The Issyra Gallery, which specializes in African Art, has finally reopened after Hurricane Sandy will rejoin the Gallery Walk with their unique exhibits right here in Hoboken. Issyra Gallery is a truly African Gallery with traditional and contemporary objects in its collection, founded by husband-and-wife team Issa and Rebecca Sow.T he Hoboken African Art Gallery represents talented African artists based both in Africa and in the USA.

The paintings currently in the gallery are pieces by Sengenalese artist and art instructor, Kre M'Baye. He was born in Dakar, Senegal and was nicknamed “Kre” as a primary school child because he used to draw constantly on the classroom blackboard with chalk (" craie" in french).

M'Baye is a disciple of Pierre Lods and was self-trained in the workshop of Peter Plastics Research Lods. In 1994 Gaston Madeira formed "Netty Guy" (The Three Baobabs), bringing together Kré M'Baye, Moussa N'Diaye Baydie M'Baye and Zulu, three painters representative of the School of Arts in Dakar, who in 1998 opened a gallery on the Senegalese island of N'gor and founded Workshops N'gor. He was a participant in the first event of Africa95, a year-long festival celebrating African arts in the UK and Africa, featuring 25 artists from 10 African countries and Britain.

All other pieces are traditional and contemporary pieces. The older pieces are often from anonymous artists as they were made to be used during rituals of initiation as their primary use. The furniture is also anonymous as made in various places in Africa for their everyday use.

Visit Issyra Gallery at 313 First St. For more information, email issyragallery@gmail.com or call (201) 459-0700.

MackeyBlue's collector Illene Weiss will continue to show her extensive Paint-by-Numbers collection at MackeyBlue for this month's Gallery Walk. How did this collection begin? Weiss says, "About 18 years ago, at a thrift store somewhere in New Hampshire, I purchased a very appealing painting of a forest landscape. I didn't know at the time that it was a Paint-by-Number(s) painting, but at some point I discovered that not only was it a PBN, but that another appealing painting I'd acquired elsewhere along the way was a PBN, too.

My Paint-by-Number(s) antennae became heightened and I moved from being a casual thrift store finder/collector into a period of semi-fanatic acquisition (thanks--or no thanks!--to eBay). I hope you enjoy the selections from my collection which are on display and for sale at MackeyBlue (the from-New-Hampshire forest landscape painting is hanging up there, though I'm not sure I'll be selling that one--it is, after all, my first).

FYI, the "fathers" of PBN are Max S. Klein, President of the Palmer Paint Company in Detroit, and Dan Robbins, an artist then making a living creating washable paint sets for children. Klein approached Robbins to see if he could come up with an idea "that could make anyone an artist and thereby expand the demand for paint." This was in the early 1950's when many post-war boom Americans, with some leisure time and expendable income, were taking up new hobbies."

For more info and images, check out:  www.paintbynumbermuseum.com

Jason Swartwood is a talented Hoboken-based artist remarkably with no formal art training. His unique mixed-media art has been included in two group shows at the Monroe Center. D's Soul Full Cafe is happy to show these innovative pieces on their walls for the month of May, along with some of his paintings.

Born and raised in our mile-square city, Jaime brings her songs to the stage for the month of May. If you’ve followed the Hoboken music scene at all, then you are likely familiar with her music. Along with brother Dom, cousin Ed Smith and friends Dave Entwistle and Michael Mitolo, Jaime has been rocking loyal fans in the band The Fave for some time now.

The Fave have been described as joyful and poignant, passionate and fun. They’re a band who has that rare gift of being both tight and loose at the same time. D's Soul Full Cafe is really excited to have Jaime playing this month.

Growing up in the Bronx under the watchful eye of a very protective grandmother, Benjamin Roman Jr. and his sister had a lot of time to while away indoors. He would fill hours sketching scenes of his apartment, images from TV, whatever was in front of him. He enjoyed drawing, but didn’t consider pursuing art as a career until he enrolled in New Jersey City University and met his faculty advisor, Professor Dennis Dittrich, who was also acting President of the Society of Illustrators in New York.

