Stephanie Penn puts bonnets on her women, symbolic of a halo.
The Pierro Gallery in The Baird Center recently held an opening reception for “Female Hysteria,” which showcases the work of female artists expressing their thoughts on how women are viewed historically and currently.
Cassandra St. Jean of West Orange uses acrylic to express her inspired feelings and emotions. Her piece “Passenger” explores the emotional and spiritual landscape we carry but rarely articulate. It also investigates alignment, the harmony between who we are internally and what we express externally.
“Its energy feels intense and hard to ignore, showing big emotions that take up space,” St. Jean said. “The work pushes back against the idea that these emotions are something to hide, and instead I am interested in making them visible and important.”
Chloe Weiss Galkin, of South Orange, works mostly in acrylic, and on wood, painting women and flowers.
“My sad women,” she said, explaining that they are not sad on purpose, they just come out that way even though she uses bright colors. She also paints nudes from photographs she finds on Google. She said she wanted to paint a “normal looking body.”
Stephanie Penn of Maplewood works with acrylic on canvas. Putting a bonnet on her female subjects is symbolic of a halo.
“Care for oneself,” she said. “In a room that looks like she’s underwater; a spiritual awakening.”
Penn said she’s inspired by figures and subjects we don’t often see. “Usually a Black female figure directly,” she said. “It starts conversation—your experience of them, or their experience of you.”
Michelle Kurlan of Montclair creates ceramic pieces with raku fire.
“It’s an amazing process that’s quick,” she said. “It’s never the same twice.”
She said her work relates to elements that affect outcome, throwing paper and sawdust, and then combusts.
Kurlan has been working with ceramics for five years and raku fired pottery for four years.
“I became obsessed,” she said.
Originally from Manhattan, Kurlan taught art in the public school system, grades kindergarten through eighth grade. She has a studio in Manufacturer’s Village in East Orange.
Jamie Lehrhoff Levine of South Orange celebrated the 25th anniversary of her mom’s passing with her work.
“Thinking of my lineage, history with memory, the language is so prominent in family—food,” Levine said. In her art, she started using tools her family used in the household. In a pasta colander she placed real pearls.
“Each pearl represents an ancestor,” she said.
In another piece she created a hand extension on a cooking tool in honor of her grandmother making pierogies.
“The offering motion of doing it all the time,” she said.
And then there was a shoe with a sexy heel attached to a broom. “We’re sexy, we’re witches, and expected to multi-task. We are everything,” she said.
Kate Dodd of Orange was showcasing “Disaster Cycle-Rama” which she created out of paper after the Donald Trump inauguration. “I went through 1950s children’s encyclopedias and cut out everything that represented disaster,” she said.
Her other piece “Whack a Mole” is also in paper. She called it “an endless parade of famous men that pop-up again and again.” She was referring to famous men whose faces you continually see in encyclopedias.
“No women,” Dodd said. “They don’t show up in the same way.”
Nan Ring was showing her series, “Salt Kitchen” explaining that the term represented women’s work that is mostly unpaid. “Salary comes from ‘salt’ – we used to receive salarium.”
Salarium once referred to a “living allowance.” Ring uses that to represent the unacknowledged work women do.
In her painting there’s a storm brewing outside. “Color is very emotional,” Ring said. “I love paint. I let it drip in layers. In some places realistic, some not.”
She explained that she had a mentor who told her to tell the viewer where to look. “I love the detail and abstract as well,” she said.
Ring is from West Orange and has a studio at Manufacturer’s Village.
“Female Hysteria” was curated by Blake Smith of the Department of Recreation and Cultural Affairs, South Orange. The idea for the show came to her after seeing a piece by Ring at Manufacturer’s Village. “It was so powerful and beautiful,” she said. “Thinking about women, the weight they carry.”
Other artists in the show are Krista Punsalan and Melissa Johnson.
“Female Hysteria” is free and open to all. It will be on view through April 10.
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