CNR News & Events

THE COLLEGE OF NEW ROCHELLE'S NEXT EXHIBIT AT CASTLE GALLERY TO SPOTLIGHT TALENTS OF ALUMNAE/I ARTISTS

NEW ROCHELLE, NY, August 19, 2004 -- To mark the culmination of its Centennial year celebration, the Castle Gallery at The College of New Rochelle (CNR) will launch a juried multi-media art exhibition, “Once Upon A Time: Visions by Alumnae/i Artists,” spotlighting the work of 49 CNR alumnae/i artists who graduated from 1933 to 2004. The exhibit will include crafts, installation, mixed media, painting, photography, sculpture, video, and works on paper.

More than half of the participating artists reside in Westchester County in Bedford Corners, Chappaqua, Cortlandt Manor, Dobbs Ferry, Harrison, Katonah, Lake Peekskill, Larchmont, Mount Kisco, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, Ossining, Port Chester, Tuckahoe, Yonkers, and White Plains. The balance of artists hail from New York City, Long Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, and other states.

The exhibit will be on display September 5 to November 14.
An opening reception will take place from 2 to 4 pm on Sept. 12.This reception and exhibit are free and open to the public.

Castle Gallery is located at 29 Castle Place in New Rochelle. It is open Tuesday to Friday, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm, Saturday and Sunday, 12 - 4:00 pm. It is closed Mondays and major national holidays. For tours and directions, please click here or call (914) 654-5423. Images and a list of participating artists are available upon request.

Among the artists represented in this CNR exhibit are:

Rita Barrett Macmanus, the oldest artist included in the alumni exhibition, graduated from The College of New Rochelle in 1933 before going on to earn an MFA from Columbia University in 1936. She studied under Ernest Thorne Thompson and Florence Thompson, the first chairs of the art department at The College of New Rochelle. Macmanus recently had a retrospective exhibition at Fawn Lake Community in Spotsylvania, Virginia, which highlighted her 70-year art career. In addition to painting, Macmanus has spent her life teaching art at every level, from kindergarten through college.

Gail Edmonds, who received a BA from The College of New Rochelle in 1971, will be exhibiting a piece from her Transformation Series. Created in 1997, the piece was created after Edmonds was diagnosed with breast cancer and juxtaposes “technological aspects of society (i.e. Xeroxed images) with the more personal elements of printed body images and hand written text.”* Edmonds uses encaustic paint to form translucent layers over these images, which represent a sort of skin that limits visibility of the body underneath. (*from Edmond’s artist statement)

Annie P. Jones received a graduate degree in studio arts from The College of New Rochelle in 2001. Jones, a 75-year-old cancer survivor, began her art career after retiring. She presently teaches art to nursing home residents as a volunteer at Sound Shore Medical Center and says she enjoys teaching as much as she enjoys making art. While finishing a scholarship at Pelham Arts Center, Jones is also studying to become a licensed instructor of metaphysics. Her experiences also include writing poetry, acting, and teaching yoga.

Sa’dia Rehman, who received a BA from The College of New Rochelle in 2002, will create an installation of white paper teacups for the alumni exhibition. The installation will illustrate her experiences as a female in the Pakistani culture. In her artist statement, Rehman explains that “serving tea is a sign of obedience and respect towards the one being served,”* typically women serving men. For Rehman, teacups represent the restraints placed on women by society. In a similar installation from 2001, she exhibited stacks of tea cups inscribed with the names of female relatives, in a sense giving them “a place to hold their own tea.”* (*from Rehman’s artist statement)

Artwork was selected by a panel of jurors that included Jennifer McGregor, the Visual Arts Curator of Wave Hill in the Bronx, Simone Dewey, the owner and founder of Simone's Gallery Ltd., of Pelham, and Katherine Gass, the President and Founder of James Company Contemporary Art Projects LLC, a curatorial and art consultancy organization.