“He encouraged me and inspired me to be a better artist,” Roman says. “He told me, ‘You don’t need a degree to be an artist, but there’s a lot you can learn here.’” In Roman’s final year at NJCU, Professor Dittrich encouraged him to try his hand at watercolors, a medium he had been avoiding because he’d heard it was difficult. He quickly fell in love with the medium, and only regrets he didn’t try it sooner.

A series of Roman’s watercolor portraits of children will go on display from May 5 – June 30 in the Upper Gallery of the Museum in an exhibit titled, “Portraits of Childhood, Watercolors by Benjamin Roman.” The Museum invites the public to an opening reception from 2 – 5 p.m. on May 5, and again for an artist’s talk on June 9 at 4 p.m.

Roman earned a B.A. in Art Communication with a minor in Early Childhood Education, and has been an art teacher for kindergarten, pre-K and pre-school children in area schools for the past 16 years. He now teaches at Beyond Basic Learning, in Hoboken, and paints at least three or four times a week, working on commissioned portraits as well as paintings just for the sake of painting.

Naturally, as a teacher, he finds children a fascinating subject matter, but he also paints portraits of adults, and landscapes. He’s fascinated with the challenge of depicting in his subjects’ expressions the essence of what it means to be young and innocent. “To capture the warmth and heart revealed in a child’s face is my ultimate goal.”

One of his paintings, “Treasure of Innocence,” depicts a group of children in a grassy park, and hangs in the collections of the Union City Museum of Art at the William V. Musto Cultural Center. He’s also self-published two books of his paintings, as well as a book of poetry. Find out more about his work at benswatercolor.com.

Roman likes to work in layers, to give his paintings more detail and depth, almost like working in oils. He finds inspiration in artists as varied as Norman Rockwell, Mary Cassatt, Vermeer and Rembrandt. Though their styles are very different, they have in common the ability to tell a story and convey a moment in time that seems special. He’s also learned a lot about working with watercolors by studying the work of New Mexico-based Steve Hanks and Peruvian Rogger Oncoy. “Children are unpredictable, watercolor is too.”

This exhibition was made possible by a Block Grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs/Tourism Development, Thomas A. DeGise, County Executive, and the Board of Chosen Freeholders.

A unique painting exhibition titled “Movement” is currently in exhibit at the Right Angle Art Gallery in Hoboken from April 27th 2013 to May 27th 2013. The exhibition features a series of paintings by a talented, up-and-coming Hoboken artist Simin Vaswani. The artist combines spiritual, energetic and abstract motives in her colorful paintings. Such unique mixture of creativity leads the viewer onto a powerful journey of raw emotions, creativity and ultimately a purifying catharsis. Simin was born in India and her art is deeply rooted in healing and spiritual practices of both the Eastern and Western traditions.
For more information please contact Simin Vaswani at (646) 820-8779 or simin@siminvaswani.com or visit her website at www.siminvaswani.com.

About her piece entitles "Trance" to the left, Simin says, "This painting was created from a place of freedom and joy! It has a feeling of trance that could transport you into the limitless energies of the universe and perhaps into a different dimension. The different shades of blue and silver are dreamy and inspired by the waves of the ocean. You may feel these energies physically emerging from the core center of your body like a fountain starting from the solar plexus to the heart to the crown of your head."

During May's Gallery Walk, Hoboken artist Lou Carbone will feature prints from his Nude Collection at Tresorie. Carbone does much work with oil says," With diverse influences that include cubism, surrealism and the Mexican muralists, my oil paintings are a series of luminously colored pictorial spaces that are consequent of personal experience as filtered through dreams, visions and illusions. The images of anonymous figures in common settings depict ritual happening combined with feelings of sexual tension that are woven in with a quiet elegant motion."

