Past Exhibitions

Spring 2024

March 12 – April 13, 2024

25th Annual High School Regional Juried Exhibition

APRIL 7th ONLY! Special Sunday Hours!
The HS Regional Exhibition will be open from 12 to 5pm on Sunday, April 7.

The annual High School Regional exhibition is a showcase of the best artwork from the New York Capital Region’s high school students from 27 public districts or private schools. The High School Regional was organized in collaboration with the New York State Art Teacher’s Association, Region 6, and the Capital Area Art Supervisors. In-kind support from Collar Works and McGreevy ProLab.

AWARD WINNERS!

• Juror’s Choice Award: Amber Dong, Emma Willard School, Family Dinner, color pencil and markers
• Juror’s Choice Award: Willa Larsen, Troy HS, Mountain & Sky, felting
• Juror’s Choice Award: Jolin Yang, Shaker HS, Yang Zi Xing, acrylic on canvas
• Juror’s Choice Award: Chloe Pascoe, Albany Academies, The Same on Paper, oil on board
• Juror’s Choice Award: The Lori Tansky 3D Award: Samantha Bouyea, Doane Stuart, Head Study, clay
• Arlene’s Artist Materials Award: Jasmine Zhang, Emma Willard School, Magnolias in Bloom, Collaged digital photograph and thread
• Alacrity Frame Workshop Award: Casey Gao, Shenendehowa HS, Tianghulu Seller, acrylic on canvas
• Russell Sage College Art+Design Department Award: Solomiia Valihunda, Shaker HS, Made Unwound, Hand cut paper, blockprinting ink on fabric and paper, beads, yarn, secured on cardboard
• University at Albany Art & Art History Department Award: Ally Dheeradhada, Emma Willard School, Clean, inkjet print
• The Opalka Gallery Award: Graziella Hartman, Berlin HS, The Journey, sewn fiber collage
• Opalka Gallery Membership Award: Clara Law, Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake HS, A Conversation at Home, acrylic on canvas
• Collar Works Emerging Artist Award: Solomiia Valihunda, Shaker HS, Made Unwound, Hand cut paper, blockprinting ink on fabric and paper, beads, yarn, secured on cardboard
• Albany Center Gallery Membership Award: Lily O’Farrell, The Charlton School, Contour, watercolor and pen
• Albany Center Gallery Membership Award: Stella Meek, Emma Willard School, You’ve Got Mail, inkjet print
• Albany Center Gallery Membership Award: Liam Hazard, Niskayuna HS, Curling Comic, digital art, inkjet print
• Albany Center Gallery Membership Award: Sierra Iwaneczko, Averill Park HS, Contemplating, conte crayon
• Albany Center Gallery Membership Award: Eddie Harris, Albany Academies, Time, archival pigment print
• Albany Center Gallery Membership Award: Caleb Wood, Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake HS
• Albany Center Gallery Membership Award: Natalie Bullington, Shaker HS, Overload, video
• Albany Center Gallery Membership Award: Z’Andre Wilkinson, Albany HS, Untitled, inkjet print
• Albany Center Gallery Membership Award: Addison Brannock, Columbia HS, Rain through Sunshine, inkjet print
• Albany Center Gallery Membership Award: Simon Katzman, Shenendehowa HS, Extended Educator, acrylic and charcoal on paper

Thanks to the the following exhibition award sponsors:

Russell Sage Visual & Performing Arts Department
University at Albany Art and Art History Department
Albany Center Gallery
Arlene’s Artist Materials
Alacrity Frame Shop
Collar Works Gallery

