Ceres Gallery NYC - 40th Anniversary Catalog - complete catalog

Diversity of Women’s Voices

January, 2024 marks the fortieth anniversary of Ceres Gallery. Beginning in 1984, Rhonda Schaller, Polly Lai, Darla Bjork, Nancy Azara, all part of the New York Feminist Art Institute (NYFAI), and soon joined by Carol Goebel, Phyllis Rosser, Joan Arbeiter, Sandra Branch, and Vivian Tsao, Ceres Gallery began exhibiting art by women from a feminist, not-for-profit and alternative gallery space perspective. Ceres was established as a gallery and organization dedicated to the promotion of contemporary women in the visual arts as a way to remediate women’s limited access to commercial galleries. In doing so, the early members found that by allowing women artists to be fully able to decide what they were exhibiting and how they chose to do so, the advantages of an allwoman, artist-run, exhibition space allowed for greater artistic freedom, broader creativity, expanded personal artistic growth, and stronger work.

Through the years, Ceres Gallery has been a leader for women artists breaking through the constraints of the commercial art world with powerful and poignant work. In 2024, we are forty showing artists strong, along with an equal number of artist supporters. Our anniversary exhibition, Diversity of Women’s Voices, shares the work of current active members and invited guest artists whose work, taken together, comprise a powerful exhibition that is a tribute to Ceres’ ongoing efforts for promoting art world equality and diversity.

Phyllis Rosser, an original member still exhibiting today, continues to make poignant and meaningful work. Rosser, one of the organizers of our 2007 multi-ethnic exhibition, Agents of Change: Women, Art and Intellect which celebrated the opening of the new Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, recognizes that even with many successes, women continued to struggle in the art world. She believes “Ceres’ strength lies in the ongoing efforts to offer programs in arts, including visual art, dance, and poetry and the hosting of lively discussions and panels on feminism and the herstory of art.”

Marilyn Banner, a 31 year member, agrees, and tells of her introduction to this cohort of women artists. “As a feminist cooperative, Ceres was the perfect and best venue to put

my work into the world. Feminism taught us that the personal is political. Ceres Gallery celebrates both.”

Tania Kravath, a former president states, “I have been nurtured for over 20 years as a member of this strong feminist organization. I have experienced the depth of connection and support that grows out of a community of creative, dedicated women who express their experiences through the visual arts. One of the greatest strengths of Ceres is that artists have complete control over their work and the power to exhibit it in the way they want the world to see it.”

And why do women make art? Why does anyone make art? Stefany Benson, long time Director of Ceres, answers these questions: “The desire to make art is not defined by gender. Men and women, all humans, choose to express themselves in whatever way they feel the most drawn to. Typically, expression through visual means is a complex desire driven by wants and needs like recognition, achievement and the need to effectively communicate the totality of their experience. Some people call it a personal calling, they claim that communicating visually is something they simply must do. To penalize, based on gender, the results of that self-expression is utterly absurd.“ We hope you will join us in January as we celebrate our milestone victory, with a tip of our hat to sister galleries such as A.I.R. and Soho20 in New York, ARC in Chicago, the Guerilla Girls, and other feminists who have joined us on this quest for creative equality.

We salute and thank all those who came before us for their part in breaking down the pre-conceived, sociocultural perspective that art made by men is in some way more important than art made by women. We are grateful to these pioneers who blazed a path for women that is still visible to us today as we continue to create new dialogues and carry the torch of recognition for woman-made work into the future.

547 West 27 Street, Suite 201 New York, NY 10001 www.CeresGallery.org

Art@CeresGallery.org Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 12 pm – 6pm 212-947-6100

ARTISTS – Active and Founding Members Marilyn Banner Kyra Belan Marcy Bernstein Jo-Ann Brody Rae Broyles Elizabeth Myers Castonguay Regina Araujo Corritore Pat Cresson Anne Drager Hagar Fletcher Pamela Flynn Jayne Gaskins Carol Goebel Susan Grabel Judith Greenwald Melanie Hickerson Hollis Hildebrand-Mills Minako Ito Carla Rae Johnson Madelon Jones Nancy Kahlow-Curtis Susan Kaplow Tania Kravath Heidi Kumao Linda Kunik

Libbet Loughnan Virginia Mallon Lynne Mayocole Anne Mondro Christine Mottau Liz Ndoye Mary Alice Orito Francine Perlman Nancy Quin Elizabeth Downer Riker Yu Rong Phyllis Rosser Jane Seavers Araparajita Sen Ann R. Shapiro Irina Sheynfeld Pamela Shields Shirley Steele Jane Stevens Michelle Stone Vivian Tsao Carlyle Upson Micaela de Vivero Judy Werlin

Inactive Members Joan Arbeiter Christina Biaggi Dare J. Boles Frances Venardos Gialamas Carole Kulikowski

Chalda Maloff Masayo Nishimura Maria Torffield Kathlene Tracy

MARILYN BANNER I was born in St. Louis, Missouri. I received a BFA in Painting from Washington University and pursued further work in the fine arts at Queens College (CUNY), University of Maryland, and Massachusetts College of Art (MSEd 1982). Mentors David Lund, Lowry Burgess, Marvin Bileck, and Betsy Damon were significant influences in my approach to painting, media, concept, and content. I have been been awarded ten fellowship residencies to Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and have received grants from Montgomery County Arts Council and the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. I have exhibited extensively in the US, including at the Ratner Museum, Corcoran Museum, and B’nai B’rith Museum (all DC area), and at Ceres Gallery and Hebrew Union College Museum in NYC. I have been a member of Ceres Gallery (New York City) since 1992 and lives in Takoma Park, Maryland.

My work has ranged broadly in material and subject matter. My interest in Jung, psychology, spirituality, and feminism inspired two decades of work based on dream imagery, meditation, and personal history. From 1980 to 1999 my forms ranged from large scale drawing and oil painting, to sculpture, assemblage, installation, collage and painting, using visceral and physical media such as bones, wood, latex, hair, wax, and soil, to more ethereal media such as layered imagery on chiffon, fabric, lace, and metallic threads. Following a visit to Terezin, a concentration camp near Prague, I created work that looked at the history of anti-Semitism and Jewish ancestry. Since 2004 I have worked almost exclusively with encaustic paint on wood. My approach to painting is “painterly” and emotionally expressive. My subject matter references landscape, seascape, and close up views of nature. Depth, energy, tactility and abstraction remain central to my work. www.MarilynBanner.com @marilynbannerart

And the Word Became Flesh

KYRA BELAN I am an artist, author, and art historian, who received my B.F.A. from ASU, M.F.A. from FSU, and Ed. D. from FIU. I have had over 55 solo and over 100 group art exhibitions. I received numerous awards, including Who’s Who in American Art, 2000-20; the Florida Achievement Award in the Arts, Women’s Caucus for Art Florida Chapter, 2008; the Southeastern Art Conference Outstanding Artistic Achievement Award, University of Arkansas at Little Rock 2005; Broward County’s Women’s Hall of Fame Outstanding Achievement in the Arts, 1994; and the Individual Artist Fellowship, State of Florida, Florida Arts Council. 1982. My artworks are found in numerous collections.

I am interested in social, political, and eco-feminist issues. My series of artworks include large scale paintings, drawings in graphite and colored pencils, digital, and mixed media, installations, earth art, performance art, and conceptual art. I am a contemporary realist artist who draws from my love for Mother Earth. Mythologies, legends, and symbols populate my artworks with layers of messages that are accessible to the observers on multiple levels. www.KyraBelan.com @kyrabelan2013

Your Vote Counts

MARCY BERNSTEIN My paintings invite the viewer to look inward. I accomplish this with a visual vocabulary of lush, slashing brush strokes, aberrant color and strong primitive drawing. These are dreamy paintings large and filled with allusions to sex and creativity. The main element in nearly all of the work is the transformed line, bar or stripe. These manifest as visuals of strong primitive impulse. These paintings deal with the relationship of geometry and nature.

I feel deeply connected to nature, which is fecund, but also murderously degenerative. My work deals with the female body as creativity, as a wellspring of biological procreation from which comes not only the gift of life but the entire metaphorical miasma of its meaning.

The rigidly striped textured planes of color become a cauldron of nature’s bubbling birth. Dealing with the sex of creation connects women to the ebb and flow of existence and it’s artistic metaphors.

The language for a millennia has been that of men… in the science of mathematics and physics, philosophy and socio-politics. Nature has been, like women, subservient. Both are now pushing through the surface into the full light of day it can only change us, hopefully for the better.