"Each canvas is a merging of fact and fantasy that brings about the effect of a window to Renaissance like surroundings that are an amalgamation of animated yet mysterious places. Many of the objects and figures are structured, ordered and linear yet they create elements that have references to the mystical and spiritual, using multiple perspective and intense color to produce an elated mood. I have developed an assortment of visual symbols in an effort to pare cultural traditions and rituals to their essence and intensify the relationships between my subjects. My tools may be color, line and composition but the imagery is formed through the visceral process of thought." 

For more information about Lou Carbone and his work visit his website here at loucarbone.com.

Ricardo Roig, a familiar name to Hoboken residents, will be exhibiting new prints at Tresorie during the May Gallery Walk. The exhibit is made up of limited edition hand cut paper stencil screen prints.

About his process, Ricardo say, "My images come from life, dreams, visions, hallucinations, nightmares, but are always experienced through a specific atmospheric space. I attempt to evoke these experiences in my artwork, a representation of my world- through my eyes, mind and heart. My art is my elevated form of communication and allows me to express and understand my emotions in hopes of finding peace. I hope my art uplifts, sometimes challenges people to think, but always reminds us of our shared humanity in this natural world for which we are all born into." 

Paintings & Drawings by Robert Preston

on display from Friday, May 10 to Sunday, June 2, 2013

Opening Reception:
Friday, May 10, 2013 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM

Hoboken Gallery Walk Reception:
Sunday, May 19 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM

The gallery is open to the public Wednesday to Sunday
10:00 AM to 4:00 PM or by appointment

PROTO GALLERY
201.706.8337
66 Willow Avenue Hoboken, NJ 07030

Contemporary American Impressionist Lisa Palombo began her formal art education at the age of nine while spending summers at the acclaimed Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She later graduated from RISD with honors. She also completed graduate studies in Fine Art at the European Honors Program in Rome, Italy. Palombo produces magical florals, still lifes and landscapes in a unique style that is unmistakable in her expressive brushwork and fearless use of color. She is considered a master of color and the natural form. Palombo not only paints, but also regularly blogs and speaks at public venues. Her work has been featured on more than 40 book covers, including several New York Times bestsellers as well as showcased in Art & Antiques Magazine, Southern Living, The Artist’s Magazine, American Art Review and a Columbia Pictures movie, The Bounty Hunter.

Palombo is listed in the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., and the Marquis Who’s Who in American Art. Her paintings are featured in the books The Best of Oil Painting, Exploring Color, The Best of American Oil Artists (Vol. II) and Lisa Palombo: American Impressionist. Her work can also be found in select galleries, her own studio gallery and in private and corporate collections throughout the U.S.

For more information on the artist and her work visit her website here at www.lisapalombo.com.

Statement from MackeyBlue's collector Ilene Weiss:
"About 18 years ago, at a thrift store somewhere in New Hampshire, I purchased a very appealing painting of a forest landscape. I didn't know at the time that it was a Paint-by-Number(s) painting, but at some point I discovered that not only was it a PBN, but that another appealing painting I'd acquired elsewhere along the way was a PBN, too.

My Paint-by-Number(s) antennae became heightened and I moved from being a casual thrift store finder/collector into a period of semi-fanatic acquisition (thanks--or no thanks!--to eBay). I hope you enjoy the selections from my collection which are on display and for sale at MackeyBlue (the from-New-Hampshire forest landscape painting is hanging up there, though I'm not sure I'll be selling that one--it is, after all, my first).

FYI, the "fathers" of PBN are Max S. Klein, President of the Palmer Paint Company in Detroit, and Dan Robbins, an artist then making a living creating washable paint sets for children. Klein approached Robbins to see if he could come up with an idea "that could make anyone an artist and thereby expand the demand for paint." This was in the early 1950's when many post-war boom Americans, with some leisure time and expendable income, were taking up new hobbies."

For more info and images, check out:  www.paintbynumbermuseum.com