Exhibiting Artists

• The Albany Academies: Cora Kunchala, Eddie Harris, Katherine Lamica, Chloe Pascoe
• Albany HS: Jo Wunderlich, Ariana Barreto, Rowan Hoehn, Z’Andre Wilkinson, Aleshanee Sharpe
• Averill Park HS: Isabella Clerico, Sierra Iwaneczko, Spencer Sweet, Carly Walsh, Cameron Daley
• Berlin HS: Graziella Hartman, Elaine Savaria
• Bethlehem HS: LuLua Umar, Avery Lobban, Harlow Kung
• Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake HS: Carlianna Ewing, Clara Law, Dakota Harris, Samantha Lorenc, Aimon Anderson, Caleb Wood, Kendall Clark
• Cairo-Durham HS: Dezaray Riley, Anthony Panicola, Elexzandreah Desmarais
• The Charlton School: Lily O’Farrell
• Columbia HS: Madison Wagoner, Addison Brannock, Aeris Corrodore
• Emma Willard School: Stella Meek, Jacey Koh, Amber Dong, Suki Zhang, Jasmine Zhang, Ally Dheeradhada, Annie Pang, KiKi Ye
• Greenville HS: Evelyn Corcoran, Shealyn Miller, Payton Benjamin, Julia Herbek, Avonlea Parrish, Laila Overbaugh, Mikaela, Crawley, Anna Styer
• Guilderland HS: Theodore Brown, Shruthika Manga, Jade Sun, Jacky Nguyen, Ari Choi, Emmelyn Freedman
• Hoosic Valley HS: Josephine Schmidt
• Ichabod Crane HS: Sophia Karic
• Greenville HS: Alexa Meza
• Mohonasen HS: Rachael Bencze, Amber Warner, Blehsynn Cabrera-Robinson
• Niskayuna HS: Isabella, Sonnik, Liam Hazard
• Shaker HS: Niharika Lumb, Solomiia Valihunda, Trinity Pitts, Hans Gupta, Natalie Bullington, Jolin Yang
• Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk HS: Allison Kennedy, Carl-Hanee Coquillon
• Schalmont HS: Jacob Sawyer, Michaela DiCocco
• Schenectady HS: Lilly VanWormer, Rook Taylor
• Scotia-Glenville HS: Savannah Swiatocha, Shealyn Bendt, Emma Klejsmyt
• Shenendehowa HS: Rachel Chen, Casey Gao, Simon Katzman, Sophia Emerle,Maria Kokkinides, Artemis Fang, Timothy Looby, Rowan Filbert, Sunny Cao, Oliver Modany, Megan Perkins
• South Colonie HS: Estella Zoe, Jade Eddings
• Troy HS: Willa Larsen, Jade DeJesus
• Voorheesville HS: Elizabeth Spencer
• Doane Stuart School: Olivia Ledtke, Samantha Bouyea, Samantha Culliton, Filip Amzallag
• Watervliet HS: Abdullah Mazhar

Jurors: artist/educators Tara Fracalossi, Leah Rico, & Nuveen Barwari.

Nuveen Barwari was born in Nashville, TN and grew up in Duhok, Kurdistan. She received her MFA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2022 and her B.S in Art from Tennessee State University in 2019. Barwari has shown at Zg Gallery (IL), NGBK Gallery in Berlin, Germany, Duhok Gallery, in Duhok, Kurdistan, Ortega y Gasset Projects (NY), Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery (TN), and Art Toronto Canada’s Art fair. Barwari was the 2023 fellow in the Skidmore Art’s Department’s Workspace Residency Program. Her work has been featured in the Nashville Scene, New American Painting, Yahoo Nachrichten Deutschland, Gazete Duvar, and Botan Times. Barwari currently resides in Albany, NY. 

Tara Fracalossi’s photographic work has been exhibited widely including solo and group exhibits in New York City, Philadelphia, Houston, London, Vienna, Bratislava, Slovakia and Belgium as well as Woodstock, New Paltz, Kingston, Hudson and Albany, NY.  

She has received two Photographer’s Fund Fellowships from the Center for Photography at Woodstock, a Fulbright-Hays grant from the US Department of State, several grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Mona Ruth Brickman Memorial Artist of the Year Award from Albany Center Gallery, Albany, NY.  

Born in Jersey City, NJ, Fracalossi holds an MFA from the University at Albany, SUNY and a BA from the University of Vermont. She has curated and organized exhibitions in galleries and museums for more than twenty-five years and is the founding director of the Teaching Gallery at Hudson Valley Community College, SUNY where she is a full Professor.  She lives and works in in Kinderhook, NY. 

Leah Rico is an interdisciplinary artist and designer whose practice explores language as its subject matter. Leah uses sound installation, experimental audio, drawing, print and graphic work to examine the embodiment of voices as words and gestures, and language as a metaphor for worldly experience. Her latest body of artwork uses the experiential nature of sound in her audio installations to investigate the experience of spoken language. Leah believes that the field of design is not only concerned with function and form, but includes a responsibility for the production of feelings and experiences at a massive scale, and encourages young designers to explore new practices and methodologies to address current societal challenges.

THUR March 14 Student, teacher, family, and guardians’ reception: 

5:30-7:30 p.m. (Awards at 6:00 p.m.)

THURS March 21 Panel Discussions on Art School and Creative Careers.  Read more

6pm Art School Confidential–Get your questions answered about applying for and going to college for art

7pm Creative Careers–hear about the creative careers regional artists are pursuing

SAT March 23 Kids Art Workshop

1:00pm All Ages Kids Art Workshop led by Russell Sage College MAT Art Education students. Free but space limited. Please register in advance at opalka.sage.edu. Students under age 13 must be accompanied by a parent.

Register here.