I joined Ceres gallery in 2023. I have a working art studio in Upstate NY. I relish the opportunity to connect with other women in a space where woman artists express what being female and fruitfully creative means to them, both on a personal and societal level. www.MarcyBernstein.com @mamaleahsam Chrysalis

JO-ANN BRODY Over 10 years ago I started a new and different series of figures—“Huddled Figures” with some of the figures wrapped in burlap soaked cement. The figures are huddled into themselves, bundled up against their woes. Enduring and patient, suffering. The pieces were begun during a time of great personal pain. Gesture is key to understanding my work. They kept their significance so they survived 2 studio moves. They are all seated with bent legs. They were recently rediscovered in the studio. This one is more complex in form with arms, legs, feet, and hands but the wrapping didn’t work anymore. It is on its second iteration as a complex seated figure. This work is androgynous.

I am a figurative sculptor who started in clay, moved to cement, and is currently working in papier mache. The majority of my work portrays standing female figures.

The focus is on gesture and stance.

In this series, I hope to portray a poignancy from the stance.

This series was at Art Westchester and SK Studio Gallery both in White Plains NY. Some of the series have been at Saunders Farm in Garrison NY and at the North Bennington Outdoor Sculpture Bennington, VT. One of the figures was in a recent Ceres Group Exhibition. www.JoannBrody.net @brodyjoann Huddled Figure

RAE BROYLES Born outside Chicago, IL I am fortunate to be a fourth-generation painter. My grandfather was a painter and opera singer and my grandmother, a piano teacher. My father studied under Norman Rockwell as an illustrator in the 1950’s and later began plein-air painting regularly. My mother was a fashion model, devoted wife, and seamstress. Music and dance were always encouraged as further compliments to our creative life. My studies began at The Academy of Art in Chicago, The University of Minnesota and then at The Rhode Island School of Design with accomplished artists such as Richard Merkin and Mahler Ryder. After my studies I went on to a lucrative career of graphic design and art direction but when I finally started a family, I also took hold of a full-time painting career. Later in life I attended Moulin de Perot in the South of France and held a 5-week painting residency in Hyeres France in 2022.

The society we live in has seen its toll of difficult changes lately and my current work reflects on the trauma and repair of the fabric of our society. Allegorically and through poetry my work is a healing process for not only myself but the viewer. At times, you will see the inspiration of Agnes Martin, a gridwork of lines signifying order, yet just askew.

My work combines video, sound, painting, choreography and/or poetry. Using all these disciplines helps me to express how life is beautiful, strange, and complex and it takes many dimensions to fully express it. www.raebroyles.com @raebroyles

Truth Obscured

ELIZABETH MYERS CASTONGUAY My life and art career have been dedicated to social, racial, and environmental justice. The ‘Endangered body of work’ was begun about 14 years ago uniting the concepts of human diversity and the biodiversity of nature. Mother Earth and Mother Nature are also often used metaphorically for women, and those who identify as women, since many find themselves in situations of endangerment globally. A decade ago there were over 40,000 endangered species of wildlife and plant life and now the number is over one million. With the planet suffering from climate change, deforestation, overfishing, pollution, war, and poaching we must remedy what we have created through global partnership. I try not to sensationalize or be confrontational because I want the viewer to internalize, reflect, and see the world that we have created. Within the work there is urgency but also an element of hope because we can each engage in the stewardship of Mother Earth and all of her creatures. www.CreationArtStudio.com @e.m.castonguay

Free the Songbird (Tapestry of Nature/Endangered)

REGINA ARAUJO CORRITORE I have always created sculptures that flirt between functional and non-functional objects.

By using glass and metal miniatures I have constructed an environment where the viewer intuitively places themselves in these assembled settings. The minimization of chairs and tables creates an atmosphere that gives one the illusion of power, power to be able to address crucial environmental issues, weather changes and historical biases.

Born and raised in New York City, I have a strong passion for making and viewing art. I am a big believer in co-op galleries; I have belonged to more than a few. In 1984 I just finished art school and Ceres Gallery gave me a chance. I was in agreement with the philosophy of communal effort, of working in a feminist space where we support one and another. What I like most about Ceres is its members; it is the women who made an artistic home for me with their encouragement to excel. In the spirit of giving Ceres was not only a home for visual arts, but place for performances, lectures, activism and celebration.

While living and working in New York and New Mexico I became am involved in multicultural art organizations, such as Vistas Latinas and Coast to Coast: Women Artist of Color, Dia de los Muertos: Marigold Parade Collective and have been curating and organizing exhibitions. www.unm.edu/~rcorrit/ Chair for a Changing Climate

PAT CRESSON I grew up in Virginia and received an MFA in Painting and Design from Pratt Institute, NYC and a BS in Fine Art from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I have been a practicing artist/designer and full-time professor of Art and Design at Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ since 1995 and am now retired in June 2022 as Professor Emerita. I have been a member of CERES Gallery since 1987.

“My membership in CERES has opened many doors for me and allowed me to evolve more fully as an artist among a wonderful gallery of serious women artists. I have always been interested in a broad range of topics, styles and techniques and have followed my heart and not limited myself to just one or two areas, series or styles. I currently move back and forth between realistic drawing, impressionistic expression and abstraction as a way of keeping myself interested and engaged. Ancient cultures, botanicals, maps and ephemera, landscape, weather systems, insects, birds, Asian culture, endangered species and marine life – these are all topics that have interested me for many years and I return repeatedly to them for inspiration. Using these as inspiration and metaphor, my interest is also in the exploration of human interaction and the natural world –the navigation between what is hidden and what is revealed.” www.PatCresson.com

Pink Tulips

ANNE DRAGER I live in my dreams and dedicate myself fully to all the things I love and those I hate. I was born in Lübeck, Germany, a city best known for its Marzipan, and attended the same high school as Erich Muehsam and Thomas Mann. As soon as I was old enough I went to Italy. Following the voice of reason, I returned to Germany to obtain a Masters in Art History. When the Wall came down in 1989 I was off to the “Wild East” and lived among the artists of Leipzig and Berlin. Unmoored by love I came to London and ultimately New York City in 1997. I now live in Montauk, NY and Sharon, CT - moored to the soil, watching the clouds sail by.

My work varies a lot. I do make an effort to stay with one subject or theme. My last work was a series of portraits of my husband who passed away shortly after. A lot of times I am waiting for inspiration. www.AnneDrager.art

Snowy Day

HAGAR FLETCHER Ceres Gallery is my home since 2017, and I am proud to be a member. My art has always been concerned with the weak and the marginalized, subjects I integrate within my sculptures.

My work is about the contrasts in my life: the beauty, the ugliness, the harsh and the softness. I integrate poems I write in the darkness of my nights, soft sewing and harsh metal found in yards can be part of one sculpture.

I try to recycle as much as possible so as not to create more waste around me. www.hagarfletcher.com @hagarfletcher

Untitled

PAMELA FLYNN Spiritual Encounter is part of a body of work titled Floral Entities. This work explores the relationship between human form, floral form and the environment. This work is meant to show how humans and nature are intrinsically connected.

I am a mixed media artist. My work is founded in social/cultural issues.

I hold an MFA from New Jersey City University and am a Professor of Art and Fine Arts Coordinator at Holy Family University, Philadelphia.

My work has been exhibited nationwide and in South Korea. I am a recipient of the 2006 Puffin Foundation Grant for the project Road Shrines: A Peripheral Blur.

My anti-gun violence Project Considering Harm has been exhibited in many cities in the United States. www.pamelaflynnart.com @pamelaflynnart

Spiritual Encounter

JAYNE GASKINS My art and I have traveled many roads together. I am deeply honored those roads led to membership in a feminist gallery promoting high-quality women in the arts in one of the world’s premier art capitals.

Over the years, I evolved from depicting what I think about a subject to courageously examining and honestly portraying how I feel about it. My art is still a form of realism, but on a deeper, subjective, and expressionistic level where edges are hard and colors rawer and more intense. Fiber remains my medium of choice because its tactile qualities allow it to be molded into almost any form with soft inviting surfaces or intense reflective ones, just like emotions. You may or may not share these feelings. But if my art leads you down your own mental journey, it’s a success because it has most certainly led me down mine. The journey continues. www.jaynegaskins.com @jaynegaskinsart

The Arrival

CAROL GOEBEL For decades Ceres was the center of my life. The first organizing meeting to create the gallery is clearly etched in my mind. As a young New York artist, I desperately wanted to show my sculpture after having only minimal success with commercial venues. The 80’s were filled with feminist vitality which fueled our vision for a gallery. As a woman contractor my interest was in creating the physical plant- a clean, well-lighted gallery space. Nancy Azara and Darla Bjork provided the ground floor of a Tribeca loft building.

I provided the design and labor to actually build the space with help from all founding members, doing all the work ourselves. Over forty years we did this two more timesnext in Soho and then in our present Chelsea location. A beautiful gallery space provides the three dimensional canvas for me and Ceres artists to experiment with large scale pieces but also intimate work.

