Gail Neuman & Steve Palumbo Show Mixed Media Brilliance in Jamesport
East End Arts is showing mixed media works by member artists Gail Neuman and Steve Palumbo at their Rosalie Dimon Gallery, located on the second floor of the Jamesport Manor Inn (370 Manor Lane, Jamesport), through April 28, 2019. Both Palumbo and Neuman will be on hand for an artists reception with local wines and artisanal cheeses on Sunday, December 9 from 3–5 p.m.
A mixed media artist, jewelry maker and art instructor from Islip Terrace, Gail Neuman is showing her wire “tree portraits,” featuring framed miniature trees. “My wire sculptures show the bare bones of the trees I create—its soul, if you will,” the artist explains, adding, “The tree sculptures and frames are designed and created in a one-woman studio with each wire piece created solely by me beginning to end.”
Neuman’s work involves various metals, patinas and aging of both the metal and the frames. “Some are found materials, and some are created to look they have many years upon them,” the artist says. “This collection is all done using steel wire to reflect the feeling of winter and the anticipation of spring—they are standing there devoid of leaves naked and bare.”
Most of the frames, which surround the wire trees, are made from reclaimed siding from former homes, an old window, a vintage mirror frame and silhouette to hold a wire tree necklace made of aged copper. “Manipulating the wire into these forms is done with much care so that each piece I create speaks to the viewer and touches him or her in the same way it does me.”
Palumbo, a Quogue resident, has developed a unique style, creating “torn paper paintings” with paper collage on canvas. The work uses printed images pulled from newspapers and other sources, as well as colors applied like brushstrokes to the overall composition. “I was introduced to the Japanese art of chigiri-e about 20 years ago after seeing small collages made of rice and washi papers at a colleague’s home. I was instantly drawn to them,” Palumbo says.
“I like the idea of working with paper. Paper is organic. It lives and breathes. It tells me, during the process of tearing and pasting, where it wants to live on the canvas and what it wants to be,” the artist continues. “At times it is frustratingly thin, temperamental and shy—at other times, bold, thick and unbending—but there is always a unique dimension that it brings to my vision, a dimension that paints or pencil simply cannot [replicate].”
Incorporating the torn newsprint and newspaper photos into the classic Japanese papers, Palumbo deconstructs and then reconstructs them to change the original intent and meaning. “There is a definite energy that releases during the process of tearing and shredding the paper, which dictates its ultimate rearrangement onto the canvas,” Palumbo says. “I want the viewer to feel this energy, to put their hand on the surface of the piece and feel the paper breathe along with them—to be able, without even looking, to know the story that is being told.”
Made over the past year, Palumbo’s works on view range from landscape to figurative and incorporate both abstract and cubist elements, along with social commentary in some instances.
Exhibitions like this one at the Rosalie Dimon Gallery are a joint effort between East End Arts and the Jamesport Manor Inn. The show is on view Wednesdays to Sundays, 11:30 a.m.–9:30 p.m. during lunch and dinner service. Jamesport Manor will be closed January 1–26, 2019.
For more information, call 631-722-0500 or visit jamesportmanorinn.com or visit eastendarts.org.