Cumulus 

May 1st - 30th

Opening reception: Friday, May 1st, 6 - 8pm 

Cumulus is an invitational exhibition featuring works that transcend minimalist abstraction, highlighting something peaceful and reminiscent, which we can all connect to. This dream-like collection of abstract works features celebrated New Jersey artists, offering viewers a quiet space for contemplation. The artists use color, form, and texture to evoke the feeling of fleeting moments, memory, and stillness. Exhibiting artists include; Ryniee DeCheser, Leena Joshi, Tracey Luckner, and Vincent Salvati.

The title, Cumulus, speaks to the light, airy, and expansive quality of the works, reminiscent of the “fair-weather” clouds moving quietly through morning air. It suggests a movement away from the hard edges of pure minimalism toward a softer, more evocative abstract language, a collective exhale in a busy world.

An Artist Talk will be held on the exhibitions final day, Saturday, May 30th, at 3pm at Hanover Creative Gallery.

Fiber Politic, an invitational exhibit of textile-based work that comments on the U.S. political landscape and its people. This diverse collection includes fiber installations, sculptures, and wall pieces addressing critical issues such as healthcare, housing access, political propaganda, environmental concerns, wars, immigration, and finally, a bit of hope for our future. 

Featured artists include Patricia Dahlman, Kwesi Kwarteng, Tamara Torres, Krystle Lemonias, and Woolpunk. Together, they employ a wide range of materials in their respective practices, from Ghanaian kente cloth and wool to upcycled clothing. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, March 21st from 6-8pm, and an Artist Talk will be held on Saturday, April 25th at 3pm. 

Exhibit curator Áine Mickey comments, “Being an American is a privilege, yet many of us grow increasingly discontent with this advantage by the day. Fiber Politic presents soft, tactile materials alongside difficult and often divisive subject matter, creating an invitation for viewers to engage with complex realities through a language of texture, labor, and memory. Together, these pieces form a collective portrait of a nation grappling with its ideals. They acknowledge the fractures in our shared identity while also asking us to consider how empathy, creativity, and dialogue may help mend them.”  

Patricia Dahlman 

For a number of years, I have focused on making sculpture and two dimensional works by cutting out forms in canvas, then stuffing and sewing the forms together. These stuffed, sewn forms are sometimes stitched using different colors of thread. The stitching is like drawing or painting and I like the color, light and surface the thread makes on the stuffed canvas. The stitching on the forms is usually narrative and sometimes based on photographs that I take, or worked from photographs from news magazines and off the internet. All of the work is figurative but is influenced by abstract art. Sometimes it is humorous and often it is political. The subject matter is taken from personal thoughts, experiences in my life, and reactions to political events around the world.

www.patriciadahlman.com    |   Instagram: watpaetki

Kwesi Kwarteng

Newark Based Artist, Kwesi Kwarteng creates resplendent textile artworks using a diversity of culturally significant fabrics from around the world and canvas, which he dyes by hand, stitches, and reimagines as masterful painterly tapestries. 

Kwarteng’s repertoire of artworks can be characterized by 3 distinguished textile mediums—multi-dimensional sub-sculptures that combine textiles and mesh wire, drape pieces that combine a multitude of textiles that he shapes into fluid, floating fabric arrangements and one he calls, ‘textile paintings” which appear as stretched and framed abstract works. Kwarteng approaches his art practice with an intentionality and regard for the perfect imperfection of his experimental creative expression. His abstract textile works on canvas, the “textile paintings' ' are precise and serve to distill the conversation between the more layered drape and sub-sculptural works. All Kwarteng’s works serve to explore multi-cultural identity, social cohesion, and global interconnectivity which act as counterpoints to the absurdity of racial/migrant tensions and social divisions that persists in the US where Kwarteng lives, and around the world.

