Lake George Arts Project

Jeff Wigman Excelsior
2023-11-15 - 2023-12-16 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
Click Here to read the Times Union review of Excelsior: New Oils by Jeff Wigman

Artist’s Gallery Reception:Saturday, November 18, 20234:00 – 6:00 PM
Sunday ArtsSunday, November 19, 2023Gallery open 1:00 – 4:00PMGallery visit and maker space for all ages
A Conversation with the Artist:Friday, December 1, 20237:00 PMJeff Wigman: Excelsior – New OilsJoin Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/89768965189Meeting ID: 897 6896 5189

Artist’s Statement
Painting is where internal and external experience mix. It’s a way to process and relate to the world, like conversing with a person or chewing food. My first response to an idea or event is to interpret it, to make it something I can see. A phrase like “drunken centaur,” doesn’t go far on its own, but by turning it over this way and that, finding forms for invisible notions, and inviting in accident and precedent, painting becomes a space of illumination. It’s a way to get past words. In the open space of the page, metaphors popup like sudden jokes, fully formed and emblematic. Imagination here isn’t about escape or fancy; it’s a matter of engaging the mind’s eye as the primary interpretive tool.
I use oil paints, often making my own. It’s mesmerizing stuff that takes on endless qualities. It mixes so easily with the eye, ready to become something, making suggestions as if it has its own desires. Looking closely into it shows something of the mystery of substance and representation altogether, of how the material world conspires with perception, mind, and knowledge to make up our experience. I pay attention to the vitality of the paint layers and the movement of the surface. There are moments like “ah, I’ve seen that in so and so”—passages of paint that share in a lineage.
I paint with a range of historical approaches not to mimic a look, but as a practice. There’s wisdom in method and material. There’s richness. Technical investigation sheds light on and expands the creative process beyond notions of a verisimilitude or style. Painting is an outlook. Rather than just dressing up the ancients in modern clothes, I see these processes as incisive analytical tools, like finding an old hand-ground lens that still magnifies whatever it’s placed in front of.
Bio
Jeff Wigman has shown regularly since moving his studio upstate in 2006. His work has been exhibited in venues such as The Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, NY; Opalka Gallery, Albany, NY; The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY; Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati,OH; Bowery Gallery, Manhattan; Good Naked Gallery, Brooklyn; and Kunstverein Eisenstadt, Austria. Jeff earned a BFA in painting and sculpture from Parsons School of Design in 1992. He grew up in southern Ohio and lives and works in Troy, New York.

The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse,corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streetsin Lake George, NY.
During scheduled exhibitions dates our in-person office and gallery hours areWednesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm& Saturdays 12 – 4 pm.
If you would like to visit exhibitions outside of Gallery hours or request a tour for a group, please contact June Waters, Director of Exhibitions (contact information below)
If you need to reach us between active exhibition dates we are available through email:
June Waters, Director of Exhibitions, june@lakegeorgearts.org
Tanya Tobias-Tomis, Executive Director, tanya@lakegeorgearts.org

THANK YOU!This exhibition is funded in part by the Town of Lake George, the Village of Lake George, The New York State Council on the Arts, the Glenn & Carol Pearsall Foundation, the Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust, Anonymous, and Lake George Arts Project Members. Please Join us today!
We would also like to thank our Media Sponsor: 518 Profiles

John McGiff: Painting as Vision
2024-03-16 11:00 - 2024-04-13 16:00 (America/New_York)
Artist’s Statement
I am naturally inclined towards making groups of images, exploring a central idea and evolving a language of gesture, color and design that best expresses the interests that grow from this meditation, often over the span of years.
A recent series, for example, is based on the palette and design patterns of Indian Ragamala paintings and involve using Indian block printing and gouache. The theme is the house as a repository of personal and historical memory, as well as a metaphor for the self. The compositions have moved from the exterior of these “Rag” houses to their inhabited interiors, the figures almost hermetic in their solitary pursuits, which hint at pursuits of self-knowledge.
The Icarus Unbound paintings that follow dramatize how these interior monologues might unfold, rewriting this Greek myth to suit the process. This suite of 6 paintings also mirror a three year therapeutic process with a Jungian Analyst in which I became aware of my path on The Hero’s Journey. Icarus is given a second chance to learn to fly and he does it with the agency of the Divine Feminine, with whom he ultimately finds union.
All of the paintings I make are in some fashion self-portraits and because the themes are common to us all, they touch on broader archetypal experiences that go beyond my own personal reflections.

