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As the nights lengthen and the days grow shorter, The Gallery at Mercer
County Community College is celebrating light in all its various forms
with an exhibit entitled "A Light Without…A Light Within."
The works of three gifted oil painters, Robert Beck, Joseph Gyurcsak
and Kyle Stevenson, are featured from Nov. 11 - Dec. 18, 2008. The
Gallery is under the direction of curator Tricia Fagan and is located
on the second floor of the Communications Building on Mercer's West
Windsor campus at 1200 Old Trenton Road. Regular Gallery hours
are: Tuesdays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m.; Wednesdays, 9 a.m.
to 3 p.m.; and Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
An opening reception
will be held Wednesday, Nov. 12, 5 - 7:30 p.m., with live music
by MCCC jazz students Stephen Fuller and Ben Russert. A Gallery
Talk will be presented Thursday, Dec. 11, 6:30 p.m. The Gallery
will also present a Winter Solstice evening of music and poetry
on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 6:30 p.m., featuring bassist Wilbo Wright
and other guest musicians and performers.
Fagan is enthusiastic
about the upcoming exhibit. "Each work on display explores
or celebrates 'light' from many sources, illuminating both interiors
and landscapes," she observes. "These are three virtuosic
artists; the result is a show to steady the heart and intrigue the
eye."
Robert Beck, a Bucks County native, returned to art after a career
in business, attending the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He
cites Al Gury, Glenn Ruddorow, and Peter Paone as important influences,
and admires the work of John Singer Sargent, the early twentieth
century Canadian Tom Thomson, Swedish portrait painter and printmaker
Anders Zorn, and the Italian Renaissance painter Baldini. Over the
last 15 years, his work has been exhibited in dozens of solo and
group exhibitions, including a 1999 solo show at the James A Michener
Art Museum. He has won numerous awards in juried exhibitions. Beck
has lectured at the Hunterdon Museum of Art and the Michener Museum,
taught at the Lawrenceville School and at Artworks in Trenton ,
and served on the Board of the Academy of Fine Arts Fellowship .
His Lambertville, New Jersey, studio serves as both a teaching and
gallery space for him, and has also served as the site of salons
featuring other regional artists and musicians. Besides working
as a full-time painter, Beck is a contributing writer for area newspapers
and Prime Time magazine.
Joseph Gyurcsak began his formal training at Parsons School of Design
and later received his BFA at The School of Visual Arts in New York
City. He has exhibited in galleries across the country. His awarding-winning
paintings continue to pique the interest of private collectors.
He has studied with some of America's finest contemporary artists
and illustrators including Alex Gnidziejko, Braldt Bralds, Michael
Deas, and Stephen Kennedy. Inspired by 19th century painters, he
continues to study the works and techniques of George Inness, Willard
Medcalf, Anders Zorn, John Singer Sargent, and Joaquín Sorolla.
In addition to his painting career, Gyurcsak is the resident artist
for Utrecht Art Supplies. He is an art materials expert who assists
artists and industry manufacturers on all aspects of materials and
techniques. He travels extensively throughout the United States,
conducting lectures and painting demonstrations at major art institutions
such as the Fashion Institute of Technology, Rhode Island School
of Design, the National Academy of Design, the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago and Miami International University of Art and
Design.
Kyle Stevenson,
a member of the Fine Arts faculty at MCCC, was raised in Houghton,
NY, home to Houghton College, where he earned his bachelor's degree
in Art. The son of college professors in a rural area, he developed
a world view that is indelibly white middle class. These middle
class attitudes, expectations and assumptions, as well as a deep
respect for the history of western art, are seminal to his painting.
After a stint as a professional picture framer, Stevenson worked
for the artist Tom Buechner as a studio assistant, where he gained
a wealth of technical knowledge and understanding, as well as exposure
to the finer points of the commercial side of the art world. Stevenson
then studied under Steven Tanis and Larry Holmes at the University
of Delaware and earned his MFA in Painting in 2002.
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