A photograph by Megan Guilainelli.
Two artists, photographer Megan Giulianelli and painter Hannah Linke, are currently exhibiting at the Glen Ridge train station.
Giulianelli is a borough resident and her photographs of the borough’s distinctive gas lamps are well-known while Linke, currently living in Philadelphia, hails from upstate New York. Her connection to Glen Ridge is by way of her grandmother, Ann Marie Linke, a member of the women’s club.
Both Guilianelli and Linke are exhibiting good work, but perhaps diametrically opposed. Whereas the photographs are meditative, the paintings offer surprises.
Giulianelli has been a resident for 25 years. Business brought her from Toronto to New York City, good fortune brought her to Glen Ridge.
“I fell in love with the gas lamps and tree-lined streets,” she said. “From day one, I started photographing the beautiful town.”
She said the oak trees on Adams Place look like soldiers guarding the lamps.
“When the town started switching the old lamps for newer ones, I started taking more and more pictures of the old ones,” she said. “The same thing with the old street signs. When the town started changing them, I went crazy photographing them.”
She even asked William Bartlett, the head of public works, to collect the signs for a fundraiser. She said there’s a stash of street signs saved for her at public works. The proceeds from a fundraiser would go to support Freeman Gardens.
“The old gas lamps, the street signs, they’re all part of the charm of this town,” she said. “Photographing them was a labor of love. I did it for myself. But once I opened my website, people started contacting me.”
Giulianelli is also a family photographer. Sometimes when she walks into someone’s house to photograph the family, on the wall is a gas lamp photo she took.
“It warms up my heart,” she said.
One photograph, of a fog-shrouded gas lamp, became very popular and can now only be purchased at the Mayor’s Gala.
Linke’s painting titled “Niagara Falls” is notable for its effective rendering of rocks in shallow water.
“I usually work with light applications of acrylic,” she said, “almost like watercolor. It took a lot of layers of transparency, but still had that crystal clear water effect.”
Another noteworthy painting is untitled. It is of a cluster of homes beneath an imposing castle.
“There was a funny story behind that painting,” Linke said. “I had given it to my grandmother for a club auction, but it never made it to the club. It’s on her wall at home. The houses are interpreted and not necessarily real, but the castle is real. Painters are such liars. A college teacher would say that in class.”
Linke attended Edenboro University, in New York state.
There’s an arresting self-portrait which looks like a selfie, but it is not.
“I had taped a mirror to the wall,” she said. “It was a strange perspective. It was taped two feet above my head. It was a strange angle.”
“Cottage in Wisconsin” is a diptych of a view of Gilbert Lake, in Wild Rose, Wis. But the two paintings are not side-by-side, but above and below. Linke worked from a photograph for this.
“I’m actually working on a painting of the Glen Ridge train station,” she said. “One of my favorite things about Glen Ridge are the gas lamps. My grandmother told me they used to come around with a long stick and light them.”
The Glen Ridge exhibition will open on Sunday, Nov. 9, from 2:30 to 5 p.m. Giulianelli;s work can be seen on her website www.vcaptureproductions.com as can Linke’s on her site: https://www.linkefinearts.com/gallery.
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