FRI April 5 First Friday Albany

Open late until 8pm 

Featuring jazz from Carmen & Life’s Guilty Pleasures
Arranged by the Albany Musicians Association Local 14 with a grant from the Music Performance Trust Fund

FRI April 12 PechaKucha Night

6:30 snacks, 7pm talks

Short talks by interesting people: 20 images x 20 seconds each.
Snacks by Honest Weight Food Coop, beer by Druthers

January 23 through February 24, 2024

Carl Sprague: Setting the Stage

Check out the press for this show!

Drawing for “The French Dispatch,” 2019, Carl Sprague.

For more information about the events below, please see our events page: Programs & Events.

First Friday, Feb 2: Reception and Talk,
Exhibition Tour with Carl Sprague: 5:30pm
Reception: 6:30 to 8:00pm, music provided by Alan Thomson Jazz Trio

SAT January 27, 2:00pm Puppet Show. “The Very Late Christmas Present.” Free and Open to the Public

THURS February 8, 6:30pm ONLINE Panel Discussion: Art on Stage & Screen
Carl Sprague and Colleagues

Dan Courchaine, Deborah Newhall, and Perry Grebin

FRI February 23, 6-9pm Supper Club, Catered by Chef Humble

Enjoy an evening of art, delicious local cuisine, and lively conversation to celebrate the closing of Carl Sprague: Setting the Stage!

Chef Humble is Brandon Schatko, a private chef based in the Capital Region and the Adirondacks. He focuses his menu on seasonal and intuitively inspired creations.

In 2016, Brandon Schatko won Best Chef Detroit, MI, and later moved to the Adirondacks, taking the executive chef position at Whiteface Lodge in Lake Placid, NY. From there, he moved on to be executive chef at a small oyster bar in Troy. Later, Brandon would be the founding chef of Whitman Brewing Co. in Saratoga Springs, NY, designing both the kitchen and menus. In addition, Brandon has spent two summers as the executive chef for Mazzone Hospitality at the Hall of Springs in Saratoga Springs, NY.

Click here to buy tickets and see the full menu

Drawing/painting overlay for “La La Land,” 2014, Carl Sprague.

Carl Sprague’s remarkable career as a designer spans stage and screen. He has worked in the art departments of more than 40 films, which between them have a combined total of 35 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave, directed by Steve McQueen. He has worked with Martin Scorsese, (The Age of Innocence), Steven Spielberg (Amistad), and Damien Chazelle (La La Land) but the most enduring collaboration has been with Wes Anderson. Anderson, known for his attention to detail, chose Sprague to lead the art department on 2001’s cult classic, The Royal Tenenbaums, for which his turn as art director on that film garnered a nomination for an Art Director’s Guild award. Since that film, Sprague has worked in the art departments of many more of Anderson’s best-loved films: The Grand Budapest Hotel (concept illustrator), Moonrise Kingdom (assistant art director), and most recently, as concept illustrator on 2023’s Asteroid City. He has also lent his talents for years to stage productions of the Berkshire Theatre Festival, Oldcastle Theatre, Shakespeare & Co. and to many years of involvement with The Nutcracker productions by the Albany/Berkshire Ballet and the American Repertory Ballet.

Photo courtesy of Ventfort Hall.

His fascination with storytelling through design began when, as a young child, he became enthralled by the family tradition of puppetry. His great grandfather passed down a handmade puppet theater, and his grandmother taught him puppet craftsmanship. He continues the tradition by caring for that original puppet theater and conducting puppet shows using a puppet theater he designed as an eight-year old boy, setting the stage for a life of creative pursuits.

Below, a short video about Carl Sprague, made by filmmaker Madison Scisci, Russell Sage Class of 2020:

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FALL 2023

Séance: Photographs by Shannon Taggart

October 31 through December 9, 2023

First Friday, Nov. 3: Artist talk, 5:30pm with Shannon Taggart

Reception 6:30 to 8:00pm

w/music from Alan Thomson Jazz Trio

Co-sponsored with The Women’s Institute at Russell Sage College.

For the past twenty years American artist Shannon Taggart (born 1975) has documented Spiritualist practices and communities in the United States, England and Europe. The resulting body of work, Séance, examines Spiritualism’s relationship with human celebrity, its connections to art, science, and technology, and its intrinsic bond with the medium of photography. This exhibition presents forty-seven haunting images from the series,revealing the emotional, psychological, and physical dimensions of Spiritualism in the 21st century.

Organized by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in collaboration with the Pensacola Museum of Art.

See our Events page for full list of programs!

