY. It was juried by mixed media artist, Merill Comeau, and features quilts created by thirty-three artists.
Contrast is a powerful tool used by artists to enhance the visual impact and overall quality of a work. By juxtaposing elements of obvious difference or concepts of striking dissimilarity, contrast creates visual interest, drama, emphasis, and adds depth to a composition.
We Practice What We Teach: Art Educators of Broome County
On view through March 29, 2024
Opening reception: Friday March 1 from 6-9PM
Every Spring, Broome County Arts Council partners with the Fine Arts Society of the Southern Tier to host an exhibition featuring the artwork of high school students. The Emerging Artists 2024 exhibition will take place in April at the FASST location in Oakdale Commons.
As a prequel to the Emerging Artists Exhibition, BCAC Artisan Gallery is proud to present this exhibition “We Practice What We Teach,” honoring and celebrating art educators in Broome County, both current and retired. We hope you will be inspired by the creative spirit of educators who continue their studio practice while teaching.
Co(r)vid Love
Warner Varno
On View February 2 – 24, 2024
Opening Reception: Friday, February 2 from 6-9PM
Warner Varno is a master teaching artist based in Syracuse, NY. She creates large, medium and small scale mixed media paintings. Recently, graduating with an MFAIA (Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts) from Goddard College, Warner developed a unique practice of presencing through the visual arts. In her current artwork, Warner employs the crow as her main actor and storyteller, due to the crow’s undeniable relationship to humans.
Her “crow sketches” or “crow conversations” layer — sticker-like — on top of the embodied, somatic, painted ground, becoming a form of truth-telling about relationship, family and communication — to our bodies, to ourselves, to each other, and to the natural world. These works carry themes around love, passage of time and memory, survival, and desire to thrive while exploring the complexities of partnership, pain, and how to adapt in relationship to our post Pandemic world. How to live well in this modern life.
Warner’s painting surfaces are reminiscent of graffiti and street art and carry within them the spontaneity of the moment in which they are created, fully embracing and even extolling the Wabi-sabi (natural beauty) in both life and art, and valuing the power that play, surprise, and reclaiming our own attention has in our lives. These crows have something to say. They are in conversation with each other, with themselves and with the state of the world around them.
Golden Symbols of My Life
Reda Abdelrahman
On View: January 5th, 2024 – January 27th, 2024
Opening Reception Friday, January 5th from 6-9PM
Reda Abdelrahman was born in Egypt in 1966, graduated from the fine art faculty in 1988, and received a master’s degree in 1995 and a Ph.D. in the philosophy of fine art in 1999 from the University of Minya. He has held 32 solo exhibitions in Egypt and all over the world, including a solo exhibition entitled “30 Years of Art” at the Museum of Fine Arts in Alexandria, the Egyptian Cultural Center (2007) in Paris and Sophie Gallery in Paris (2011), Mosaic Room Gallery (2013) in London and New House Gallery (2020) in New York.
Nature and years of studying significantly influenced the work of Reda Abdelrahman throughout his artistic career, his upbringing in Ismailia was among lakes and open gardens, and his studies in Upper Egypt impacted his creative works. His move to Upstate New York was a bridge between the past and the present in his visual memory, resulting in his recent work looking vibrant with open nature and lakes in a greatly influenced way. The ancient Egyptians, whom Reda is proud of, are one of the descendants of these greats.
He has participated in several art residences, workshops, and art collections. He currently lives and works as a professional artist with studios in Cairo and New York and participates in art movements in both cities, and teaching arts in Upstate New York.
Artist Statement:
I believe in the importance of art to build a bridge between cultures and people, and I rely on the diversity of cultures and backgrounds to do that.
I presented this through many artistic projects I have undertaken throughout my career, the most recent of which was my exhibition, “I am Everybody,” in New York City in 2020. I relied on many techniques; drawing was and still is essential. I benefited greatly from my studies of drawing the ancient Egyptians and the importance of the expressive line. I also used many ancient techniques and media of charcoal, natural pigments, and tempera with modern media such as acrylic and others. In the end, it is believed that art is a tremendous means of communication that can put a bridge of communication with people.
In my new exhibition at Artisan Gallery, I targeted those symbols of positive personalities that made my life and the lives of people go better, including politicians, movie stars, singers, athletes, researchers, and even my family members, all of whom I consider to be golden symbols in my life.
