Mara magyarosi-laytner: The Distant Swell of the Open Ocean
There is a fundamental reason why we look at the sky with wonder and longing
—for the same reason that we stand,
hour after hour,
gazing at the distant swell of the open ocean.
- Neil deGrasse Tyson
A current work in progress, Magyarosi-Laytner’s The Distant Swell of the Open Ocean began with the death of the last member of the First Litter, her father’s three older siblings. With a twenty year age difference between the two youngest and three oldest, the First Litter were always seen as the formidable adults in the family. Without their presence - and their never ending, boundless resource of advice - the rest would have been a little lost.
Pulling from family and personal archives, this body of work is a study in liminal space and the conversations and questions of those who are left behind. Their position, wherever it may be, and hers are separated by a boundary that she will not be able to clearly traverse. The emotions she is navigating as a result are as boundless as every empty space that she tries to find my people in - the ocean, the stars, the space between breaths, and every bit in between.
Lourdes S. Guerrero
This exhibit of crocheted tapestries, photographs, and paintings will demonstrate the growth of a crafter into an expressive fine artist. The exhibit will continue through the month of July.
Lourdes S. Guerrero has been crocheting since she was seven years old and photographing since she was sixteen. In 1977, while living in Ireland with her husband, she developed the mathematical calculations for graphing in crochet (all pre-computers and pre-AI). With this technique she was able to turn her simple sketches and visual ideas into crocheted tapestries.
In her 40s, she taught herself to draw and began to paint seriously. At 47, she went back to college completing her BFA in Arts Education, then her MA in Curriculum Planning in Cognitive Aesthetics. She taught high school Art in the Chicago Public Schools for ten years, moving on to a short stint in the Art Education Department at the School of the Art Institute. She has been exhibiting her tapestries, photographs, and paintings in the Chicago and Midwest area for almost 50 years and is currently a Board member of the Chicago chapter of the Women’s Caucus for Art. Her work is in private collections in Ireland, Chicago, and Marcellus, MI.
During the Covid pandemic, Guerrero got her first (outside the home) studio and taught herself to weave on a 60” 4-harness floor loom. Inspired by a 2019 AP photographer’s photo taken of the drownings of an immigrant father and his daughter in the Rio Grande River, Guerrero wove, over a three-year period, a triptych titled: “Drownings.” The weavings are making their debut at Patch & Remington.
Finally, Guerrero will pay homage to her crafting background by encouraging the public to bring their own crocheted (knitted or quilted) 4” square. These will be joined together at the end of the exhibit to create a blanket that will be donated to the Marcellus Food bank for a local family.
Brian Tilbury
Brian Tilbury is an abstract realist painter from Southwest Michigan. Tilbury was shown at Salon des Artistes in Elkhart, Indiana (1996-2002) and was accepted in the Midwest Museum of Art Juried Regional Show (1996). Between 2003 and 2005, Tilbury was nominated for a Merit Scholarship at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago for his work Healing. In 2005, Autumn in a Whirl was selected for the Box Factory for the Arts in St. Joseph, and in 2006, Tilbury was awarded the Merit Scholarship at Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids.
Tilbury has been featured in extensive press including the South Bend Tribune and has been exhibited at The Courtyard Gallery (New Buffalo, MI), Patch & Remington (Marcellus, MI), Roti Roti Art Center (Buchanan, MI), Colfax Campus Gallery (South Bend, IN), and Kalamazoo Institute of Art Juried Exhibition (upcoming). His work is in private collections across the United States.
Ruth Andrews | she lost her head
Ruth Andrews will show twenty surrealist watercolors. Her work is inspired by dreams or the dream-state that occurs in her studio. This past summer she painted the new mural on the Marcellus grain silo in collaboration with the Pokagon Tribe, assisted by many community volunteers. She has also painted large outdoor, historical murals in Cassopolis and Dowagiac. In addition to her paintings, Ruth will screen Play, an experimental film from 1974. Guests at the opening will be invited to play, The Artist Statement, a game Ruth designed.
Opening Friday, December 1, 5-8, the exhibition will run through December 30.
Leila Victorin | Handle with care
Niles artist filters through core memories to find a child-like view that leads to love and acceptance.