More than twenty shows later, my personal vision is about images of transformation in the natural world but also transformation of the actual materials used. Aged metal tools and fragments are cut and welded into beings of life and spirit. Arlene McKanic has written in ARTnews “Goebel’s works have to be handled with care. The tines, teeth, and edges are sharp and rusty, creating a weird and esthetically pleasing confluence of the beautiful and dangerous.” In the last years, I have created clay sculptures that are wood fired into leaf and plant forms thrusting up and out in the relentless force of nature’s growth.

Ceres has provided a place for me and countless artists to show their work and share their ideas, their politics, and their sense of community.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CERES!!! @carollouisegoebel

Soaring Couple

SUSAN GRABEL I am a feminist, figurative, multimedia artist, curator and arts community organizer. My work reflects the social and political narratives of the world around me. I take to heart Alice Walker’s affirmation that “Activism is my rent for living on this planet.”

My work has evolved organically from early clay urban vignettes, to clay and wood environments exploring consumerism, homelessness, alienation and war, to handmade paper sculptures and collagraph prints on aging women’s bodies, to my work on Confluence – people coming together, embracing differences. Working with new technology at Staten Island Maker Space has allowed me to digitally translate my prints and collages into various sized works in wood. My current work, Reflections on the Pandemic, is a continuation of that work using cast paper sculptures and digitally cut wood cutouts.

In the early 1990’s, galvanized by The Clarence Thomas hearings and especially the Senate Judiciary Committee’s patronizing and sexist treatment of Anita Hill, empowering women became my mantra. To that end, I served as President of the New York chapter of the Women’s Caucus for Art, on the national board and was national treasurer. I have continued to curate exhibitions of women artists and organize panel discussions centering on women’s issues.

I have been president of Ceres Gallery since 2017 supporting and being supported by women artists and giving back to the feminist community that has given me the strength and courage to keep going. Ceres has given me a platform to help raise women’s voices in art as well as the opportunity to show my own work. www.susangrabel.com @susan_grabel

Confluence

JUDITH GREENWALD Ceres Gallery has been my artistic/creative home since 1997. The gallery has supported my need to experiment with and combine different media and art forms.

Regardless of the medium in which I am working, I am always exploring depth, layers, and that which lies beneath the surface. Most recently, I have been working in oil paint and cold wax, a medium that lends itself to layering and depth.

My latest series is called Displacement. It is a response to the huge displacements we are currently experiencing— global displacements, political and cultural displacements, displacements among friends and family who struggled during Covid to not get too isolated or alienated and, of course, personal displacements where so many have lost their grounding, their orientation, sometimes their hope.

And what better place to visually express these profound dislocations than Ceres, among a group of wonderful artists who care deeply about social and economic justice. www.JudithGreenwald.com @judithgreenwald

Displacement

MELANIE HICKERSON I went to Italy to be an artist on a one-way ticket with my 4 year old son on my lap. I had friends, made friends, sold artwork in the piazzas and got a thorough and profound art education. I decided I needed credentials, too, so I returned to my home state of Texas and entered school. With my MFA from the University of Texas, I headed for NYC to be an artist.

Misogyny permeated all; from the piazzas to academia, to the galleries of the USA. I had one person successful and marvelous exhibits at Ceres in 1993 and 1996. I returned to Texas to family challenges in 1999.

Ceres offers a sense of freedom and empowerment to non men who are artists. Ceres supplied me with opportunity and a supportive community to enter into a dialog with the world. The social nature of our species benefits from the energy created at Ceres.

I like to read philosophy, biographies, and think about dichotomies, dualism and balance. When I experience the arts; drama, poetry, painting, sculpture, music, dance and all, I get a sense of Truth. Truth the ephemeral, or liquid, or vaporous essence of real. I look to reveal this in my work.

Our species needs all the Truths. www.melaniehickerson.com @hickersonmelanie

Certification (#98)

HOLLIS HILDEBRAND-MILLS My art is a reflection of what is going on in the world at the time of process. The internal structure of my work is derived from Renaissance paintings. Some symbolism comes from that era also. But these things are conscious. Like Henry Miller said, the subconscious is absorbing the space surrounding the act of creation and puts forth unconscious work, apart from what the conscious mind “knows.”

Being a member and exhibiting at Ceres Gallery has been an asset to my studio practice. My work’s edges are clean, the finish is solid. Putting together a solo show has enabled me to assemble a theme with consistency and a thoughtful point of view. My belief is that this presentation must be immaculate and Ceres Gallery has helped me achieve this. www.HollisHildebrand-Mills.com @hhildebrandmills

Virgin in Paradise

MINAKO ITO I have been a member of Ceres Gallery since 1998. Eventually I moved back to Japan in 2002. Since then Ceres is the only place to show my work in the US. Whenever I have a show at Ceres, I feel like backing home in NY. Making printmaking lithography became my life work. I capture the atmosphere of places where I looked during walk or traveled. I would like viewers to feel just on my point of view and make them happy through my art. @minartminako

Orange Sky

CARLA RAE JOHNSON Making art is for me simultaneously an act of rebellion and a gift. When I am in my studio working, I am defying logical, practical, socially expected norms. My work fits no trend or cubbyhole within the defining art establishment. It is neither formalist nor purely conceptual, neither abstract nor figurative, neither narrative nor surrealist, though it borrows from each of these traditions.

I love the spaces between sculpture and poetry; between the dream and waking consciousness; between movement and stasis; between action and contemplation; between masculine and feminine; between art and science; between intellect and passion; between truth and beauty. Such energized spaces and contradictory forces have always fueled my daily reality and my art. It is in the interstices between formal categories that exciting tensions and reciprocating energies reside.

My work is directly connected to ideas and often addresses issues of social, political, and cultural importance. I delight in communicating insights with humor, word-play, and not just a little irony. My work includes drawings, sculpture, conceptual works, installations, interactive art, and performances. My favored media include ideas, wood, drawings, assemblage, metals, plastics, concrete, clay, and words. I thrive in the solitude of the studio, and, also, in collaboration with other creative artists. www.carlaraejohnson.org @ptsdkewpie Frida Kahlo Meets Franz Kalfa from the Séance Series

MADELON JONES In nature life is always in motion, leaves blow in the wind, flowers wave in the breeze, brooks and rivers flow and ripple. My work is based on nature, I want my paintings to flow: In Seaside many planes come together, images of sky, clouds, kites, waves and surf all combine to create the final image. I fell in love with the use of paper during my years as a printmaker and whether I am etching, doing monoprints or painting it is my go-to material. Color, line and texture dictate these various elements. More and more I am fascinated by the idea of “building out” creating a sense of depth and shadow using re-purposing fragments of old work as elements of collage.

Showing my work at Ceres Gallery among professional Women Artists has been a privilege. www.MadelonJones.com @madelon_jones

Seaside

NANCY KAHLOW-CURTIS It has been my pleasure to a part of Ceres Gallery since 2010. In four solo exhibitions; Sacred Perspective 2012, Mythology of Memory 2015, Rumors of Fate 2018 and Sanctuary of Magic 2022 I have exhibited oil paintings, oil ink prints on wood and wall relief sculptures. I have also participated in several group exhibitions.

In my work I use symbolic images that merge my imagination with the theological and historical evolution of human spiritual ritual. In creating a personal mythology I often focus on ancient pagan symbols as well as the divine feminine. There is an inner symbolic world that we as a species share. The fact that myths cross cultures, continents, and span over thousands of years is a testament to our connected inner visions. The goal of my art work is to visually expresses this universal connection. www.kahlow-curtis.com

Divine Mother

SUSAN KAPLOW My artwork explores life’s poignant and paradoxical mysteries: how does new life arise from old wounds? Why does each of us need a broken heart as well as a whole heart?

What emerges from disconnections and re-formed connections? In my earlier life as a psychotherapist and spiritual seeker, I’d delved into these matters with thoughts and words.

Fifteen years ago, I closed my therapy practice and began to work with materials: jewelry-making, beading, glass fusing, felting. When I joined Ceres Gallery over a decade ago I was still a very new artist, just beginning to find my way in the art world. From the many more experienced members I never felt anything but encouragement. They offered compliments when warranted, gentle critique when I sought it, help with understanding how to make a body of work and how to curate it in the gallery.

Although many of my colleagues are not engaged in the mysteries that preoccupy me, they welcomed my work and my interests. To my surprise and gratification, I’ve found that working with materials takes me into my questions in a different and deeper way than thoughts and words. www.susankaplow.com @susankaplow

Tree of Life

TANIA KRAVATH Serving as President of Ceres Gallery for 2 years and nurtured for over 20 years as a member of this strong feminist organization, I have experienced the depth of connection and support that grows out of a community of creative, dedicated women who express their experiences in the visual arts.