Bio
I have been a painter and a teacher for over forty years and have exhibited my work in many different venues across the Mid Atlantic. I have recently relocated to the Hudson River Valley from Delaware, where I was Chair of the Arts Department at an Independent Boarding school for 20+ years.
I am currently teaching art history for Vassar’s Life Long Learning Institute and developing a series of paintings reinterpreting Classic Greek mythological tales. My reimagining of the Icarus story is travelling to 3 separate galleries this year, including the Lake George Arts Project. I live with my wife, Elizabeth, a ceramicist, and dog, Bear, in Dutchess County. My Daughter, Olivia, is an illustrator in NYC and son, Aidan, is a builder and sculptor who lives nearby.

Click here for recorded Zoom Conversation with John McGiff

Thank you to our exhibition sponsors!

Images: Top: Icarus Awakes in the Garden, Gouache, 36″ x 48″ Above: The Serenade, 2021,Gouache, 30” x 38”

Cadence Giersbach: Through the Summer Garden
2024-07-10 12:00 - 2024-08-11 16:00
SPECIAL EXHIBITION RELATED EVENTS

Constellation, 2022, Glazed Porcelain, 15 x 9 x 8 in

ARTIST’S RECEPTION
Saturday, July 13th4:00 – 6:00 PM
Artist Talk at 5:00 PM
Join LGAP staff, the artist and friends to celebrate the work of Cadence Giersbach – free and open to all

ZOOM CONVERSATION
WITH CADENCE GIERSBACH
Wednesday, July 17th7:00 -8:00 PM
Click here to join the conversation!

SUNDAY ARTS
Sunday, August 11th12:00 – 4:00 PM
Gallery tour and art-making opportunity for ALL ages Free of charge

VISIT CADENCE'S WEBSITE

FOLLOW HER ON FACEBOOK

FOLLOW HER ON INSTAGRAM

from the artist’s Instagram page

Through the Summer Garden...

STATEMENT
Drawing inspiration from my garden in upstate New York, I create painted paper-pulp sculptures and fabric paintings. I am fascinated by the world encapsulated in the small piece of earth surrounding my home—its textures, shapes, and gestures—and the sensations and memories it evokes. As I dig the soil, lift stones, and plant seeds, I am a participant and an observer, keenly aware of the shifting ecology around me. I combine abstract, symbolic, and figurative references to living things and geological formations with ancient archetypes like spirals, snakes, and stars to create layers of association and explore our complex relationship with the natural world. For instance, a series of sewn kite-shaped paintings alludes to the sensation of being grounded on the earth while looking upward, connected to the sky. Paintings are not stretched or primed, so their surfaces undulate, while the sculptures’ textures are rough and jagged, reminiscent of a mountain range, or smooth like a boulder. Paint often drips and flows like streams in the landscape. Color is heightened or used symbolically, and shapes are exaggerated to portray the garden as a place of memory, sensation, and thought. My intention is to animate the work and coax it into expressing the story it contains. With each piece, I strive to elicit visceral emotions that connect us to the earth and sky and inspire curiosity, empathy, and care. The garden is a metaphor for life’s beauty, intensity, and fragility.

BIOGRAPHY
Inspired by the materiality of the natural landscape, Cadence Giersbach (b. 1966, New York, NY) creates abstract paintings and sculptures. Giersbach earned a BA from Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY); an MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ); and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Skowhegan, ME). The artist has participated in exhibitions at P.S.122 Gallery (New York, NY); White Columns (New York, NY); Glyndor Gallery, Wave Hill (Bronx, NY); P.S.1 Center for Contemporary Art (Queens, NY); Museo Rufino Tamayo (Mexico City, Mexico); Brooklyn Museum of Art (Brooklyn, NY); Galerie Faurschou (Copenhagen, Denmark); Kunsthalle Nürnberg (Nürnberg, Germany); Roebling Hall (Brooklyn, NY); Venetia Kapernekas Fine Arts (New York, NY); Deitch Projects (New York, NY); among others.

...Cadence Giersbach

She is a recipient of awards and fellowships, including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowship and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Painting. Residencies include P.S. 122 Studio Program, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, MacDowell, Cité Internationale des Arts, and Nordisk Kunstnarsenter. Gierbah’s work has been commissioned by Arts for Transit, MTA (Brooklyn, NY), the Town of Montclair (Montclair, NY), Percent for Art (Queens, NY), the Palladium Co. (West Palm Beach, FL), and is in the public collections of the Albright-Knnos (Buffalo, NY), Harvard Business School (Boston, MA), and the RISD Museum (Providence, RI). Giersbach lives in New York, NY, and in Sullivan County, NY.