Past Fall ’23 Exhibitions

To Be-Named

September 1 through October 14, 2023

Check our events page for more

To Be—Named is a multi-site, new media art exhibition & edited volume focused on how names are created and used to shape, reshape, and sometimes mis-shape, our worlds and identities. Acts of naming are not merely descriptive or representative—they have creative capacity and actively take part in shaping the interactions and worlds in which they are embedded.

The origins of To Be—Named lie in a partnership between the European Union funded CoLing project—a multi-national multi-institutional program focused on minority languages, the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network which links university hubs around the world, and the Recovering Voices program at the Smithsonian Institution, which supports community efforts in language revitalization.

There will be To Be-Named exhibits around the world in 2023-2024, including in Berlin, Athens, Palestine, Bishkek, and Mexico. This iteration of the exhibit was curated by Krista Caballero in partnership with Opalka Gallery.

• Aarati Akkapeddi
• Birding the Future (Krista Caballero and Frank Ekeberg)
• Jeremy Dennis
• Ellen Driscoll
• Native Land Digital
• Jenny Irene Miller
• Luz María Sánchez
• Bently Spang
• Keith S. Wilson
• Elizabeth Withstandley
• Saya Woolfalk
• Jean-Marc Superville Sovak
• Sayo’:klʌ Kindness Williams
• zhaoyuefan

FULL EXHIBITION WEBSITE HERE!

Check our Events page for events during this show!

Sage Art+Design BFA Exhibition

May 5 through June 9, 2023

Annual Showcase featuring senior work from the Sage College Art+Design BFA Program.

UP SOUTH: Reflections on the Great Migration by ransome

March 7, 2023 through April 22, 2023

In collaboration with Black Dimensions in Art, Inc., Opalka Gallery is pleased to present a new solo exhibition from the artist ransome. Over a sixty-year period, Black people left behind poverty and Jim Crow in search of new lives in the North, Midwest, and West. In new paintings, installation, and sculpture, he reflects on this defining moment in America’s history and the ways in which his work is interwoven with this historic narrative.

Check out this short video about the exhibition:

ransome, “Waiting on the Road,” acrylic and collage, 2022

exCHANGE: Teaching and Mentorship in Creative Practice

January 24 through February 18, 2023

Russell Sage College, Department of Visual Arts Faculty Exhibition 2023

exCHANGE showcases the ways teaching and mentorship in creative fields are often exchanges of ideas, knowledge, and inspiration with other practitioners, regardless of experience. By allowing Russell Sage College full-time arts faculty to invite an impactful teacher or student to exhibit alongside them, we celebrate the critical role that teaching and mentorship play in creative practice. 

FEATURING THE FOLLOWING EXCHANGES: 

Lynn Capirsello + Anthony Cinque
Melody Davis + Larry Moore
William Fillmore + Peter Kenar
Sean Hovendick + Madison Scisci
Melinda McDaniel + Ardine Nelson + Tony Mendoza 
Matthew McElligott + Kathy McElligott
Leah Rico + Janine Alaxanian + Ariel McBride + Julia Scipione

FALL 2022

Some Bodies

Subject, Object, and Identity in Nursing, Medicine, and Art 

November 11, 2022 through January 7, 2023

Gracelee Lawrence

Corinne Botz

Clarity Haynes

Oliver Herring

Kaisu Koski

Gracelee Lawrence

Lisa Nilsson

Rosemary Meza-DesPlas

Sarah Sweeney

Armando Veve

The relationship between subject and object in the portrayal of the human body has been a fascinating dichotomy throughout the history of art. With current conversations around identity and the prolific visual representations of our selves through social media, contemporary artists have more to say than ever before about what it means to depict a body and what that body says or doesn’t say about an individual’s identity. This dynamic dialogue among subject, object, and identity also exists in the healthcare fields, as practitioners must objectify patients to treat them, but also understand them as subjects and individuals to treat them compassionately.

Close observation and dialogue about artwork can be used to improve clinical practice in nursing and other medical education. Some Bodies challenges viewers to think about human bodies as objects, the subjects they represent, and the clues about identity that are present or assumed. 

Click here for a 3D walkthrough.

Screenprint Biennial & Graphic Liberation!

September 6 through October 29, 2023

Reception: Friday, Sept. 16, 5:30pm, with outdoor Pop-Up Beer Garden!

The 2022 Screenprint Biennial & Graphic Liberation!

Organized by printmaker Nathan Meltz with guest jurors John Hitchcock and Mizin Shin, this will be the fifth Screenprint Biennial, and the second hosted by Opalka Gallery. Founded by Meltz in 2014, the Screenprint Biennial has a mission of showcasing a range of screenprint-based art applications, from framed editioned prints to installation, sculpture, video, ephemera, and posters. The exhibition isn’t meant to act as a survey or “who’s-who” of screenprinting, but to highlight artists with adventurous, relevant, and passionate takes on the medium.