My work is tied to social and political narratives and is framed by stories of immigrations.

Throughout the many chapters in my art making, I find myself returning to the female form and the theme of women as vessels of knowledge and nurturers of seeds. My forms pay homage to the many unheard voices and the challenges of being female. www.TaniaKravath.com @taniakravath

Gratitude

HEIDI KUMAO I have been a member of Ceres Gallery since 2005. I use a feminist lens to translate intangible emotional experiences into poetic visual narratives and hybrid art forms including electromechanical girl’s legs that “misbehave,” video installations about surviving confinement, surreal experimental stop motion puppet animations, performative staged photographs, cinema machines, and stitched fabric drawings. My recent narrative fabric works, “Real and Imagined,” use stitching and fabric cutouts of common objects (such as chairs, roots, ladders, or spotlights) on industrial felt to create a tactile visual vocabulary that distills unspoken—often sinister— aspects of daily human exchanges into accessible narrative images.

Fueled by the ongoing battles over reproductive rights, the #MeToo movement, and personal experience with traumatic loss and separation, the art works underscore the courage of women who report assault and abuses of power amid public skepticism. The title, “Real and Imagined,” is a direct reference to how her testimony was received: her account is accepted as truthful by many and dismissed as imaginary by the court of public opinion: “he was only joking.” Intentionally minimal, each image distills an interaction, traumatic incident, or power imbalance into an accessible and poetic visual narrative. www.HeidiKumao.net @heidikumao Temporary Corroboration

LINDA KUNIK Since becoming an artist, one of my goals was to exhibit my work in New York. When the opportunity arrived to apply for admission to Ceres Gallery in 2019, I sent my best work, and was accepted. I have had two solo shows at the gallery, the most recent the end of March, 2023. Living in Los Angeles made it difficult to attend the monthly meetings, but when the meetings became accessible on Zoom, I was able to meet many of the members and participate more fully. It has been a pleasure to be a part of this wonderful gallery.

As for my work, experimenting with perception and contrast have always been at the core of my work and the land and the environment have always been a source from which my ideas develop and realize themselves. It began with my interpretation of the glaciers melting by physically breaking glass upon the canvas, and the psychological correspondence to people’s lives and the nature of causality. It continued with the close-up and sensual photographs of heirloom tomatoes from a four-year gardening project, which also fed a community of artists.

Continuing to experiment, I began to combine photography and painting using photos from my travels. My current work involves using an emulsion process, which separates the translucent image from its substrate. www.LindaKunik.com @LindaKunik

Eye of the Beholder

LIBBET LOUGHNAN My work explores connectedness and the beautiful fragility of life. The pieces reflect a childhood rich in family warmth in the Australian countryside, stories encountered across countries in adult life, and a desire for more reflection on the place of humans within nature. Through most of my paintings, I aim to tell a story, predominantly using bright and dark acrylics and watercolors. I also enjoy making sculptures, in order to play with viewers from all perspectives. www.LibbetLoughnan.com @libbet_loughnan

Self-Portrait

VIRGINIA MALLON My work contemplates religious, historic, and mythological women, personal histories, and the psychological undercurrents of contemporary society. I am a believer that art is more than just a pretty picture. It should be a reflection of our life and times.

As a new member of the Ceres Gallery, I was thrilled to be welcomed by a group of talented artists that not only appreciated my work, they also understood the messaging. I am in good company at Ceres!

This series, Even in the Garden, is in response to the ongoing attack on women’s rights. It explores myths, bible stories and fairy tales about women's role in the world, touching upon fictional and historical events that are used as contemporary benchmarks for behavior.

Some were created in protest to the loss of feminine power and how pre-conceived notions, reaching back to antiquity, manifest themselves today. www.VirginiaMallon.com @virginiamallon

Even in the Garden – When God Was a Woman

LYNNE MAYOCOLE I am a sculptor currently residing in Manhattan. Born into a family of artists, I am the daughter of a sculptor who studied with Archipenko and a violinist who toured Europe before the Second World War. I studied at the Art Students’ League and Columbia University and completed my BA cum laude at Mt. Holyoke, and my MA at Teachers College, which retains one of my pieces in its collection. I worked as an assistant to Nat Kaz, and worked with Tony Padavano at Columbia.

My work is known for connecting sculpture and narrative through installation, and has been shown in New York City, Paris, Costa Rica, Oslo, Albuquerque, and at Storm King sculpture park. I am an active member of the National Arts Club, where I serve as the co-chair of the Archaeology Committee. https://ceresgallery.org/?page_id=1080

Birds of Prey

ANNE MONDRO In my studio practice, I respond to the love, sadness, and grief experienced during times of illness and disease. I take great care in the making of my sculptural work to process these stories, honor them, and connect to others. In my crocheted work, I strive to perfect each stitch over and over out of a sign of care and respect embracing the lineage of traditional women’s craftwork as a “labor of love.” Crocheting with wire, I add a sense of permeance and structure to my memories and experiences.

Time spent in nature has sparked personal discoveries and intellectual curiosity. I create forms reminiscent of flora and anatomy that are often intertwined, as if growing or healing together or possible mended. I reflect on the strength and complexity found in the natural world, including our own bodies.

“Hope is a thing with feathers” is my first exploration of crocheting a knot as a metaphor for the strength and emotional complexity that surfaces during times of illness and disease along with the desire to secure moments of hope and joy amid grief. www.Annemondro.com @ammondro

Hope is Thing with Feathers

CHRISTINE MOTTAU I joined the Ceres community of artists in 2003. The gallery has always been a vital and thriving community of Women artists whose focus is excellence in art and the advancement of Women in the arts. The Gallery, under the direction of Stefany Benson, has provided an environment of exploration and discovery, support, encouragement, and artistic growth. My work has come into itself over the years, as has all the artists at Ceres. We witness each other’s progress and transformation and I believe every member feels a sense of connection and community.

There is a political and activism component to the gallery that sets it apart from others, whereby the feminist agenda is baked into the culture and civil, sexual, political, and environmental justice is the framework for our voice as a gallery. The artistic direction of Ceres has something to say and we say it in unity.

My recent work is based on chakra meditation theory.

Thin translucent layers of oil paint build up to create an experience that represents transcendence and the unconscious coming into consciousness. I am honored to be a member of Ceres Gallery and to celebrate this milestone in its history. www.christinemottau.com @christinemottau Blue Meditation

LIZ NDOYE I am a mixed media artist who enjoys using found and recycled materials to create cross-cultural artifacts like my dolls. Made from fabrics and bits and pieces of stuff that I have collected during my travels all over the world, as well as, everyday “throwaways” like plastic bags, they simulate objects from traditional cultures.

In fact, I am continuing to create a new culture based on my doll creatures.

The doll culture has its own universals including: a written alphabet and language, a governmental system, a religion and spiritual life, a complex family structure, and an active play and entertainment sector. For shows in the future, I will be fabricating a monetary component, the aesthetics and music of my dolls, etc. www.lizndoyeart.com @conchart

Large Goddess with her Entourage

MARY ALICE ORITO My art practice dates from the 1970’s when I began ink marker drawings of shells and mythical beasties which quickly morphed into a lifelong practice of mixed media. As a graduate of Parsons School of Design, I worked for several decades as a commercial designer in both the garment and entertainment industry. In the late 1980’s, I returned to university, completed a master’s in clinical social work to become psychotherapist. Upon retirement, I devoted my time to a full-time art practice.

In 2009, I became a member of the National Association of Women Artists, Inc, (NAWA) and later served as a two-term president and board member. I became a Ceres affiliate member in 2019 through the encouragement of Elizabeth Myers Castonguay. The membership is a remarkable group of accomplished and talented women artists and the leadership continues to provide with enthusiasm a tabula rasa for each member’s process. www.maryaliceorito.com @oritomaryalice

Venus Plaything

FRANCINE PERLMAN I've been a member of Ceres since 1995, and truthfully, I would not be an artist today if I hadn't joined. For years I exhibited huge constructions and installations at Ceres. Where else could I do that, and with such loving company, cheering me on? We cheer each other on, always.

When I no longer had the resources for large work, I went small, 2D or small sculpture, and found the same warm support. It doesn't matter that my work is all over the place, genre speaking, I feel really free in Ceres to go wherever I go. francineperlman.com @fsperlman

Listen Closely – Palestinians Have a Seat at the Table (table top)

NANCY QUIN I recently joined Ceres and I am grateful to be a part of this talented and supportive group of women artists.

My interest in exploring the diversity of steel guides my work through sculpture and abstraction. My welded and plasma cut metal along with sentimental and found objects form the foundation of my work. I embrace the balance between hard and soft materials often combining my handcrafted elements with natural and manufactured.