Images:Mirror with Snakes, 2022, Flashe and acrylic on instant paper mache, aluminum, mirror, 23 x 29 x 15 in.
There is a Snake in the Garden, 2022, Acrylic and flashe on sewn muslin, 57 x 38 inConstellation, 2022, Glazed Porcelain, 15 x 9 x 8 inRooster, 2021, Acrylic and flashe on sewn muslin, 70 x 50 in

Courthouse Gallery 1 Lower Amherst Street Lake George, NY 12845 518-668-2616
Hours: Wednesday – Friday: 12:00 – 5:00 PM Saturday: 12:00 – 4:00 PMSundays July 14th, 21st, 28th and August 4th and 11th 12:00 – 4:00 PM
For exhibition information or to schedule a visit outside of gallery hours please contactJune Waters, Director of Exhibitions june@lakegeorgearts.org 518-668-2616
Thank you to our exhibition sponsors!

Courthouse Gallery 1 Lower Amherst Street Lake George, NY 12845 518-668-2616
Hours: Wednesday – Friday: 12:00 – 5:00 PM Saturday: 12:00 – 4:00 PMSundays July 14th, 21st, 28th and August 4th and 11th 12:00 – 4:00 PM
For exhibition information or to schedule a visit outside of gallery hours please contactJune Waters, Director of Exhibitions june@lakegeorgearts.org 518-668-2616
Thank you to our exhibition sponsors!

Synesthesia: Seeing Sound
2024-08-28 12:00 - 2024-09-15 17:00
Wednesday, August 28 –Sunday, September 15thin the Courthouse Gallery
Organized in conjunction with the 40th Anniversary Celebration of the Jazz at the Lake Festival, September 13th, 14th, and 15th, this juried exhibition showcases artists’ visual interpretations of natural sound and music.

Closing Day Artists’ ReceptionSunday, September 15th12:00 – 5:00
Visit the gallery during the final day of Jazz at the Lake. Meet the artists, enjoy light refreshments, and try some synesthesia drawing!

Stephen Tyson, Classical Groove: for AdB, 2004, charcoal

Image: Jeff De Luca, Looking Up, 2021, colored pencil and acrylic

Learn more about Jazz at the Lake

Participating Artists
Tiina Bockrath, Seth Butler, Liz Coleman, Robert Coppola,Jeff DeLuca, Laura Frare, Kyra Garrigue, Gail Gelburd, Mike Glier,Jenny Hutchinson, Nicholas Kopp, Kevin Larmon, David Levine, Christine Levy,Kris Moss, Joy Muller-McCoola, Victoria Palermo, Leslie Parke,Gretchen Saam, Russell Serrianne, Terry Teitelbaum,Adam Tinkle, Stephen Tyson, Ann Womack

The Courthouse Gallery1 Lower Amherst StreetLake George, NY 12845518-668-2616

Hours:Wednesday – Friday: 12:00 – 5:00 PMSaturday: 12:00 – 4:00 PMSelect Sundays: 12:00 – 4:00 PM

For exhibition information or to schedule a visit outside of gallery hours please contact June Waters, Director of Exhibitions – june@lakegeorgearts.org or 518-668-2616

THANK YOU!This exhibition is funded in part by the Town of Lake George, the Village of Lake George, The New York State Council on the Arts, the Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust, Anonymous, and Lake George Arts Project Members and donors.
We would also like to thank our Media Sponsors: 518 Profiles & Look TV Media

Ario Elami: Numinous Altars
2025-03-12 12:00 - 2025-04-12 17:00
Ario Elami: Numinous Altars
March 12 through April 12, 2025
Artist’s ReceptionSaturday, March 22nd4:00 – 6:00 PM
Numinous: Something mysterious, supernatural, spiritual, awe-inspiring, and perhaps holy.
Altar: A table, as in early forms of architecture, used as the focus for a religious ritual, often for making offerings to a deity.

Bio
Ario Elami, is a graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts’ MFA program through Tufts University, a composer, author, and artist whose work explores architecture as the tension between human design and nature. Claiming dual citizenship as an Iranian and North American, he has spent much of his life on the east coast and in Michigan.
Elami works exclusively on paper in an often limited palette, with the resulting works resembling prints or bookplates. They appear to be timeless, as if found from a remote past in a secret library. Each piece resembles the type of anthropological or archeological drawings made to document temples, palaces, sacrificial sites, or necropolises found in jungles, and not fully understood by their discoverers. Elami, in depicting undefined architectural sites of relics or ruins, allows us to dream of uses both sacred and profane; to explore the tension between human design and nature on the verge of reclaiming its primacy. Elami’s latest art has developed in tandem with an understanding of the earliest architecture as numinous altars, and a perception of nature as a roiling mass of aggressive life, perpetuating itself through overabundance. In this vision, architecture manifested out of violent, spiritual rituals, externalizing what is internal. Elami sees architecture, revitalized with its primitive and mythopoeic qualities, as a portal back to a cosmos overflowing with meaning and mystery.

