Zena Gurbo with Lewis Danielski  / A free CrazyCool!!! Artist Talk 8/29 at 4PM

Cooperstown NY—Gilbertsville-based artist, Zena Gurbo, who lives in Brooklyn part-time, will discuss her creative process Thursday, August 29 at 4PM at the Art Garage near Cooperstown. Guest artist Lewis Danielski, whose latest work shares an affinity with Ms Gurbo’s, will join her. The gallery will open at 3PM with light refreshment and a chance to preview the group exhibition, CrazyCool!!! Reservations are recommended as seating is limited: email leartgarage@gmail.com or text 315-941-9607. Guests are reminded to please park on gallery lawns not on the town road.

The exhibition features Ms. Gurbo’s paintings— some one-of-a-kind bright figures on magnets– and artists George Hymas (Pierstown) Lucia Phillips (Hartwick). For the finale guest artist Lewis Danielski is joining the pantheon– also the legacy wood-working artists Lavern Kelley, Sulton Rogers and Louis Sherry, whose work is in many museums including the Smithsonian American Art and Fenimore Art Museums. The show is dedicated to the memory of Louis Sherry, a self-taught artist whose joyous wooden constructions enliven both galleries.

ZENA GURBO grew up surrounded by art. She has taught art and creative expression for over twenty years, with an emphasis on individuals with developmental disabilities. “Encouraging creative expression in others has given me access to unfettered insight and inspiration, and allowed me to stay curious and full of wonder for the artistic process,”  she noted. Her work is full of force and humor and emotion: even the titles express vulnerability and an open heart. She works with atypical materials including brown paper bags, twigs and string to create ‘process’ paintings and even a mobile – meaning  she creates in an intuitive fashion, and, through the act of creating, makes discoveries, including about herself. She noted that she “zones in and out to create usually blue lines that represent the various voices and characters that are all parts of me and the process.” Her paintings and magnets on display mostly use a palette of day-glow colors -the figures largely hot pink and the inner workings of the figures primarily shades of blue— “creating a very busy body.” 

Her work can end up with a decorative feeling and presents a complex array of characters, often embedded in the main figure. “Through this process I’ve been able to better understand myself and the world around me,” she explained. “I’m using the figure…colors and…process to explore my sub-conscious, the collective unconscious, to investigate, become aware and ideally to heal.”

Gurbo has exhibited in a number of spaces in Brooklyn. Her work can also be found in Walton at the KIPNZ gallery, in a show with her husband, the artist Simone Mantellassi, that will open on August 31 for the gallery’s final show.

Lewis Danielski is adding a few constructions to the show, building on the central figurative theme he shares with Ms Gurbo. An artist who largely resides in England and France, Danielski has long-time roots to Cooperstown and like Zurbo continues to live in the area each summer. He will offer small stylized figures on wood with varied treatments that suggest the raw energy of outside art—and visual letter-press  poetry. Unlike the others in the exhibition, Danielski has formal training (M.A., Royal Academy of Art, Visual Communication; BA, Univeristy for the Creative Arts, Illustration degree). His work was featured in the Art Garage Middle Bay two years ago in the exhibition, Brave New World, a two-person show with Michael Fedorov. As a guest artist, he will participate in the show for its final weeks.

Representative images can be found on FB and Instagram (@ArtGarageCooperstown) The Art Garage has been serving the area for 14 years with a rich array of artists creating contemporary and or/ outsider art. For more information please contact leartgarage@gmail.com , tel. 607-547-5327 or text / call 315-941-9607.