1932

ELIZABETH DOWNER RIKER I was born in Boston and raised in Paris. I started out as a filmmaker, studying at NYU’s graduate film program. After discovering my love for painting, I studied at the Art Students League in Manhattan. I lived for many years in the Central Valleys region of Oaxaca, Mexico where I painted people working the land. On my return to New York, I began a series of paintings of rooftop farms and community gardens to celebrate the greening of cities. Currently my work focuses on climate change. My most recent exhibit was inspired by the Surrealists and featured sculpture in addition to oil paintings.

I have been vice president of Ceres Gallery since 2017. Being a part of this formidable feminist art collective has been a transformative experience for me. Watching and learning from artists at Ceres, who have labored to show their work and create a space for women to support each other, has been extremely stimulating. I am very grateful to be in such a supportive environment that helps me to grow as an artist. www.elizabethdownerriker.com @elizabethdownerriker

Harvesting Corn

YU RONG My work includes drawings, paintings, and mixed medias. The materials I use depend on the theme of the work. Through the process of making art, memories of an event or a feeling are revived, distorted, and encrypted. www.yurong.work @yurong.work

Deformed

PHYLLIS ROSSER I am a founding member of Ceres Gallery and was gallery president for four years in the early 2000s. I use wood stripped bare of its bark and washed smooth by the Connecticut River in Bellows Falls, Vermont, to construct dynamic forms that invite contemplation. These wall hung structures vary in size from 12 inches to eight feet in length. Finding the energy of the wood a surrogate for my emotions, I sometimes arrange the branches into bundles of particular feelings like solitude or anger. I enjoy transforming and revaluing a material that is often considered refuse into an object that is alive. The wood, honed to its essence, is assembled to create a subtle play of color in shades of rust, hazel, silver and charcoal to make evident the ravages of time. www.phyllisrosser.com @phyllisrosser

Blending With the Shadows

JANE SEAVERS I am a New Mexico-based oil painter of landscapes and portraits in an impressionist style and I have been a member of Ceres Gallery since 2021. I feel so privileged to join with feminist artists of diverse backgrounds and excellent skills who reflect my values. I was formally educated at the University of Wisconsin and the University of California, San Diego as a professional nurse-midwife/nurse practitioner. My work as an artist has been influenced by my life experience as a nurse-midwife/family nurse practitioner in the indigenous communities in Alaska, Guatemala, and Costa Rica including migrant workers in a free clinic in California.

In 2002, I began a lifetime dream to study painting through college courses, workshops, and mentors. I have lived in New Mexico with my family since 1980, delivering babies in the birth centers and the local hospitals while raising my two sons with my husband. Silver City is just 90 miles north of our international border with Mexico. In 2019, as more and more migrants made their perilous journey to the border, many, including children, dying en route of dehydration and exposure, I felt compelled to paint the landscape of the border that included the figures of the migrants. Inspired by the narratives of the migrants I encountered; I began to paint their portraits. It is my desire to communicate my personal experience of the magic of the landscape as well as social issues that are close to my heart--the paradoxes of beauty and tragedy as we look inside at ourselves and the underbelly of the world around us. I feel so lucky to be able to show my art in group and solo shows at our gallery in the Chelsea Art District in New York City. www.janeseavers.com @janeseavers

Migrant Path

APARAJITA SEN My art resonates with a sense of mystery, poetry, lyrical rhythm, and movement of patterns in nature, our environment, and our earth. I am intrigued by symbolism and impressions which I like to present in a contemporary and abstract style with brilliant colors. Each painting is a product of deep reflection, meditation, and emotions that come from within. I enjoy bringing these bright compositions to my viewers with oils, acrylic, watercolors, and mixed media.

Over the last several years I have been keenly observing our beautiful earth through the clouds during my many travels around the world. I was always so drawn to what I saw that I decided to capture the vivid colors of those natural views on my canvas. As the climate crisis is a phenomenon that has always concerned me, I feel the need to use my artistic expression to raise awareness about ‘Our Earth’ and the environmental issues we face today. Reminding mankind to get together to work towards saving our earth makes it a safer place to live for future generations.

To reflect this passion, I started painting a new series called “Ridges.” Since I work mostly from imagination, the only thing I knew about each painting when I started working on them was my color palette. As I began laying the colors it all came to together naturally on the canvas. In each individual painting, I painstakingly set forth on the daunting task of bringing the majesty of our globe to my canvas as a tribute to the planet with which we are blessed. www.senjita.com Ridges 24

ANN R. SHAPIRO Overall, the relationship between feminism and climate change art is characterized by a shared commitment to challenging power structures, promoting justice, and fostering a more inclusive and sustainable world. By incorporating feminist perspectives and highlighting the interconnectedness of gender and environmental issues, climate change art can contribute to the broader feminist movement and advance the goals of gender equality and environmental sustainability.

The freedom to explore and develop your artwork is a vital aspect of any artist’s journey.

Ceres Gallery, as a space that values and supports women artists, encourages artistic experimentation and the exploration of new ideas. This freedom allows me to push the boundaries of creativity, take risks, and expand my artistic horizons. www.AnnRShapiro.com @shapiro.ann

Storm

IRINA SHEYNFELD I grew up in Odesa, Ukraine where I studied puppet making, painting, and sculpture at Odesa Theater Collage. Just before the Soviet Union collapsed I moved to NYC with my family and continued my studies at Parsons School of Design. I hold MA in Modern and Contemporary art and Market from Christie’s Education, I also earned MFA from School of Visual Arts.

In my practice, I uses a wide range of media: pastel, watercolor, oil, acrylic, printmaking, and computer-generated mixed media collages. My major sources of inspiration are artists such as Yayoi Kusama, Peter Doig, Hernan Bas, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Cecily Brown.

Every year I participate in numerous exhibitions nationally and abroad. And I am also a recipient of the COJECO’s Blueprint Fellowship and Grant. I was also selected four times to be an NYC Piano Artist for the Sing for Hope Pianos - a project by NYC that puts pianos in public places for everyone to enjoy and then donates them to schools, in 2017, 2018, and 2021, 2022. I am a very proud member of Ceres Gallery in NYC. Since the war broke out in Ukraine, together with my late husband I founded Odesa Peace Fund - a charity that provides funds and medical supplies to hospitals, schools, and nursing homes in Ukraine. https://odesapeacefund.net/ www.JazzNights.wordpress.com @irina.sheynfeld

Magic Mountain

PAM SHIELDS In my art I examine the beauty and power of the female body as it is, not the idealized version. I show the sagging breasts, wrinkled skin and folds of fat. Eleven years ago, I was searching for a gallery that would show my series of large charcoal drawings exploring female sexuality. Ceres was the only gallery that welcomed me with no restrictions. Ceres continues to provide a safe space for artists to create, experiment and grow; offering support and encouragement - a true community. www.pamshields.com @pamshields_art

Drawing from Life

SHIRLEY STEELE In the 1980's, I was a scientist at Bell Laboratories when I began to wonder if I could combine my passion for art with my enthusiasm for technology. In the '90's, I went to art school and learned traditional techniques, but after graduation, I migrated gradually back to the computer for exciting new experiments in art-technology. Now in my practice, I write my own computer code and paint in traditional media, usually combining the results in the same image.

I am so lucky to be a part of Ceres! It is a thoughtful, personally warm, supportive environment where I can learn from other artists, try out new ideas, and take creative risks. www.steelestudio.com @shirleysteele01

Think you're escaping…

JANE STEVENS My experiences at Ceres Gallery have been very exciting and affirming. I have met many very strong women artists who I admire and respect. Seeing the strong and thought provoking art of women artists each month has led me to be more confident in my own work.

My photographs capture the magical and spiritual quality a camera can record.

The photographs capture the essence and spirit of a place. Using this light sensitive medium, I capture a moment in time and the illusive quality of light.

I live and works in Chicago, IL, and am a curator, photographer, and art educator with work that focuses on both personal and natural landscapes. I have exhibited nationally and internationally including the Los Angeles Photography Center; Galeria Tonalli, Mexico City; University of Arizona, Tucson; J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky; and Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, Texas. www.ceresgallery.org/stevens.html

Winter Trees

MICHELLE STONE My paintings and sculptures bend towards an embrace of ambiguity, enigma and at times the darker or shadow side of life, because it feels familiar to me, having grown up in a family of artists and freaks. The continuing process engages in a dialogue joining observation and imagination. I’ve dedicated my energy to creating images and forms that question our human condition. while examining qualities and attitudes people and the natural world share: growth, transformation, and decay.