This year’s biennial exhibit exemplifies these qualities, presenting a group of art works ranging from thoughtful personal revelations, to revolutionary political zeal, to experiments in new technologies. Several artists address salient issues of capitalism, immigration, war, and the body. Twenty-first century technologies like augmented reality graphics and hydrographic printing join with centuries-old screenprinting techniques to present impactful expressions. Among nearly 300 entries submitted internationally, 25 artists were selected to exhibit in this year’s biennial.

Graphic Liberation! is an interactive exhibition and workshop created by Brooklyn-based artist, designer, and activist Josh MacPhee to map out a visual language of solidarity, human liberation, and dignity which has evolved and been built across the borders of time, nation state, and spoken/written language. Visitors are encouraged to remix this imagery and create new political posters about issues that are meaningful to them in a workshop right in the gallery, complete with relief printing, screenprinting and riso printing. MacPhee will give a talk on October 6, and will be in residence during the exhibition to lead workshops, and engage with students and diverse partners we have organized to utilize the space. Artists Rebekah Tolley, Maya Lewis and Sage alumni and designer Noah Ross will run print workshops for community groups, along with current Russell Sage art students. 

Graphic Liberation! originated at Colgate University. It ambitiously grew in scope and presentation into We Want Everything, an exhibition designed and supported by the Cleveland Institute of Art’s Reinberger Gallery and in collaboration with CIA’s Printmaking Department.

The Graphic Liberation! workshop was staffed by an instructor who could guide visitors in artmaking during open hours two days a week during the run of the exhibition. Community groups signed up for the workshop, too.

Graphic Liberation! is made possible with funds from the Decentralization Grant program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by the Arts Center of the Capital Region.

Also, through in-kind support from Toshiba.

SPRING 2022

The 2022 Art+Design BFA Exhibition

May 6 through June 3, 2022

The Annual BFA Exhibition offers showcases the best of what Russell Sage College’s Art+Design BFA programs have to offer: Art+Extended Media, Graphic+Media Design and Interior+Spatial Design.

Judith Braun: My Pleasure

February 22 through April 23, 2022

Opalka Gallery is pleased to present Judith Braun: My Pleasure, a solo exhibition of new work, on view February 22 through April 23, 2022. Fifteen new paintings and ten painted sculptures will be included along with two site-specific murals and one large wall installation from 1993.

Since 1993, Braun has been working on a system of drawings called Symmetrical Procedures, guided by abstraction and symmetry and reflecting her philosophy of freedom through discipline. Her framework uses bold black and white patterns, simple geometry, and an obsession with symmetry to create an emergent self-organizing system where multiple elements coalesce into groups and subgroups that begin to find their own order. As Braun says, this process mimics “the way cities, software, nature, and our brains find order.” In related work, Braun uses her body as a symmetrical drawing tool, creating large murals with her fingerprints. She has been commissioned to create these murals at multiple sites around the world. A new 12 x 12 foot site-specific wall mural will be included in this exhibition.

As Braun’s world shrank during the COVID-19 pandemic, she returned to small drawings, creating symmetries and circles that began to reference heads, specifically her own. “The work seems to be asserting my existence along with my fears and uncertainties but to capture the urgency of the present moment, their small size just didn’t do,” says Braun. She then began making large paintings on raw canvas with black paint, and sometimes a splash of neon color, to give visual form to her frame of mind—simultaneously reaching out and reaching in. The resulting 15 paintings and 10 painted cubes comprise the bulk of the exhibition. 

Born in Albany, New York, in 1947, Judith Braun attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. Majoring in fashion illustration, she learned the discipline of figure drawing but was not interested in a career in commercial art and eventually received an MFA from the University at Albany in 1983. She lived in New York City until recently when she returned to Albany.

Over her career she has created a diverse body of work, from realistic paintings of angels to wall-sized photocopies of genitals, from pristine symmetrical drawings, to charcoal fingerprint murals. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, in exhibitions at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Virginia and the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and reviewed by prominent New York Times art critic Roberta Smith and in Hyperallergic and the Brooklyn Rail. She is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner grant and an Adolf & Esther Gottlieb grant. In 2010, she appeared on Bravo TV’s Work of Art, a reality TV series.

She has changed her name several times, along the way, from her married name, Judith Weinman, to Judith Weinperson, and back to her birth name, Judith Braun. She sees it as all part of a search for selfhood, also expressed by her show titles, Homeostasis, Crazy Bitch, and My Pleasure. My Pleasure also references a feminist double entendre-—the desire women often have to please others, as well as the radical act of doing what pleases oneself. Her work will be included in the exhibition Eleven Women of Spirit in Spring 2022 at Zürcher Gallery in New York City.