The collection titled “Handle with Care” is a peek into artis Leila Victorin’s core memories from ages 4-14. It explores moments and notable objects specific to her neurodiverse, Caribbean-American upbringing, accompanied by stories that can relate to anyone who has ever been a child. The title is a reference to the loose motif of bubble wrap used throughout each piece based on a true childhood story and meant to depict a methodology of "coping" being mirrored between parent and child.
Victorin, in addition to being an artist, works as a speech-pathologist, teaching neurodiverse toddlers how to communicate effectively in their homes and training caretakers to work with their children. “As children we are aware of so much…” Victorin says when sharing why she chose to paint from a child’s perspective: “...but everything can seem so big compared to us — objects, feelings, interactions. Some of us learn to play things down so as to not be a bother to our caretakers. I’ve chosen, in this work, to honor the magnitude of those feelings and moments exactly as they appear when I step back into my metaphorical pink jelly shoes.”
This collection considers how love and trauma often co-exist and how culture and mental wellness play into the various ways that “I love you” is non-verbally expressed even when not initially received.
“There are so many of us, filtering through our core childhood memories, learning to accept not only ourselves but our families for who they are–or were. Imperfections and all – maybe in spite of them, maybe because of them. Learning to overcome that resentment and find compassion and forgiveness is so integral to becoming better humans.”
About: Leila Victorin a Haitian-American artist, business owner, and speech-language pathologist based in Niles, MI. Her work has been featured at the South Bend Civic Theater, NPR music, Mayhue Magazine, and the Crocker Art Museum of Sacramento. She received the 2021 Beautification Award for her mural work with the city of Riverside, CA. Her current work takes inspiration from some of her earliest childhood memories as well as her work in child development to help make sense of some of the complex emotions surrounding how we process family dynamics and memories.
IG: @leilaa.creates
michael slaski
Architectural Models of Sculptures, Photos of Essay Collages,
Wax Paintings, and a Construction
The models are scaled 1 inch to 1 foot.
They cannot pass as buildings as they are tiny in comparison.
I call them architectural out my fascination for the real thing.
The photos developed out of my bi-weekly trips to NYC delivering art to the galleries in Chelsea wondering how Danto’s art world operated.
The economics are endlessly fascinating.
The paintings are made of beeswax and tube oil paint using various grids derived from the Golden Section.
This is probably my most intuitive analytic operation.
The construction is a combination of two similar configurations,
both made of poplar dowels.
These evolved out of an infatuation with the little I could glean
from the illustrations in the various topology texts I
accumulated, mostly published by Dover Press.
Love Letters to Her, featuring selected works from artists Olivia Ezinga and Mara Magyarosi-Laytner, explores identity and femininity through the poetic lenses of two women photographers.
Mara’s work, The Untended Garden, explores the coming of age of women through the cyclical nature of life in a garden. Separated into three acts of various experimental alternative photographic techniques, The Untended Garden investigates the path of women on their journey toward self-acceptance. Olivia’s work, Write Yourself A Love Letter, utilizes self-portrait mixed media collages to explore and appreciate the parts of her femininity and softness that, in a different lens, previously have been viewed as weak. With softness comes strength, and that strength is a part of being a woman.
In both cases, the artists feel that their work is a love letter to their younger selves. Gaining the grace that aging provided created the conduit to explore this work
recent works
Sherwood Snyder
90 Days in the Hole
Vern
The title of the show, “90 Days in the Hole” is a reference to the 90 days (February to May 2023) that it took to create the 80+ pieces of artwork that will be presented. For the duration of the exhibition, the entire second floor studio will be transported into the main gallery. From the tarp covering the floor of the studio, to the 8x8 ft. painting wall, two large scaffoldings, lights, painting jar, jar cart, canvas boards, sculptures, paintings, and even the window next to the painting wall, the contents of the working studio will be hauled down to give the viewer the most realistic look and feel. Immersed in the artist studio installation, patrons can take in the floor-to-ceiling large-scale paintings.
The exhibition will open Friday, June 2, from 5-8 and will run through Sunday, July 2, 2023. Light refreshments will be provided and as always, entry is free.
P&R Artists Take over the affordable art fair
March 22-26
Mara Magyarosi-Latyner and Martyna Alexander will be joining Arbor3 Arts at the Affordable Art Fair in New York City March 22-26, 2023.
The collected works of beverly gordon
Featuring original paintings, prints, lithographs and artist proofs from an array of artists such as Leroy Neiman, Eyvind Earle, Henry Miller, Royo and more. This collection is as unique and eclectic as the woman who collected it.
