PIXERINA WITCHERINA | Joan Bankemper, Ruth Marten & Jenny Lynn McNutt

Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild · Kleinert/James Center for the Arts

36 Tinker Street · Woodstock, N.Y. · 12498

June 28 – August 4, 2024

Gallery Hours: Friday – Monday, 12 – 5pm or by appointment: 845-679-2079

OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, June 28, 2024  4:00 – 6:00 PM

 (Woodstock, N.Y.) – In the exhibition Pixerina Witcherina Magisterium, curator Julie Heffernan brings together the works of Joan Bankemper, Ruth Marten and Jenny Lynn McNutt in an abundant display of “too muchness.”  Based on Virginia Woolf’s term for her secret language of play, Pixerina Witcherina captures a whirlwind of weird sculptural forms, heady designs and humorous portraits in a powerful exploration of these artists’ rich interior worlds. 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Joan Bankemper – Joan Bankemper received her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and  MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Upon moving to  NYC she radically challenged her academic training to pursue site-specific installations using gardens and the community as her primary medium; in that way Bankemper was able to fully incorporate her ‘social practice’ into her art making. Bankemper has had numerous exhibitions throughout the country, including at Creative Time, Inc., NY; The New Museum, NY; Artpace, San Antonio, TX; The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA; and Wave Hill, Riverdale, NY. Bankemper has received a number of grants and awards, including a George Sugarman Foundation grant, the NEA, and the Gabi Award from the McColl Center in Uptown Charlotte, NC, and most recently the Pollock Krasner in 2023, . 

Ruth Marten – Formerly a book and fashion illustrator as well as the first female tattoo artist in New York City (when it was still illegal!), Marten brings a consummate artistry to her drawings, transforming old prints into cutting edge aesthetic responses to our most pressing contemporary issues. An ease and suppleness characterize her linework, lifting the original print to another plane of beauty with masterly skill and an absurdist’s wit. Marten has exhibited her work widely, both nationally and internationally, most recently in Cologne, Germany at the Van der Grinten Galerie and in a retrospective entitled Dream Lover at the Max Ernst Museum in Brül, Germany.

Jenny Lynn McNutt –  Jenny Lynn McNutt has shown her work both nationally and internationally, in such far flung venues as China and West Africa. In 2019 her ceramic sculptures were included in the American Academy of Arts & Letters, Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts in NY, McNutt’s work will be featured in an upcoming group show entitled Biophilia at Pamela Salisbury, Hudson, NY. Numerous recent NY group shows include: Ceramics + Drawing into Sculpture, Anthro-Shift, Cosmophilia, Make Art Not War, Claytopian New York, Pushing the Wall, and Dance with Me. 

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Julie Heffernan –  is an American artist whose paintings reflects on environmental, (art) historical, feminist, literary, social, and political subjects. Heffernan was raised in Northern California, received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking and painting from University of California at Santa Cruz, and earned her MFA at Yale School of Art. She is a Professor of Fine Arts at Montclair State University and Co-founder of the journal Painters on Paintings. Heffernan will be having a solo exhibition in November at Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco and her graphic novel Babe in the Woods, or the Art of Getting Lost (Algonquin) will be coming out in September.

About the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild:

The Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild is a regional center for the arts located in Woodstock, New York. From its 250-acre mountainside campus and its arts and performance center in the village of Woodstock, Byrdcliffe offers an integrated program of exhibitions, performances, classes, workshops, symposia, and artists’ residencies. Byrdcliffe embraces all disciplines of artistic endeavor in a collaborative spirit, and seeks creative partnership with other not-for-profit and educational entities in order to leverage its unique resources for the benefit of the cultural life of the Hudson Valley region. Byrdcliffe was founded in 1902 and has operated as a nonprofit organization since 1938.  Learn more about the history of Byrdcliffe. Walking tours are conducted regularly during the summer, and visitors can access a map here.