Opalka was pleased to welcome Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company back to the gallery on Friday, April 1. ESDC  performed site-specific dances created in collaboration with Braun and in response to the exhibition. 

A 32-page full color catalog accompanies this exhibition. Designed by Leah Rico, it features essays by art critic Jessica Holmes and gallerist Aniko Erdosi and can be purchased in the gallery or online at this link for $10 (+ tax, and shipping if required).

Watch a timelapses video of Braun creating her site-specific murals in the gallery:

FALL 2021

October 22, 2021 through February 5, 2022.

Nina Chanel Abney | Farley Aguilar | Radcliffe Bailey | Yoan Capote | Nathaniel Donnett | Mark Thomas Gibson | Luis Gispert | Clotilde Jiménez | Jennie C. Jones | Samuel Levi Jones | Nate Lewis | Kyle Meyer | Lavar Munroe | Toyin Ojih Odutola | Ebony G. Patterson | Lamar Peterson Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz | Paul Henry Ramirez | Jamel Shabazz | Vaughn Spann | Shawn Theodore Mickalene Thomas | Hank Willis Thomas | Carlos Vega | Lynette Yiadom-Boakye | Nate Young

Opalka Gallery is pleased to announce Shifting Gaze: A Reconstruction of the Black & Hispanic Body in Contemporary Art from the collection of Dr. Robert B. Feldman. A traveling exhibition that originated at the Mennello Museum in Orlando, Florida, this exhibition will be on view at Opalka Gallery from October 22 through February 5, 2022. The 26 internationally recognized artists in the exhibition draw upon art history, American history, and popular culture to create powerful works that, independently and collectively, present a broad range of concepts about identity, beauty, belonging, and religion, as well as work with deep gravitas around issues of race, sexuality, violence, displacement, vulnerability, erasure, and visibility.

“In ways both poignant and celebratory, and in disparate styles and media, the artists in this exhibition center the body, representation, and identity in their work. We’re thrilled to be able to share Dr. Feldman’s collection and these important artists with our community,” Opalka Director Judie Gilmore said.

The title Shifting Gaze is evocative and an emblematic reference to art history and the critical social agency of our current times. Through various media, such as painting, sculpture, drawing, and collage, the Black and Hispanic body (physical and metaphoric) is implied or materializes with subtlety in some instances, beautifully unfolds in others, and in a few, is direct, dramatic, and heartbreaking. The symbolic framework of the Shifting Gaze helps generate a larger dialogue among the works on view and the specificities of a diverse African and Hispanic diaspora in our current physical, social, and political landscape, as revealed through each artist’s personal experience and distinctive aesthetics. The “Shifting Gaze”—who is looking at who—engages perception, seeing, and objectification, while “Reconstruction” represents a new articulation and possible new constructs via a new voice, from the past and projected into a resonant now.

“The artists in Shifting Gaze are powerfully breaking boundaries in the conversation about identity and culture in America—especially through the lens of seeing the body and that body having agency,” says Dr. Feldman. “I am inspired by their work and vision and honored to support them as critical artists at the forefront of important dialogues in our culture.”

A full-color exhibition catalog was produced on the occasion of the exhibition and includes an essay by Mennello Museum of Art Executive Director and Shifting Gaze curator Shannon Fitzgerald and an interview with Dr. Feldman by Katherine Navarro, Associate Curator of Education, Mennello Museum of American Art. A limited number will be for sale in the gallery.

SPRING 2021

BFA Art+Design Exhibition

May 7 through June 4, 2021

The Annual BFA Exhibition offers showcases the best of what Russell Sage College’s Art+Design BFA programs have to offer: Art+Extended Media, Graphic+Media Design and Interior+Spatial Design. This year the following students were selected to exhibit their work:

Art+Extended Media
Kayla Boomhower
Chloe Harrison
Brianna Petkovsek

Graphic+Media Design
Nick Dowd
Briana-Cecilia Fulgoni
Shannon Hughes
Rachel Kolb
Grace Licalsi
Noah Ross
Cassidy Schaeffer
Julia Scipione

Interior+Spatial Design
Noa Bahir
Holly Blakely
Alexandria Cox
Jazmi Fabian
Danielle Kadtke
Abby Lammon
Ashley Makenna
Emma Myers
Christopher Newsom
Alyssa Nichols
Sarah Richards

See all the work from this exhibition and more on the BFA 2021 website.

Read more about the BFA Program.

The 43rd Annual Photo Regional: Youth Spotlight

March 30 through April 24, 2021

photo by Khidr Joseph, RSC ’18.

