Hoyt and be Gallery Review by Paul Smart
From the Ulster Publishing Almanac July 3 2008
WAXING LYRICAL
Reception and talk at be Gallery in
High Falls kicks off new Judith Hoyt Exhibition
Judith Hoyt may be the region’s quintessential contemporary artist. born and raised in the Catskill Mountains, she started taking classes at the innovative Art Awareness artists’ colony in Lexington during its heyday in the 1970s, when the rural site became a creative hot bed for printmakers and image-makers, performance artists and site-specific sculptors. She was 15 at the time and went on to get an Art degree at SUNY-New Paltz, in whose vicinity she eventually settled to raise two sons – and begin experimenting in collage techniques using found metal and other treasures that she started accumulating.
Eventually, Hoyt discovered the region’s current medium of choice: encaustics (made at Kingston’s influential R& F paints). She started showing her sophisticated takes on the folk idiom regionally and, increasingly, on a national and international basis. Her work were picked up by a host of major cultural institutions and private collectors. She created her own iconography, with each piece a quiet narrative all its own.
Through it all, she stayed local–and kept her prices, by and large, well below the $1,000 threshold that has long kept local collectors at bay. That means, at this point, that Hoyt has become one of those artists whose works are everywhere in the region and increasingly redolent and defining of its particular strengths elsewhere.
“My collages are about old material used to create new work depicted in scraps of paper, fabric and found metal,” she has said of her work in simple, uncompromising terms matching her quiet, unobtrusive persona. “I rescue metal from alongside the road, pages from old books and discarded fabrics from another time. This material is discolored, corroded and misshapen by the random process of history – a history that gets passed on to the figures.”
Her encaustic works – usually square-shaped and dense with imagery and textures beneath layers of wax encasements – are like opened drawers in a forgotten relative’s closed-up home. they feel mysterious, somewhat sad; and yet all incorporate a childlike sense of wonder that’s inevitably enlivening.Her sculptures feel like dreamscapes come to waking life, somewhat ancient and very new simultaneously. New, now, are a series of pendant pieces that are basically small paintings or sculptures that one wears, and then displays when not worn.
It all makes for a fabulous viewing, seen together as in the new “Twice Told Tales” exhibit of new works at Barbara Esmark’s BE Gallery in High Falls. The same venue is also hosting a serenely fabulous show of the Gallery’s other fine artists upstairs during the current run, including great new pieces by such local favorites as Deirdre Leber, Lynne Friedman, Sara Harris, Anique Taylor and great new discoveries Greg Arnett and Laura Coffey.
The Hoyt show runs from July 4 through August 11.
PAUL SMART
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| 1 Comment »Color and Motion: Daniel Humair
Daniel Humair’s mixed media works are a new addition to the Gallery. Light, color, motion and joy are part of Humair’s language. Of Swiss origins, Humair now lives in Paris, traveling each year to Africa for an extended holiday. I found Daniel’s paintings because I was looking for a CD that was out of print. Humair is a reknown jazz drummer and his CD with Kenny Baron was impossible to find elsewhere.
Entering his website, I got lost in his imagery and the vibrance of his work. His abstractions give visual form to the spontaneity and mastery that Humair brings to his music. We spoke for more than a year via e-mail and phone and late last year we met in New York City.
Humair is becoming as well known for his artwork as he is for his drum work, and can be found in galleries in Paris and throughout Europe. You can also visit his website to see more images – www.danielhumair.com – but, it’s better to see them in person to fully enjoy the experience and make it your own. You can make your own comments, also, below.