June 1 - June 28, 2023
SCRIBBLES: Habits, Compulsions, & Outpourings of the Doodling Mind
Guest Jurors, Lois Bender & Amy Cheng
On the Wall: So Blue So Happy So Cool
Stephen Cimini
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 1, 2023, 6pm - 8pm
“A Conversation About Scribbles” a Gallery Walk Through: Saturday, June 10, 3 - 5pm
Carter Burden Gallery is pleased to present its second national juried exhibition, SCRIBBLES, guest juried by Lois Bender and Amy Cheng. The reception will be on Thursday, June 1 from 6 – 8pm. The exhibition runs from June 1 through June 28, 2023, at 548 West 28th Street in New York City. The gallery hours are Tuesday - Friday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Recording of Pollock Krasner Zoom
Unraveling and Liberating the Scribble
Essay by Lois Bender and Amy Cheng
SCRIBBLES: Habits, Compulsions, & Outpourings of the Doodling Mind
A call for art by the Jurors Lois Bender and Amy Cheng challenged nation-wide artists to share their Scribbles, posing the idea of Scribbles as evolving choreographies of visual thinking and feelings flowing in space; that they allow something to develop and take shape as a “becoming." Its nature can be chaotic, noncommittal, ambivalent, tentative. It can also be intentional, commanding, finished. Is scribbling where ideas come from? Is it intuitive and non-thinking? A random exploration? Is it play, or a series of what-ifs? Can it be serious and mindful in the most profound sense of the word? Is it uncensored? Can scribbles be seen as a complete work of art? Is it a way to access our stream of consciousness? Do our scribbles reveal something essential about us?
The artists have articulated and unraveled the Scribble, answering the call with so many strong variations in innovative techniques and surprising materials liberating the Scribble as a vibrant phenomenon, apart from its historical image as a subsidiary non-serious form of art making serving an artist’s finished art.
Displaying the joyous artistry and inventive “scribbles” the exhibition features 69 artists exploring how their scribbling and doodling fit into the surprisingly timely context of this provocative subject in contemporary art. Artists include: Keisha-Gaye Anderson, Olivia Beens, Jocelyn Benford, Elizabeth Bisbing, Miriam Bisceglia, Nancy Blair, Holly Boruck, Beryl Brenner, Ann Winston Brown, Karin Bruckner, Sydney Cash, Pauline Chernichaw, Irene Christensen, Heather Cox, Phyllis Crowley, Rena Diana, Kathleen Dobrowsky, Mary Ellis, Dale Emmart, Laurie Fader, Gordon Fearey, Elise Freda, Gayle Friedman, Raymond Germann, Dana Gordon, Barbara Groh, Laurence Elle Groux, Mary Hafeli, Eileen Hoffman, Tony Holmquist, Andrea Jacobsen, Samantha Jensen, Claire B. Jones, Bette Klegon Halby, Randy Klinger, Nancy Koenigsberg, Leslie Lalehzar, Jennifer Levine, Harriet Livathinos, Annell Livingston, Miranda Maher, Megan Maher, Dan Mcgarrah, Ann Miller, Maria Morabito, Jim Morris, Wendy Moss, Stephanie Mulvihill, Isaac Paris, Stuart Peterman, Joyce Raimondo, Jack Ready, Leah Reid, Melanie Reim, Mary Rieser Heintjes, Robin Roi, Melissa Rubin, Andra Samelson, Christopher Skura, Darcy Spitz, Priscilla Stadler, Sharon Strauss, Susan Swinand, Matthew Tanner, Kathleen Thum, Cynthia Winika, Jean Wolff, and Josef Zutelgte.
About the Jurors
Amy Cheng was born in Taiwan, raised in Brazil, Oklahoma, and Texas. She received a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin, and an MFA from Hunter College, City University of New York.
She has exhibited her paintings nationally and internationally; her work is held in numerous corporate and public collections such as The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY, New York University Langone Medical Center, Sheraton Hotels, Brussels, Belgium, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Philadelphia, PA and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Collegeville, PA. To date she has completed a dozen public art commissions including projects at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the Howard St. El Station, Chicago, IL, the 25th Avenue Subway Station, Brooklyn, NY, the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport MetroLink Station, and the Jacksonville Airport, FL.
She received a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship to Renmin University of China, Beijing in Spring 2017, a 10-month artist residency at P.S. 122 Painting Center in New York City in 2011-12, and a Senior Lecture/Research Fulbright fellowship to Brazil in Fall 2008. She has been awarded two New York Foundation for the Arts Painting Fellowships, and an Arts International travel grant to China. She is a Professor Emerita in the Art Department at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
Lois Bender holds an MFA from Boston University, and a B.A. from Hunter College, City University of New York. Her art practice interprets nature and botanical themes using painting, mixed media, and printmaking. She is represented by Sara Nightingale Gallery in Sag Harbor, NY. Recently she has participated in a series of ecology-themed shows such as “Earth on The Edge” and “Mayday Earth” at Ceres Gallery, NYC and “Fragile Rainbow“ at EcoArtSpace, NYC. She has held art residencies at Skowhegan, Women’s Studio Workshop, and CAMAC (France).
She began her career as an advertising art director on national brands like Godiva Chocolates before creating her own gift industry art design company GardenSpiritsNY. She has also created nature-inspired retail product designs for the NY Botanical Garden in The Bronx.
The constraints of the Covid pandemic inspired her to conceive and direct an online Curatorial Program for the New York Artists Circle that includes the exhibitions “Lost and Found,” and “I Dreamed a Garden…” She has taught as a Lecturer in the Art Department at Essex County College, Newark, NJ. She teaches art workshops year-round in the Hamptons at sites like Bridge Gardens, Bridgehampton; LongHouse, East Hampton; and Southampton Art Center.
Artworks
![Priscilla Stadler sKin[care]13 2022 tree bark, wire, and thread 11 x 9 x 3 inches $640](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/555377c0e4b0a9ac7391ad7a/1685216205511-AWCNJGS18RR07TP6S4QX/Stadler%2C+skin%5Bcare%5D13.jpg)
Stephen Cimini
Stephen Cimini presents the installation On the Wall: So Blue So Happy So Cool, a four paneled eighty-eight-inch-wide painting in vibrant blue hues, which runs from April 27 to August 30, 2023. Building on architectural influences, which have been the basis for his inspiration since the mid-90s, Cimini’s work has evolved by creating a balanced combination of geometric shapes. With no discernible pattern, the work allows for a pleasing, meditative composition to emerge. He elaborates, “I refer to this process as random symmetry as I often don’t know where I am going until I get there. My impulsive color choices are fueled by intuition and experience. In this case, after a long battle the blues won.”
Originally from the small town of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Cimini first studied fine art at the San Francisco Art Institute and eventually moved back east to study at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He wrestled with various art forms from wood constructed sculpture to conceptual environments before landing on abstract painting, something he loved from an early age. In 1994, he began developing the vocabulary for his current work, which originates from the linear landscape of Manhattan. It has since mutated to geometric spaces and their relationships to each other while still adhering to its architectural origins. His fascination with the mystery of color is also a vital aspect of his work.
Installation Views