In a departure from previous iterations of the Photo Regional, this year Opalka Gallery decided to focus exclusively on showcasing our region’s youth photographers. The goal of the exhibition is to support emerging and underrepresented regional artists between the ages of 16 through 26 by providing a space for them to share their voices, sell their work, meet other young artists in the region, and connect them to resources to help them further their artistic goals. 

The exhibition was juried by three young photographers with regional ties–Khidr Joseph, Jayana LaFountaine, and Anna Schupack–whose work was also included in a special juror showcase.

Juror Bios

Khidr Joseph lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He received his BFA in Photography from Sage College of Albany. Joseph creates work that focuses on reconstructing his perception of reality through a series of self-portraits. Drawing on his interest and training in photography, Joseph creates spaces that weave together black history, culture, and his own identity — focusing on the idea that our world is no longer invested in the truth. Joseph desires to create work that replicates the distorted reality we live in today.  

Jayana LaFountaine is a portrait photographer and documentarian based in Troy, NY. She has been shooting for 12 years. Her love for photography stems from tragedy. Losing her foster mother at 13 years old painfully reminded her that she didn’t have many photos with her. It has since been her mission to never miss a moment again. She quickly began to understand how important it was to preserve legacy through photo documentation. It brings her a great deal of joy to capture families and friends of all colors, shapes and sizes because those memories are forever even if we’re not. Jayana is also a Birth Doula, Babysitter Extraordinaire, & DJ. She makes it a point to do all of these jobs with love and an immense amount of intention. She thrives off of meaningful connections with people no matter how long or short they may be.

Anna Schupack is a Junior at Bard College majoring in photography and sociology. Anna is involved with the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard. At home, in Albany, she works at the South End Children’s Cafe and is on the leadership team for Community Matters, committed to providing people access to resources they may need and showing a sustained commitment to every individual. Her photography focuses on documenting social protest and on reimagining her family archive. She was recently named a Bard Campus Compact 2021 Newman Civic Fellow, which honors students who show personal and professional dedication to campus leadership and community involvement.

Artists:

Jesse Asher Alsdorf, Clifton Park, NY; Walker Bankson, Tivoli, NY; John Bonetti, Tivoli, NY; Ally DeRusso, Clifton Park, NY; Briauna Falk, Hudson, NY; Alice Fall, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Josh Flagg, Malta, NY; Natalia Gillespie, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Mateo Guevara Lemeland, Easthampton, MA; Lily Anastasia Holcombe, Scotia, NY; Tyler Ki-Re, Troy, NY; Jahniah Kum, Albany, NY; Maggie Lang, Saratoga Springs, NY; Julia Larberg, Rhinebeck, NY;  Xiaoxuan Lisa Li, Troy, NY; Angela Marden, Albany, NY; Kester Messan, Williamstown, MA; Joseph Messer, Williamstown, MA; Sebenele Ndlangamandla, Bennington, VT; Anna Nuler, Red Hook, NY; Aayushi Pramanik, Williamstown, MA; Catherine Rafferty, Altamont, NY; Jane Sartwell, Annandale-on-Hudson; Madison Scisci, Slingerlands, NY; Kes Stefanik-Houde, New Baltimore, NY; Kaylee Sterns, Albany, NY; Rosina Torres, Albany, NY; Rainer Turim, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Amelia Van Donsel, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Gennaro Vargas, Schenectady, NY; Christian Wechgelaer, Saratoga Springs, NY; Kennadi Yates, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

See the Exhibition website here.

Terry James Conrad: Object Permanence

January 26 through March 13,  2021

Opalka Gallery is pleased to present Terry James Conrad: Object Permanence, a survey of the work of Terry James Conrad, on view January 26 through March 13, 2021.  Check out the exhibition website here. Also, coming in early April, a full-color exhibition catalog. Preorder here.

At the heart of Conrad’s practice is the transformation of found or discarded objects into prints and sound. He creates sculptural printing presses from stacks of found wood and other detritus, plates from bent and molded tin cans, and inks from nuts, metals, dirt, and sediment. “I play with and explore these found materials with an interest in both craft and an unrefined, direct sensibility,” says Conrad. 

In addition to his prints, three of Conrad’s sculptural presses will be included in this exhibition and one will be printing live throughout the exhibition. A new, large, sound installation will also be on display featuring a collection of primitive but amplified and motorized self-playing instruments, made from tin cans. The exhibition will also include several cigar box guitars, and other instruments Conrad has built in the past year.

