Show highlights work of local artists

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The recreation department is exhibiting, at the Ridgewood Avenue train station until the end of October, works by four Glen Ridge artists. The show is co-curated by Stephanie Kosbuka and Megan Giulianelli. It opened Saturday, Sept. 14.

“This is our first group show,” Guilianelli said at the opening. “In the past, we’ve only had one artist exhibiting. But we wanted to open it up and these artists came forward.”

Guilianelli said there are about five art shows during the year and she hopes there will be a group show every summer.

The artists in the current show are Carol Martancik, Eric Rank, Jen Sendros-Keshka and Paul Zalewski.

Martancik, who works from photographs, is exhibiting five floral watercolors. Several of them make interesting use of a window frame. There is a lovely coleus and another of a Zanzibar croton — and quite startling if one is unfamiliar with the plant.

“I’m drawn to nature and I like shocking colors and I just finished a brilliant coleus,” Martancik said. “I’m not so much of a landscape artist. There’s a talent to that, but I’ve tried it.”

Sendros-Keska exhibited collages. One was made from a lampshade.

“I just really liked the texture,” she explained. “I was going to throw it out, but the texture was like the underbelly of a mushroom.

I did a collage class a few months ago at the Montclair Art Museum. A long time ago, I did some collages, but nothing like this.”

Zalewski was showing photo inkjet prints. Several images were combined with his poetry. “Most recently, I’ve been doing haiku,” he said. “When I see a picture, things come to mind that I want to say about it. Hopefully, they compliment each other.” Rank had a series of 5-inch square photographs of common objects or scenes. They were his “just” photos.

“I have my iPhone with me everyday,” he said. “These are just the way I seebobjects.”

Among the photos are a cup of coffee, a bowl of pears, a table napkin dispenser and a tree on the lawn at Glen Ridge High School, in the winter.

“What I like is that they’re intimate and small,” Rank said.

The train station, apart from commuter rush hours, does not have a regular schedule when it will be open.

But it also serves as the recreation department office. For hours, call 973-748-2924.