LEARN MORE ABOUT ARIO ELAMI'S WORK

Images from top
World Machine III, Colored Pencil, pen and watercolor on paperWorld Machine II, Colored Pencil, pen, and watercolor on paperTemple to a Fungal Spirit, Colored pencil, pen, and watercolor on paper

Courthouse Gallery
1 Lower Amherst StreetLake George, NY 12845518-668-2616
Hours: Wednesday – Friday: 12:00 – 5:00 PMSaturday: 12:00 – 4:00 PMSundays: 12:00 – 4:00 PM (June – September)Select Sundays Monthly (October – May)
Or give us a call if you are in town. There is a good chance we are in the office and would love to open our doors for you!
For exhibition information or to schedule a visit outside of gallery hours please contact:
June WatersDirector of Exhibitionsjune@lakegeorgearts.org or 518-668-2616

THANK YOU!

Throughout the year, we offer 17 exhibitions of work by emerging and established artists in our Courthouse Gallery and in partner locations throughout Lake George.
We are able to do this because of the support of our sponsors and LGAP members.

This program is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Talent Unlimited 2025
2025-04-26 - 2025-05-04 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
Talent Unlimited 2025
April 26 through May 4, 2025
The Lake George Arts Project is proud to showcase the incredible work of local students in grades 7–12 whose writing and artwork were selected for publication in the Talent Unlimited Journal, a student literary and art magazine published by BOCES.

ABOUT TALENT UNLIMITED

How would you create imagery or writing that expresses your interpretation of the word “Perspective?”
That is the theme of the 40th annual Talent Unlimited Literary Arts Journal. Students in grades 7 – 12 were inspired by this theme to create thoughtful and imaginative paintings, drawings, photographs, mixed media, and graphic design pieces and to write compelling essays, poems and stories and submitted their best work to be considered for publication. The art and writing, 50 pieces in each category, were chosen by juries of professional artists and writers.
The Talent Unlimited Literary Arts Journal is published by the Enrichment Resource Center at the Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES. It provides young artists and writers with the opportunity to have their art seen and their writing read while participating in a selection process that mirrors the professional worlds of art and publishing.
The Talent Unlimited 2025 exhibition in the Courthouse Gallery features over 40 pieces of the published students’ original artwork.

Images:Top: Cover Art by Charlotte MeasekAbove: Night Routine by Hailey Hamm

COMPLIMENTARY PROGRAMS

Saturday, April 26, 2025Artists’ Reception
1pm – 3pmCome celebrate the talent, imagination, and hard work of these young artists and writers. All are welcome. Light refreshments will be served. We hope to see you there!

Sunday, April 27thSunday Arts
Drop-in between 1pm-4pm for agallery tour and art-making opportunity!
All ages and abilities welcome!Free of Charge.

Talent Unlimited 2025 Artists' Reception
2025-04-26 13:00 - 2025-05-04 15:00 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
Talent Unlimited 2025
April 26 through May 4, 2025
Join us for a special Reception Celebrating Student Creativity!
Saturday, April 26th • 1:00 – 3:00 PM
The Lake George Arts Project is proud to showcase the incredible work of local students in grades 7–12 whose writing and artwork were selected for publication in the Talent Unlimited Journal, a student literary and art magazine published by BOCES.
Come celebrate the talent, imagination, and hard work of these young artists and writers. All are welcome. Light refreshments will be served. We hope to see you there!

COMPLIMENTARY PROGRAMS

Sunday, April 27thSunday Arts
Drop-in between 1pm-4pm for a gallery tour and art-making opportunity!
All ages and abilities welcome!Free of Charge.

ABOUT TALENT UNLIMITED

How would you create imagery or writing that expresses your interpretation of the word “Perspective?”
That is the theme of the 40th annual Talent Unlimited Literary Arts Journal. Students in grades 7 – 12 were inspired by this theme to create thoughtful and imaginative paintings, drawings, photographs, mixed media, and graphic design pieces and to write compelling essays, poems and stories and submitted their best work to be considered for publication. The art and writing, 50 pieces in each category, were chosen by juries of professional artists and writers.
The Talent Unlimited Literary Arts Journal is published by the Enrichment Resource Center at the Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES. It provides young artists and writers with the opportunity to have their art seen and their writing read while participating in a selection process that mirrors the professional worlds of art and publishing.
The Talent Unlimited 2025 exhibition in the Courthouse Gallery features over 40 pieces of the published students’ original artwork.

Images:Top: Cover Art by Charlotte MeasekAbove: Night Routine by Hailey Hamm
