November 30 - December 21, 2017

I TOOK THAT?!: Photographs by Margaret Smith
On The Wall: Cassandra Jennings Hall

Carter Burden Gallery presents two new exhibitions: I TOOK THAT?!, in the East and West Galleries featuring Margaret Smith, and On the Wall featuring Cassandra Jennings Hall. The reception will be held November 30, 2017 from 6 - 8 p.m. The exhibition runs from November 30th through December 21st 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. 

Margaret Smith

In I TOOK THAT?!, a benefit in which all proceeds will be donated to the Carter Burden Network, photographer and philanthropist Margaret Smith presents beautiful images of architecture and nature from her travels. Smith’s first camera was a simple viewfinder with which she quickly went through many rolls of film learning that every shot was not a "keeper”. In the beginning she used only black and white film, which she began developing and printing in the attic of her house in Toronto. By the time she moved to New York, film developing and printing had become so much more advanced that she gave up the small bathroom/dark room arrangement she had in her apartment and elected film developers in the neighborhood. Without a specific theme to her photographs, Smith is drawn to take an image when the moment is just right. Smith states, “I have been privileged to have visited many interesting places and have enjoyed the experiences later with my photographs."

Margaret Smith was born, raised, and educated in Belfast, Northern Ireland. With an aptitude for numbers, she worked in an aircraft company as a technical computer, the same occupation as the ladies in the recent film "Forgotten Numbers", but many years earlier. After moving to Toronto, Canada she worked for an actuarial firm where she met her husband, an actuary, and then moved with him to the United States in 1975. In New York she has been an active supporter of the Central Park Conservancy, the New York Cornell Medical Center, and the Carter Burden Network. She has been very happy in this city and although she still retains a slight accent, she thinks of herself as a New Yorker. Margaret Smith appreciates the support and encouragement of her husband over the last 50 years and has the benefit of his thoughtful constructive criticism.

Cassandra Jennings Hall

In On the Wall artist Cassandra Jennings Hall presents two vibrant mixed media paintings created by the continuous layering of paper and paint. Each painting starts with one selected color on the canvas that inspires the composition, design, and progress of the piece. Stimulated by these developments, Jennings Hall adds one color on top of another, layering white pigment in between to create a texturally and vividly complex surface, where brushstrokes create both rhythm and movement across the canvas. Cassandra Jennings Hall states, “In these paintings my aim is to describe life’s emotions and represent nature’s mysteries in a more tangible form.“

Cassandra Jennings Hall, born 1947 in Orangeburg, SC, is an abstract artist and collage artist. She studied with Michel Dillon, Jerry Samuels, Tsuigo Hattori, Dale Meyers, Lucia A. Salemme, Jack Henderson. Jennings Hall studied at the Art Students League, Fashion Institute of Technology, Meyer School of Fashion Design, and the Art Center of New Jersey. Initially working in a hard edge geometric style she became dissatisfied with the constriction of the linear form.  She began to create works with subtle surfaces full of rich color, balancing calligraphic lines and soft edged shapes, which betray a studied simplicity. Cassandra Jennings Hall's work has been exhibited in museums, galleries, universities and corporations as well as in private and corporate art collections in the New York metropolitan area. Cassandra Jennings Hall continues to live and work in New Jersey.

Installation Views