I joined Ceres many years ago and have shared my time in NYC with a most amazing group of intelligent, encouraging, creative women artmakers. I consider these relationships a gift and a treasure in my life. www.michellestoneart.com @MichelleStoneArt

Being

VIVIAN TSAO On Ceres 40th Anniversary - It was a poignant moment in 1984 when Ceres opened its door to me, an Asian painter working in the figurative direction. My exhibitions at the nonprofit arts organization led me to explore and to realize my individual voice in art. www.VivianTsaoArtist.com @viviantsaoartist

The Studio by Vivian Tsao

CARLYLE UPSON Trained as an art historian, I’ve sought inspiration from creators who walked before me.

I appreciate Georgia O’Keefe’s ability to see scorned inanimate objects like sticks & skulls imbued with sensuality. She saw complex beauty in simply worthless objects. I have found solace in the quiet of a sixteenth century Japanese Screen depicting blades of grass on gold leaf at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I’ve been entranced by the colors of fifteenth century Chinese Jun stoneware at the Art Institute of Chicago – a beguiling flowerpot saucer whose perfect proportions seem the visual manifestation of a long-forgotten equation.

I feel inspired by the drawings of Charles Darwin, a travel scientist, who documented subtle variations in creatures by repeatedly drawing them to document their consistencies and exceptions. Maps have always fascinated me - particularly the way a mathematical grid system is applied to the undulating topography of the living earth in attempts to quantify and explain her undulations. Maps are a way for us to understand the world around us. My Compass Rose series of watercolor paintings draws upon the traditional design of old maps while introducing elements of direction and path in a moral sense. www.carlyleupsonarts.com @carlyle.upson

Peacock Grass

MICAELA de VIVERO I have become interested in the production of jeans, and the history of the dying process in order to produce the blue that we all identify as connected with denim and jeans. Jeans have become commonplace. A large majority of the population on earth wears them. There are all kinds of jeans produced all over the world and sold for different prizes as well as for different promises of where they come from, what they will become, what they represent, etc. Their shape and their composition has changed and continues to change.

Fashion sexualizes bodies. Tight jeans on bodies carry with them a connotation of how sexualized bodies can become through fashion. Tight jeans on a structure that looks like legs has a similar effect. I wanted to explore this question in the #metoo era. www.micaeladevivero.com @micaela_de_vivero

Blue

JUDY WERLIN I have been a member of the Ceres Gallery and community since 2009. I have found the artist members to be both strongly individual and mutually supportive of each other. We form a unified group of creative women.

In my work I explore both quirkiness and devotion . I use an assortment of materials and, formally, one of my interests is the play between 2 dimensions and 3 dimensions, which means that much of my work is flat with some relief sculpture. www.JudyWerlin.com

Life Runs Amok!

Carole Kulikowski

Maria Torffield

#carolekulikowski

www.MariaTorffield.com

Chalda Maloff

Kathlene Tracy

www.Chalda.com

www.KathleneTracy.co m

INVITED GUESTS

Diversity of Women’s Voices

We thank the following artists for being part of our 40th anniversary celebration at Ceres Gallery:

Michele Benjamin Christine Bethea Nancy Billings Kimberly Callas Mei Mei Chang Ruby Chishti Olga Guerra Zhen Guo Megan Hildebrandt robin holder Kisha Johnson Jesal Kapadia Erin Karp Yoomee Ko Polly Kurasch Lilia Levin Yvette Lewis Jessica Maffia Nicole Marroquin

Nora Moore Lloyd Jaqueline Moses Georgia Rose Murray Jill Nelson Vernita Nemec Sarah Nguyen Elena Osterwalder Raksha Parekh Iris Present Susan Saunders Elinore Schnurr Asma Shikoh Elaine Soto Sandy Styer Shailee Thakkar Heather Topp Penny Treese Doris Vila Shining Zhu

Ceres Gallery, lifting up women’s voices since 1984

Michele Benjamin – Sun Bear in Times Square www.MicheleBenjamin.com

Christine Bethea, Lessons Learned ArtofReuse.blogspot.com

Nancy Billings – Hanging By A Thread www.NancyBDesigns.com

Kimberly Callas – Yarrow-Eyed www.KimberlyCallas.com

Mei Mei Chang – Untitled www.meimeichang.website

Ruby Chishti – A Thousand Flowers Lost and Preserved

Olga Guerra – The Opioid Crisis www.olgaguerra.us

Zhen Guo – Breathing with Joy www.ZhenguoArt.com

Megan Hildebrandt – The Test www.MeganLynnHildebrandt.com

robin holder – One of a Few www.robinholder.work

Kisha Johnson – How To Make It To The Top www.VisualConceptsNYC.com

Jesal Kapadia – So, what are our bonds, and where do we intersect?

Erin Karp - Lightseeker www.ErinMKarp.com

Yoomee Ko – 525600 Minutes www.YoomeeKo.com

Polly Kurasch - Habitat www.PollyKurasch.com

Lilia Levin – Forces www.LiliaLevin.nyc

Yvette Lewis – Cocoons and Wings @yvette.lewis.art

Nora Moore Lloyd – Abandoned Fort www.NativePics.org

Jessica Maffia – Untitled www.JessicaMaffia.com

Nicole Marroquin – Fuck This www.NicoleMarroquin.com

Jacqueline Moses – Memphis MS, I am a Man www.JacquelineMoses.com

Georgia Rose Murray - Virus Polaris www.GeorgiaRoseMurray.com

Jill Nelson – Homegrown

Vernita Nemec – Standing Tough www.ncognita.com

Elena Osterwalder – La Cuna de la Civilización www.ElenaOsterwalder-telier.com

Sarah Nguyen – Combining Form www.SarahNguyenart.com

Raksha Parekh – Your Own Infinitude

Iris Present – Nacre www.IrisPresent.com

Susan Saunders – What Lies Beneath www.SusanSaundersPhotography.com

Elinore Schnurr – The Blues II www.ESchnurrArt.com

Asma Shikoh – Detect, Predict, Assess, Intercept www.asmashikoh.com

Elaine Soto – Brunetella www.ElaineSoto.com

Sandy Styer – Original Matter

Shailee Thakkar – Business Casual www.ShaileeThakkar.com

Heather Topp – Two Expendables www.HeatherTopp.com

Penny Treese – Like a Prayer www.PennyTreese.com

Doris Vila – Delta Prime from the series Holograms for Someone Invisible www.VilaMedia.com

Shining Zhu – From March to May www.ShiningZhu.net

MICHELE BENJAMIN - My professional practice is based on the premise that art plays a significant role in social change reaching the community at large to raise public awareness. All forms of art are universally understood regardless of language, religion, or nationality. My nature-inspired and activist creations are associated with social causes such as wildlife conservation and women's empowerment.

CHRISTINE BETHEA - Christine CMC Bethea is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work evokes global references both melding and clashing intersections of Africa, Asia and Europe and celebrating the connectivity of artistic expression and human experience that some deny exists. Often her art challenges historic perception and reimagines tradition, while other works suggest delving into unsolicited and unapologetic truths. Creating in ceramics, fiber, paint, glass, photography or videography, CMC Bethea works in whatever medium or mixture of mediums that best tell the story she wants revealed.

NANCY BILLINGS - Creating art is my passion and my studio, the place where I go to achieve my Zen. Layering incongruous fabric, mono-printing, and freehand embroidery are among the techniques which help me achieve specific expressions and emotions. I am honored to participate in this prestigious Ceres 40th Anniversary exhibition.

KIMBERLY CALLAS – In my artwork and social practice, I address the disconnect between the science and emotion around the climate crisis. I focus on the human body to consider the ecological self. I see the body as a part of land -the land we always inhabit. I create using water-based mediums: dyed fabrics and resists, India ink, and water-soluble graphite, and cast or 3D printed life-size sculptures and reliefs. This eco-portrait mask, Yarrow-Eyed, is inspired by the British folklore that yarrow leaf pressed against the eyes was believed to give second sight. While at Newforest, a sustainability institute I co-founded, I worked with many herbalists. I was intrigued by an idea that they shared that ‘your healing grows outside your door’. This magical concept that healing plants grew next to the person that would need them spoke to an ecological intimacy that I wanted to share through my artwork. Yarrow is a key herb in the ecological apothecary.

MEI MEI CHANG - Among the many symbols of my mind is the awareness of similarities and differences between Eastern and Western cultures. There are connections between internal symbols and connections that stretch out to the external. I believe that there is as much to uncover beneath the surface as to discover on the surface. Our minds occupy a space between the conscious and the subconscious; my work encompasses what is beneath the awareness of consciousness and beyond the passive knowing of subconsciousness, and brings it to life "Another aspect of the human mind that I explore is its freedom from the boundaries of macro and micro scales and its power of infinitesimal infinitude. My work is a place for the mind to move without limits, from the work down through layers of ever more granular complexity."

