by Amy Alinkofsky
On Sunday, March 8, 2020, from 2-5p, Rockland Center for the Arts will hold an opening reception for its three new exhibits: Anthropocene Outpost, Perspectives, and You Are Here. Each focuses on life stories, stories of the future in a ravaged earth, cultural identity stories, and individualized expressions of everyday life.
Camp Solar Generator
Anthropocene Outpost presents depictions of human encounters with a damaged post-industrial landscape. Zachary Skinner exhibits a selection of paintings and sculptures that depict the dystopian point of view of a nomadic lifestyle while roaming an environmentally-ravaged Earth. He documents the fictional journey of a sojourner of this new world who has evolved a more symbiotic connection to the ruined landscape, and the accompanying encounters along the way.
The nomad’s story is humanity’s future story. Its source material is based on current scientific findings about our present-day Earth and the impending threats to our existence from the effects of unbridled climate change. Skinner’s work reflects his interest in the increasingly violent weather caused by our warming climate, geoengineering, and the Anthropocene landscape.
Perspectives presents art focusing on the cultural identity and autobiographical storytelling by invited artists Jean Michel Dissake, Dalit Gurevich, Russ Ritell, Mary Ting, and Jayoung Yoon. These artists’ works reflect on our stories–our devotions, memories, childhood circumstances, displacement of vulnerable communities, environmental issues, loss, and the process of mourning. Many are connections between people and nature, and people of different countries and beliefs. Can street life be portrayed as a story to give understanding and compassion and broaden our own thought process? How can the use of human hair create an intimate dialogue and focus the viewer’s attention on the body? Can a portrait reveal the inner struggle of a woman to survive?
Leila Dorne’s Happy Birthday
For the exhibition You Are Here, Rockland Center for the Arts invited artists to visually represent an aspect of their life stories. This exhibition explores the issues and individual expressions of everyday life as portrayed through a diverse range of artists and disciplines. The featured artists include Shahaan Azeem, Leila Dorne, Yasmin Demirel Kackar, Mark Lyon, Pam Marchin, Pam Panzarino, Paulina Perlwitz, Lynn Penney, Stacy Seiler, Meghan Spiro, and Dan Wolf.
All three exhibits will be on view through April 19, 2020 and are free to the general public.
In addition to the exhibits, the premier of One Good Story, a short film by Nyack Sketch Log author and illustrator, Bill Batson, will be shown in the media space during the opening reception. The film features nine creatives who answer the question: “If you had only one good story to be remembered by, what would it be?” This 64 minute film, commissioned by RoCA, captures intimate vignettes, including a kitchen table chat with Malcolm X, a couple of brushes with death, an international pen-pal romance, and some local African American history with a through-line of perseverance, inventiveness from people who keep hope alive, and a song by Richard Maldonado to boot.
For more information contact: Rockland Center for the Arts, 845-358-0877, info@rocklandartcenter.org, or visit www.rocklandartcenter.org. Rockland Center for the Arts is located at 27 South Greenbush Rd, West Nyack, NY 10994. Gallery hours are: Mon-Fri 10a-4p; Sat and Sun 1-4p.
