Friday night opening at Silvermine

Silvermine Guild Art Center
1037 Silvermine Rd., New Canaan, (203) 966-9700
Charles Birnbaum: Elusive Perceptions
Linda Bucholtz Ross: Urban Mindscapes
June 13—July 16, 2008
Opening reception: Fri., June 13, 7—9 p.m.

Press release

Silvermine Guild Arts Center, located in New Canaan springs into a new season with three exhibitions opening June 13 and running through July 16 showcasing sculpture, photography and drawings. All are welcome to attend the opening reception on Friday, June 13 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The Director's Choice features Charles Birnbaum Elusive Perceptions, an exhibition of abstract porcelain sculptures. Birnbaum's works are an expression of the dualities in his life and art. Between freedom and containment, and the need to conceal and the desire to reveal. An examination in physical movement and gesture, each part varies dramatically and is integral to the power of the whole. In ancient societies, art was a collective, interactive experience where viewers were participants, not observers. In this exhibit of his recent works, he encourages this very type of engagement.

Birnbaum has shown at the Hoyt Institute of Fine Art in New Castle, PA, the Palm Beach International Fine Art Exposition, Guilford Art Center in CT, and a solo exhibit at the Strecker-Nelson Gallery in Kansas. He also has juried in many national and international exhibitions, such as the Palm Springs Art Museum National Juried Exhibition where he was First Place, received the Award of Excellence at the Plaza Art Gallery 2007 competition in New York, the Kapfenberg Cultural Center in Austria and the Cambridge Art Association 10th annual National Prize Show. Charles Birnbaum studied at the Kansas City Art Institute with Ken Ferguson, at the time one of the most authoritative and inspiring teachers of ceramics, where he received his BFA, with his graduate coursework at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. A full time artist, he also teaches workshops on hand-sculpting with paper clay at various schools, and was selected as an artist/teacher at the Silvermine Guild Arts Center in 2005. Birnbaum is represented in the collections of the Kansas City Art Institute, Edward Orton, Jr. Ceramic Foundation and other private collectors.

Urban Mindscapes is a one person show featuring the photographic images of artist Linda Bucholtz Ross. "Art often gives a fresh perspective to already familiar territory," says Bucholtz Ross. In this exhibit the ever-present overpass that is a familiar sight of the urban landscape is seen through the surreal images of the artist. The ordinary becomes a twilight zone of dreamscapes, paradoxically real, recognizable and familiar, yet alien. She has had solo and group exhibitions at many galleries and museums in both the U.S. and Canada, including The Galerie VAV and the Galerie Luz in Montreal, the Bendheim Gallery in Greenwich, CT, the Katonah Museum in New York, Silvermine Gallery in New Canaan, and the Federal Reserve Bank Invitational in New York City.

A native of Canada, Bucholtz Ross received her BFA in Photography at the Concordia University in Montreal and attended Parsons School of Design in New York City. She is represented in collections at the Canadian Embassy in Vienna, Pratt & Whitney, in Canada, and the Discovery Museum in Bridgeport, CT. In 2000 Bucholz Ross was commissioned by the Greenwich Pubic Library to paint the domed ceiling "The Millennium Project" in the new wing designed by architect Cesar Pelli.