Live music, refreshments and snacks provided.
Having worked in public libraries for more than three decades, Beverly Gordon always had a deep appreciation for the Arts. While she could never afford works by The Masters, Beverly collected art that brought her joy.
Beverly lived in St. Joseph Michigan her entire life. One might wonder why she would live in the same place for 84 years, Bev loved Lake Michigan. Through art, Beverly could be transported anywhere. Every piece in Beverly's collection "spoke" to her in some way.
We can speculate what someone else enjoys about a particular piece of art, but through Beverly's diverse collection we can get an idea of what she enjoyed and see if one "speaks" to us too.
Beverly Gordon 1938-2022
Leonard Rosenfeld
NUTS AND BOLTS In 1997–98 Rosenfeld ventured into something new—to some, abstract. In his words, “I had to start something, but what? I began to draw black lines on top of the paper. I worked my way down the paper to the bottom, drawing more black lines. Then I stepped back and looked at what I had. The forms I created on the paper had two distinctly different shapes. One form looked like a square donut. The other form looked like a beer can. I called them Nuts and Bolts. I sat down and stared at the paper. Interesting; I broke the ice. Now, how to proceed? How do I find colors I’ve never seen before? Or an architectural interplay yet untested?” One time, a visitor seeing these paintings commented that they were “abstract.” Rosenfeld disagreed—“No, Antonia. These are nuts and bolts!”
Previous Exhibitions
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Julie Fournier: Splat
Opening Friday, June 3, 5-8
In her extraordinarily varied and versatile career, Julie Fournier has depicted and danced in themes from whimsy to passion to the torment of loss.
In the process, she has inspired a term not often integrated with art or artists: Trust. While her own original creations have shown in numerous galleries and exhibitions, Ms. Fournier’s talents with a brush were entrusted to a truly unique and unforgettable gem: The dramatic and detailed restoration of the 1913 Herschell-Spillman Carousel on display at The Henry Ford.
With resources to tap talents from across the globe, the world-renowned museum and its curators trusted Ms.Fournier to bring the classic, revolving carnival menagerie back to original splendor.
Ms. Fournier inspires that same trust in custom car enthusiasts, as her pinstriping work can be seen on vintage muscle cars across North America.
Having mined the pop culture world with a Warholian eye-her Pee Wee Herman homage hangs in London, England- and her erotic works have been decades-long highlights of The Dirty Show- Ms.Fournier’s carousel of vision has embarked on a new spin:
Drip paintings.
These never-before-seen works land at Patch and Remington Gallery Friday, June 3, with an opening from 5-8pm.
The works are passionate, inspired, and unlike anything Ms.Fournier has displayed in a career unrestrained by medium or expectation but enveloped in a rare and well-earned trust.
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Laura Cathcart
We contemplated being extra formal with the exhibition announcement for Laura, but considering her relationship with us and her genuine demeanor, it felt like a disservice. Laura has been with us since the beginning of P&R and, if you’ve been in, you've likely seen her beautiful jewelry and smaller pieces around the space. Her work is as introspective and approachable as her personality, and we hope you come out to give her a warm welcome much like she gave to us when we opened our doors last year.
This exhibition will feature a number of her large abstract works in a solo exhibition. Exploring inspiration through color and movement, Cathcart's work is a reminder that we all need to give pause and tune into our innate emotive responses.
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Lou Sheppard
“The Exquisite Corpse” (2021) (Sheppard)
3 Channel Video and Audio
Sheppard’s three-channel video work follows a multi-layered and looping narrative of desire identity and eco-crisis. Performed by Séamus Gallagher and Marley O’brien the work draws on the performer’s own ideas of apocalypse and loss, as well as their (re)performances of historical and pop references.
Embodied ecologies of bacteria, choirs of buzzing electrons, minerals in human drag, these performers navigate their own destabilizing identities in relation to their destabilizing climate. Queer familiars, not-quite-human, these metametazoa enact a queer ecology, questioning the boundaries and permeabilities of humans, rethinking the ideology of individualism, and exploring networks of collectivism, community, reciprocity, and care.
Exquisite Corpse, a children’s game where one child draws a head and the next a body, and the next legs and feet, is used as a metaphor for hybridized, non-binary and collective embodiments that emerge from this queer ecological approach.