RUBY CHISHTI – Through experimentation in melding the fabrics of found garments and social emory, I engage in establishing an intimate relationship with “fashion detritus, that allows me to initiate conversations about the persistence of the passage of time, communities surviving in hostile socioecological climates, and the collective experience of love, loss and being human. I refigure out-of-fashion clothing from my collection and scraps of discarded fashion garments from my Brooklyn neighborhood thrift shops. This work draws on the variegated legacies of textiles in South Asia; to trace how the history of the Subcontinentʼs textiles is tied to politics, culture, identity, and the British Empire. Exploring womenʼs identity, and exploring Indo-Islamic aesthetic patterns; the work responds to traditional arts where there is a regular scheme of inscribing flowers, leaves, or animals followed certain norms. I follow the pattern of the past but transforming flowers to make room for the women's bodies resting inside; only partially visible. Through the process of dismantling, reassembling the discarded mass-produced fabric of found clothing to produce recycled materials in reweaving of cultural memory and time, I create alternate narratives that bring into focus my critique of patriarchy and exclusion.

OLGA GUERRA – Prescription drugs are the most widely used substance in the United States and one of the most abused. Prescription drug abuse has led to increased demand on the street, with users often purchasing fake versions of market drugs that may contain harmful substances. How much prescription drugs cost on the street depends on several factors, most notably what type of drug is being purchased.

ZHEN GUO - My art is amalgamation of tradition and innovation, speaking to the very fabric of our society. It is a reflection of the triumphs and struggles, the silenced voices and injustices that we so often encounter. Through ink and brush, I strive to bring attention to these urgent matters, offering spaces of contemplation and evoking a sense of unity and hope.

MEGAN HILDEBRANDT - I am a cancer survivor and mother. These life events have significantly impacted my creative practice. Confronting my own mortality at age 25 and then experiencing the fragility and strength of birth, I have become obsessed with tracking time- documenting the small, routine moments of my life and my children’s lives. I am interested in content and parts of life that loop and repeat. I want to give the viewer intimate, personal moments that capture the both fleeting and endless seconds of being alive.

ROBIN HOLDER – robin holder’s practice is centered on cultural Identity: how racial, ethnic, gender, religious, and economic status determines our experiences of entitlement and/or victimization. Her intention is to convey how all of us are impacted by societal injustice and privilege. holder uses drawing, painting, linoleum block printing, collage, digital imaging, large format archival printing, foil stamping, lithography, mono-printing and photo transfer techniques on paper, wood and fabric. Her images are developed in series of works. This approach provides the latitude necessary to contemplate a particular theme until she has exhausted the concept. She selects specific techniques that are appropriate for each series. This approach prevents her creative experience from becoming predictable or repetitive.

KISHA JOHNSON - Kisha Johnson, a multimedia artist specializing in photography, abstract painting, and digital design. Although born in Brooklyn, she spent her formative years in Virginia Beach, VA, where her passion for art was nurtured and cultivated by her mother and high school art teacher. Kisha is a strong believer in the power of art for transformative healing and is dedicated to using her creative work as a tool for social change. She has been involved in "Brownsville Matters," an exhibition that showcases emerging artists from Brooklyn interpreting East Brooklyn's cultural identity to promote community building through public art. This exhibition received support from various organizations, including the NEA, The Municipal Art Society of New York, Brooklyn Arts Council, and Brownsville Community Justice Center. It was curated by Rujeko Hockley, the Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Kisha has had two solo shows, including "Through The Eyes of Beauty" in July 2014 that showcased her digital designs. In 2019 Kisha presented a body of work she entitled “The Believer Series”, showcasing her abstract painting and photography.

JESAL KAPADIA - Jesal Kapadia is an artist living between New York City and Bombay. Using photography, experimental film & video, writing, poetry and performance, her work explores the potential forms of non-capitalist subjectivities. She has been organizing, living and thinking together with different communities of care (Casablu; Autonomous Center for Art Time; Feminist Research on Violence; Revolutionary Health and Health for Revolution) to collectively hold spaces and situations through which to refuse, re-arrange and re-enchant the capacity of art in creating new knowledges and new sensibilities for being together. Practices of commoning - weaving the intelligence of friendship and affection in the connective fabric that allows for removing conscious and unconscious dynamics of patriarchy from our bodies - has been central to these experiments. Contact: jesalkapadia@gmail.com ERIN KARP - I made this photograph in Sintra, Portugal at Pena Palace in September 2023. I hadn't been there in 20 years & was so excited to return to photograph it for the first time. As expected, I was overjoyed by the colors & the incredible architecture, but this quiet moment also struck me; an abstract image reflecting my appreciation of light, shadow, shape, & texture. There's a sense of warmth in the light, movement in the shadows, & history in the texture. Pena Palace was overrun with tourists & tough to photograph the way I do, so moments like these were truly respite from the chaos, for which I was so grateful. For me, photography is a way to slow down & breathe in my surroundings, to seek out tranquility amidst chaos, & to find beauty in an oftentimes ugly world. I see elegance in architectural details that others typically fail to notice, as I embrace momentary juxtapositions of light, shadow, shape, & color that collectively make my heart sing. This is a new piece from my first European adventure since October 2019 & I'm thrilled to be showing it at Ceres!

YOOME KO – www.YooMeeKo.com

POLLY KURASCH - In my present work I use embroidery thread as a drawing material on fabric. The abstracted, surreal humans and animals may interact with an encroaching garden.

LILIA LEVIN – My drawings are a reaction to the uncertainty in the world and the ambiguity of the news we receive. They are about a earning for safety and need for understanding. People everywhere deserve to be understood and to understand. I would like to think that some hope is expressed in my drawings.

YVETTE LEWIS – Lewis’s paintings contain images of seeds and seed pods, cocoons and wings showing the smallest of life and revealing the power of the beginning. She presents images that interweave emotional automatic drawing with observational drawings. The abstract layers of images and colors of the natural and mystical world create a complex and surreal juxtaposition of these elements expressing a journey through life.

JESSICA MAFFIA - is a visual artist born and raised in New York City. Her work has been exhibited throughout the US and is currently in the Flat Files of Pierogi Gallery. Maffia created the artwork for two of musician Childish Gambino’s singles. She is the recipient of 13 artist residency fellowships and two grants from the Hell’s Kitchen Foundation. The artist’s public art installation, “Lanterns for Peace” was exhibited in various sites throughout the US in response to the 2016 elections. She created a permanent semisculptural mural on Broadway and 173rd for the Audubon Society’s Mural Project as well as a large mixed media mural in the lobby of Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation. She is currently in the design phase of a NYC Percent for Art permanent installation in a new public school.

NICOLE MARROQUIN - My drawings of pissed off women are based on my cousin, my mother, Beyonce and girls I went to highschool with. They showed me how to harness anger as a source of power. This is for femmes who got kicked out of class for refusing to “fix their face.” To see the series or buy a poster visit HOOFPRINTCHICAGO.COM NORA MOORE LLOYD - Although she grew up in the Chicago area, Nora now divides her time between the city and her Wisconsin home where she is an enrolled member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Nation. Her artistic focus is documenting stories of Indigenous elders, cultural practices related to harvesting birchbark and wild rice and the natural world. Her work has been shown nationally at state museums and galleries and is represented in corporate and university collections. She has also exhibited at national museums in Bolivia and Guatemala and her work has been featured in several nature-related and Native publications. Nora has been an active member of Chicago’s Native American community for decades and now volunteers rescuing injured raptors.

JACQUELINE MOSES – www.JacquelineMoses.com GEORGIA ROSE MURRAY - Virus Polaris’ was created in response to the incredible polar colours which Georgia witnessed erupting in the landscape during a research expedition to Ny Alesund, where she worked alongside polar scientists during a period of sunrise. Investigating and responding to Arctic colour, light and darkness, is at the centre of Georgia Rose Murray’s work. Her expressive, painterly application of mediums, and the symbolic compositions she creates, hint at how the landscape and atmosphere are shifting due to climate change. For more information visit www.georgiarosemurray.com.

JILL NELSON - After a long career as a journalist and writer, I started making collage a decade ago when words started to feel clumsy and in articulate. Learning a visual language has been fascinating, challenging, frustrating, and at times exhilarating. I didn’t know that words needed a break, or that I needed one too.