In Kwarteng’s works, there is an exploration and reimagining of the practice of the handmade, woven textile traditions of the Akan and Ewe weavers of Ghana. He is equally influenced by El Anatsui’s extraordinary sculptures, twentieth century African American quilting artistry, and abstract, color field paintings by Sam Gilliam among others. He perfectly captures the nuances of using what might be considered a myriad of discarded remnants and swatches to align narratives that reflect his experience growing up in Ghana and moving to the United States as a teenager. Through his early challenges as an immigrant, he learned to embrace the multi-facets of culture and the heterogeneity of the immigrant story in the Bronx, New York, later Newark, NJ. Two of the most culturally diverse cities in the United States.  Kwesi Kwarteng (1988) born in Accra, Ghana and currently lives and works in Newark, New Jersey. He is an alumni of the School of Visual Arts (SVA), New York City. His works are held in private and corporate collections around the world.

www.kwesiokwarteng.com    |  Instagram: kkwarteng_nyc

Krystle Lemonias 

Krystle Lemonias (Jamaican, b. 1989) is a visual artist, labor activist, and art educator, whose work addresses issues of social class, labor rights, and economic inequality, particularly within Black communities. Her pieces have been featured in notable exhibitions, including Yu cyaan ketch Quaku, yu ketch im shut at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Show Me the Signs at Blum and Poe for the #sayhername campaign, and Unblocked: Improvisation and Identity in Contemporary Quilts at Hunterdon Art Museum. Lemonias employs found materials, fabric, and iconography to probe the complexities of Black immigrant cultural identity and its ties to the broader diaspora. Using repurposed materials and consumer food packaging she also investigates how consumerism impacts our environment and wildlife.

www.krystlelemonias.com     |   Instagram: @empress1989kl

Tamara Torres

Tamara Torres is a Puerto Rican Afro-Latinx feminist storyteller and artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Tamara explores diverse artistic practices that include poetry, landscape abstract paintings known to Torres as "mindscapes," visual chronicle collaged photographs or 3D sculptures, short fictions, and playwriting. 

Her work intricately weaves together themes of light in beats of darkness, an autobiography of rediscovering her electric connections between her identity as an Afro-Caribeña and lineage, societal tantrums, feminism, and the essence of human connection and body. Each piece acts as a catalyst for conversation, igniting thought and fostering a deeper exploration of the complex intersections between identity and experience.

Believing in the power of art to challenge societal norms and foster connections. A recurring symbol in her work is the "shadow person," which represents people often forgotten in societal displacement, spiritual connections, and the complexities of identity. Or as a young child once described the shadow man to Torres, "They are there to keep the painting company." Tamara Torres has exhibited her work extensively across the tri-state area and internationally, sharing her unique perspective and fostering dialogue within contemporary discourse.

Woolpunk    

Woolpunk® is an American artist born in Summit, NJ in 1971. Woolpunk® employs materials and techniques sourcing women’s work creation; historically, she machine-knits fiber installations, quilts sculptures, and embroiders photographs. Consequently, her work champions social change, addressing issues such as homelessness, foreclosures, water contamination, and deforestation. Referencing her unique stitching and use of fibers, she trademarked the name Woolpunk®, which she has been using creatively since 2004. Woolpunk's embroidered photographs and sculptures are in the permanent collections of Liberty State Park, Museo Del Cognome in Padula, Italy, Zimmerli Museum, Hudson County Community College Foundation Collection, Eileen Kaminsky Family Foundation Collection, and Montclair Art Museum, among others. Media highlights include Embroidery Magazine, Interweave Knits, Surface Design Journal, New York Times, State of the Arts, WCBS, and WNYC's All Of It with Alison Stewart.

 www.woolpunk.com     |    Instagram: @woolpunk 

What is Fiber Art?

Fiber art is a medium categorized by its materials, utilizing synthetic or natural fibers to create a piece. Commonly used materials include a wide array of fabrics, cord, thread, yarn, upcycled textiles, and clothing. Core methods include sewing, weaving, macramé, felting, embroidery, knitting, crochet, and quilting. Fiber art ranges from 2D wall hangings and tapestries to 3D sculptures, wearable art, installations and more.