Under the Trestle | Oil painting on canvas by Joseph Reboli | 34” x 50”
From the collection of the Reboli Center for Art and History
In the more than 30 years that Joe Reboli painted and repainted the landscape and elements of it, he was continuously exploring light and form. The objects in the landscape he selected for his paintings were those whose textures and form intrigued him. This exhibit, Artistic Dimensions, features the work of Reboli and three other prominent artists whose works also embody the exploration of form. Pat Musick, noted sculptor, and two well-known painters, Bill Jersey and Doug Reina, contribute to the diverse illustration of form. Each of the artists will be featured in a Third Friday event: Doug Reina May 18, Bill Jersey June 15, and Pat Musick July 20. The Delano Studio of Setauket where Bill Jersey created watercolors will be featured in the History Gallery. A brief biography of each of the featured artists follows.
After the Storm | Oil painting on canvas by Bill Jersey | 36” x 36”
Bill Jersey.
A native of Port Jefferson NY, Bill Jersey began his seventy plus years in the arts at the age of 17, creating watercolors of historic buildings in Stony Brook and environs for Richard Delano Studio in Setauket. China plates with his watercolor drawings were sold at George Jensen in New York.
At 18, Bill joined the Navy and when the war was over, returned to attend college on the GI Bill, graduating from Wheaton (Illinois) in 1949 with a degree in fine art. An early job as the Art Director on Steve McQueen’s “The Blob” convinced him he wanted to make a career in film. With a Masters in film from USC, he began a distinguished career, his films garnering many awards, including two Oscar nominations. While filmmaking occupied his professional life, painting was always his passion.
Retiring from the film industry in 2008, Bill moved with his wife from Berkeley, CA to Lambertville, NJ, where he embarked on his second career – painting. His colorful landscape paintings soon received awards at local venues, including the annual prestigious Bucks County Phillips Mill show.
Bill paints most days in his home studio along the D & R Canal. He is a member of the Artist’s Gallery in Lambertville, where a selection of new work is displayed each month. The work in this show reflects his continuing interest in the architecture and history of barns in our ever-diminishing agrarian landscape.
Nest 16 | Bronze and alabaster sculpture by Pat Musick | 10” x 14” x 11”
Pat Musick.
Pat Musick has been making art since she was four years old. Today, her work, both sculptural and works on paper, is in over a hundred public and private collections in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe. Her work is included in many prestigious art museums…Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Toledo Museum, Grounds For Sculpture, Arkansas Arts Center, and the Alexandria, Huntsville (AL), and Albrecht-Kemper Museums. Through her work as both a painter and a sculptor, Pat seeks reconciliation between the forces that mankind exerts upon nature and the opposing forces that nature wields on our earth. Her art offers a message of harmony, balance, and peace.
Pat is well known for her work depicting the plight of 15,000 Native Americans who made the infamous Trail of Tears march in the late 1830’s when they were displaced by the government from the Southeastern US homes to the Oklahoma Territory. Two large-scale abstract sculptures inspired by this event are located on the main campus of the Tyson Food Corporation in Springdale, Arkansas and at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Her work is meditative, strong and serene. She is a devoted environmentalist, and this is reflected in her work. She and her husband, retired astronaut Jerry Carr, are deeply concerned about our fragile planet and their collaborative work explores this theme.
Shack | Oil, was painting on canvas by Doug Reina | 42” x 52”
Doug Reina.
Setauket artist Doug Reina has years of experience as both a noted plein air and studio painter and as a commercial artist. Although he studied art at Buffalo State College, Doug’s education really began at home; his father is a sculptor and was chairman of the Art Department at Nassau Community College, and his mother ran an art gallery in Cold Spring Harbor. At one time he was a serious cartoonist with his work published in The New Yorker magazine and King Features Syndicate. From creating art for publications to gallery exhibitions to receiving many artistic awards including the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Grant, Doug has an impressive curriculum vitae.
His paintings, long a favorite with collectors, have taken a new direction exploring surface, colors, values, and geometry. Doug’s new work are compositions of outdoor life that move from the literal to a more graphic representation, using bold colors and planes. As art critic Art Donovan writes, “There is neither struggle nor contemporary artistic pretense in Doug Reina’s paintings and, in an art world dominated by slick techniques and trendy styles, that is a most refreshing experience. Mr. Reina’s latest works, often oil-on-panel, have a modernist’s dispatch, turning an unremarkable subject/scene into wonderfully satisfying and recognizable images. In this, his work becomes transcendent, whereby the painted realization of the subject is more important than the personality of the artist behind it. There is space for contemplation in his images as he generously allows the viewer a wide emotional berth. Mr. Reina’s well-intended omission of ‘contemporary splash’ and trendy techniques earns for him canvases that will easily pass the test of time.”