Reflecting Conrad interest in the community and social aspects of printmaking, the exhibition will feature The Iowa Booth, a large installation inspired by a vintage voting booth he found onsite when he purchased an old firehouse in Round Lake, New York. The Iowa Booth is a wooden modular structure with dyed and printed canvas panels that will be changed throughout the exhibition. During the exhibition, Conrad will be in residence in the gallery on Thursday evenings, The Iowa Booth will serve as a base for a virtual series, Dispatches from The Iowa Booth. He will work on his printing presses, collaborate with musicians on sound pieces, and present a series of virtual events and discussions with individuals and collaborators who inspire his work. Confirmed participants include: interdisciplinary artist Brian Dewan, marine geologist Dr. Joan Bernhard, artist Donté K. Hayes, musician Tommy Santee Klaws, and conservationist Silvia Secchi.

A native of New York, Terry James Conrad is a 2017 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Drawing, Printmaking and Book Arts and was the 2015-16 Grant Wood Fellow in Printmaking and has been awarded residencies at Frans Masereel Centrum (Belgium), Penland School of Craft (North Carolina), and the Vermont Studio Center. He has had solo, two-person and group exhibitions nationally and internationally. Conrad is currently Assistant Professor and Program Head of Printmaking at University of Iowa and an Iowa Print Media Faculty Fellow.

He previously taught at Skidmore College and assisted his partner Rachel Ziegler-Sheridan in founding the Round Lake School, which is a preschool/residency in Round Lake that follows the teaching philosophies of Reggio Emelia. Conrad is represented by Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis, Missouri. 

This event was recorded. Please see Past Online Events for the video.

THURSDAYS: Artist Residency and Dispatches from the Iowa Booth

(Note: all events will be online, and recorded)

You can still preorder the exhibition catalog for Terry James Conrad: Object Permanence!

$20, to be shipped at the beginning of April, 2021

Terry James Conrad: Object Permanence Exhibition Catalog

60 pages, 8.5 x 9 inches, full color
With essay by Nicole Woods, University of Notre Dame, Assistant Professor, Modern & Contemporary Art

Preorder/purchase Online

FALL 2020

Unraveling

Yura Adams, Joan Grubin, Ruby Palmer, and Christina Tenaglia

October 27 through December 19, 2020

Unraveling is an exhibition of four women artists–Yura Adams, Joan Grubin, Ruby Palmer, and Christina Tenaglia–who have been selected for their audacity, commitment, and strength of visual expression.  As the world unravels, their resourcefulness in fabricating their art expands in equal measure. The work of these four artists shares an expressive quality and a dominant interest inform and these qualities unite the group visually. The artists are also united by their ability to make leaps of imagination in the studio and this show reveals this unraveling of resourcefulness.

Curated by Yura Adams, Unraveling unites this group under the theme of communicating a power of conviction in the face of an uncertain world.

View the exhibition website here.

The Virtual Opening Reception and Curator’s Tour with Yura Adams was followed by a panel discussion Artist/Woman. Woman/Artist., with the Unraveling artists and moderated by Nicole Hayes, curator at Art Omi, in collaboration with The Women’s Institute at Russell Sage College.

This event was recorded and can be viewed on the exhibition website here.

Infinite Uncertainty

September 1 through October 10, 2020

Infinite Uncertainty showcases artists at work in a changing world: new projects initiated, old ones revisited, creative bursts and detours in practice. Selected from over 250 submissions, 33 regional artists attempt to make sense of this unprecedented time and its persistent, frightening and painful unknowns. Juried by Sharon Bates, Stacey Robinson, Ellen Letcher and Julie Torres.

Exhibition artists: Erika Aberg, Ever Baldwin, Cyndy Barbone, Richard Barlow, Judith Braun, Donnabelle Casis, Beth Caspar, Pauline Decarmo, Pierre Desir, Carla Dortic, Stephen Earp, Sara Farrell Okamura, Ray, Felix, Rebecca Flis, Peg Foley, Audrey Francis, Richard Garrison, Andrea Hersh, Hui Lee, Anthony Jackson (Bugzdale), Tatana Kellner, Norm Magnusson, Nathan Meltz, Adrian Meraz, Fernando Orellana, Roger D. Patrick, Tatiana Potts, Courtney Puckett, Jamie Ricardo Rodriguez, Christina Tenaglia, Hanna, Washburn, Jeff Wigman, and Deborah Zlotsky.

Check out the exhibition website and take a virtual tour here.

Spring 2020

The 21st Annual High School Regional

Juried showcase of the best artwork by regional high school students from 24 districts. This year’s jurors are Rachel Baxter, Melinda McDaniel, and Jordan Nathaniel White. Tour the exhibition online.

Sage Art+Design BFA Exhibition

May 1 through June 13, 2020

Annual Showcase featuring senior work from the Sage College Art+Design BFA Program.

Tour the exhibition online