VERNITA NEMEC For me, the making of art is like having a dream-- coming from within, the outpouring having a life of its own. In my role as artist I am but a messenger, a shaman. My concern about the environment is currently my primary motive for my artmaking and as much as possible, I use trash & recycled material to make my art. I explore chance connections by making art of lowly materials, of beautiful detritus and use my art as a way to maybe understand, to perhaps convince people to never throw anything away. Currently, I am most concerned with the plastic that is clogging our environment & so am creating art from plastic detritus. It is said that 90% of natural water contains microscopic plastic

SARAH NGUYEN - "Indo" is part of an ongoing series using storytelling as a safe place to heal and explore family trauma. The hand -cut, intricate compositions are mostly landscape based and feature symbolic motifs—flora, fauna, and an ever-changing moon—to elicit childhood memories of myths, fables, and folklore. The large sheets are hung from the ceiling and away from the wall so that directed light casts strong shadows behind them, a nod to the flickering, fire-lit rituals of our paleo ancestors. Fiber cutting is a means of making drawing three-dimensional for the lacy panels entices us with their complexity and content. This work is inspired by family lore and images surrounding the people I love.

ELENA OSTERWALDER - My studio is full of sealed glass jars containing yellows, reds, blues, purples different organic dyes made out of flowers, leaves, insects, and different mordants. Jars that stay hermetically sealed till the moment when they will be poured onto handmade – bark paper – AMATE. -* and left to dry protected with either wax paper or bubble wrap. The results are unpredictable but always a surprise. They are a blend of lines, shapes, textures, colors a formal composition shaped by an organic approach. The element of surprise is multi-faceted from the color that is produced to the myriad of interpretations of the piece from the eyes of thebeholder. * Amate = bark paper and the organic colors have their roots in the pre- Hispanic traditions of Meso America, where the artist was born.

RAKSHA PAREKH - Raksha Parekh is a Los Angeles based artist. She migrated with her family to the United States from Southern Africa. She is a third generation Indian of her family to be born in Southern Africa.

Drawing from her Indian cultural heritage, Parekh creates textured visual images that reflect, question and remind us who we really are. We see our relationship to the elements around us, how we are reflections of the very earth we come from and the unstoppable potential for life to emerge from the most deceptively barren of places, the never ending cycle of life. Life implies death and death implies life. Using materials from nature which already have their own deep history embedded in them, such as ashes from redwoods burnt down in fires, sand and pigments from layers of sediment laid down by ancient oceans, mud dug out by river crabs on a sandy bank etc. All this implies an unmistakable connection to the whole of existence.

IRIS PRESENT - My work is inspired by nature, utilizing a color vocabulary that I hope encourages the viewer to experience an emotional response. I try to convey a feeling of peace, a balm to the nervous system, that also stimulates joy.

SUSAN SAUNDERS - Photography has been a life-long passion. I acquired my first camera when I was 12 and used it to chronicle my days growing up in south Texas. I started photographing seriously when I was in college in Manhattan, and I created an extensive archive of NYC street photographs from the 1970s and ‘80s. Several of these were included in a recent NY Times article about city life in the ‘70s, as well as in various internet collections like Vintage Everyday. For the past year, I’ve been working with a mirrorless camera converted to capture infrared light. My photographs can be seen at the William Ris Gallery on the North Fork of Long Island, in Jamesport NY. ELINOR SCHNURR - "It was a corporate party; all sizes and shapes participating in a spontaneous conviviality of dancing with fellow workers. The implied motion that I’m expressing causes us, the viewers of the painting, to visually experience the dancing figures in pieces that move in and about, creating new configurations that mimic the figures in motion.”

ASMA SHIKOH – In her mixed media works, Asma investigates the connections between the physical and the spiritual - the memories of the body that reside in the soul. As a woman she searches for ownership within displacement, setting up home in temporary permanence, and discovering deeper meanings in fleeting connections with the cities she lives in and its peoples. In and outside these drawings, Asma strives to find ‘home’ as tranquility in the innermost intimate space i.e. the heart. This needs to be protected and fortified.

ELAINE SOTO - La Brunettella is a linocut print representative of my work on Black Madonnas worldwide. I started researching and painting the Black Madonna in 1992. My work is documented in my memoir, My Journey to the Black Madonna, published in 2022. La Brunettella is from my recent

pilgrimage to Black Madonna sites in Southern Italy, led by Alessandra Belloni. Alessandra is an Italian singer, percussionist, and author devoted to the Black Madonna.

This Madonna is one of the seven sisters. They are Black Madonnas known for healing in southern Italy.

She is in a mountain Church in Moiano. When we visited, Alessandra sang with a group of women from the area, musicians played bagpipes, and we played frame drums in honor of the Black Madonna.

Healing happened as all the group members had tears in their eyes. Some sobbed as they prayed. I felt a great release of sadness and tension in my right shoulder, and I cried. Early settlers in the area were Egyptian, and she is Isis.

SANDY STYER - Since kindergarten, I’ve been a collage artist; my first work was a drawing of a clothesline under a blue crayon sky, with tiny cutout fabric shirts and skirts glued along the line. Years passed, life happened, and I returned to collage about fifteen years ago through a chance encounter with Alexandra Sheldon at a workshop at New England’s Snow Farm.

My goal in every collage is to create something of interest which will draw the viewer in over and over again. I work almost exclusively with hand painted papers and fond papers, markers and some paint on Bristol. In this Original Matter series my challenge to myself was to make images which were as expressive as possible, using as few pieces of material as possible. This piece is simply paper on paper.

I was introduced to the beautiful Ceres Gallery by Shirley Steele, a longtime friend and extraordinary artist, and have taken part in the gallery’s Exposures shows from time to time, as well as showing in numerous other galleries including the Montclair Art Museum, the Taos Art Museum, and The Art Students League. In addition, I’ve made and sent over 500 unique original postcards for various campaigns in the Postcards to Voters project.

SHAILEE THAKKAR - I am an emerging visual artist who uses sketchbooks to incubate ideas and experiment. This has led me to create densely-packed pen and watercolor drawings with repetitive lines as a way to work through some personal challenges. This particular piece was inspired by a sketch of a stranger's wrinkled white shirt. I am excited to publicly share a piece from my first body of work and I am eager to continue growing as an artist.

HEATHER TOPP - I have some words that seem to hang in the air like cartoon bubbles over so much of the time I spend when working on my art. It becomes not just shaping, manipulating the medium with my hands but the constant inner conversations that ebb and flow and turn and often not just about coercing desired results. I love working in clay but it is a non-renewable resource. And in my garden, in the fall, I pull out and compost all the beautiful flowers that colored and textured my space and in the spring, one of the exercises I can barely stand is thinning carrots from the earth that nurtures and feeds, deciding who stays who grows. Expendable is a word that often bubbles up. “Two Expendables” is a visual translation, with stoneware, iron oxide and copper wire, nonrenewable resources extracted from the earth ...Two of many, they talk to me of the expansive powers justifying oppression poverty war climate inequality religion gender bias... all these words expose and extinguish existence. and more from the bubbles... deliberate neglect, economic oppression, a global for profit economy of extraction, numbers missing, bodies counted no names. “Two Expendables” PENNY TREESE - Penny Treese’s artistic exploration is an odyssey of self-discovery and naturecentered inspiration. During a transformative painting retreat in Costa Rica, she ventured into the ocean, allowing the sea to saturate a raw canvas wrapped around her body. This immersive experience drew her nearer to an uninhibited version of herself, guiding her to imprint the canvas with her sand-covered body, giving birth to the inception of her evocative artwork series, “Lift You Like a Prayer”. Treese’s creative process is deeply rooted in the indigenous elements of her surroundings, where sand, clay, rainwater, flora, and even fire embers become both pigments and muses. Her art unfolds as a narrative that maintains an element of unpredictability, yet remains deliberately dedicated to incorporating primarily natural elements.

“Lift You Like a Prayer” and her other female-inspired works often unveil sensual figures, their arms outstretched, inviting observers to celebrate the glory of the divine female. Each piece is born from her life’s journey and her deep connection to source. Treese’s ultimate dream is for her art to give each viewer a vivid realization of their rare beauty and an uncharted sense of freedom. Through her creations,

she endeavors to provide transformative awakenings, inviting each observer to embrace their uniqueness and illuminate the beauty that resides within.

DORIS VILA - stitches together high and low tech to build narrative spaces. In her responsive environments viewers' bodies trigger sounds, video and holographic imagery. Story elements stretch out in space as well as time. In recent work, words swarm like birds, flying in and out of linear readability through an artificial-life algorithm. Born in Miami of Cuban family, she studied at University of California, Berkeley, and Hunter College. She frequently shows internationally, lectures widely, and is a longtime observer of bird flocks. www.vilamedia.com SHINING ZHU - I see myself in the knotted twine - holding so much tension yet appearing to be at ease.

Upon first glance, the twine accumulations seem quiet and delicate, yet they insist on hanging in gravity with resoluteness. As I continue to leave my traces on the materials, the materials leave their marks on my hands. My hands remember where they met.

CERES GALLERY

OPENROADCREATIONS.COM

CERES GALLERY

OPENROADCREATIONS.COM