June: Kaminsky Family & Samuel Gray

Fayetteville Underground June 3rd 5-8pm

First Thursday opening reception.

Kaminsky Family Show & Samuel Gray: Lift my eyes to you

Join us this June as the Fayetteville Underground presents works from all four members of the talented Kaminsky family. Hank Kaminsky will bring hundreds of new pieces of jewelry to the E Street Gallery along with a room full of new sculptural works in the Revolver Gallery showing along side his wife Jo Anne Kaminsky's beautiful abstract oil paintings. Their son, Jessie Kaminsky, currently an artist in residence at Boston Center for the Arts, will hang an enormous installation in the Fayetteville Underground circular foyer. Daniel Kaminsky who lives in San Francisco, will be showing his film loops and collage in the Hive.

We are also thrilled to share the new works of Samuel Gray, a young, prolific Underground Studio artist in the Vault Gallery. Samuel's impressive charcoal pieces are sure to amaze and inspire! June is going to be a very exciting month at the Fayetteville Underground!

Hank Kaminsky

Hank Kaminsky

Artist's Statement:
I am working on a project called the Sacred Ground. With symbols and words integrated into the surfaces, the sculptures speak about the sacred nature of the Earth and the concepts of peace, citizenship, fairness, and other positive values we hold as a community. The pavement or background of the sculptures contains language contributed by various members of the community. On top of that language, which is an inherent component of the sculptures, are succinct words and forms that convey the concept of hallowed ground. I believe that art is the symbolic transformation of experience and that the sharing of these symbols acknowledges art’s significance in society.

Hank Kaminsky believes the artist is an integral part of the community. He has been making sculptures for 50 years and is still concerned with finding the shape of the face of god. He has many public sculptures, including the World Peace Prayer fountain on the Fayetteville Town Square, which was sculpted and cast in his own studio and foundry in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Jo Ann Kaminsky

Jo Ann Kaminsky

Artist’s Statement:
These oil paintings present a personal process, which is a more free and timeless zone than what my puppets and other work entail. When a person enters the altered state of creative expression, many things happen. The artist (any person making art) enters a dream space where the right brain can use powers that are inaccessible during everyday rational activities.

Jo Ann Kaminsky is an artist, therapist, art teacher, and owner of the Art Experience, a center for expressive arts, healing and growth in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She has a private counseling/art therapy practice, where she sees people individually or in families or groups. She leads a personal growth group for adults using masks as metaphor for change. She is also an Artist-In-Education

Jesse Kaminsky

Jesse Kaminsky

Artist's Statement:
The work that I'm making for the show in Fayetteville fits into a larger body of work that is about how to make shapes using very simple rules and processes. I'm interested in the way the natural world creates extremely complex shapes from the simplest building blocks. I have a feeling that the rules of construction are the key. The pieces I'm working on in this vein begin with a simple shape and an equally simple set of rules and then I follow it to its conclusion.

Jesse Kaminsky lives in Boston Mass and works in computers at M.I.T. He is currently the artist in residence at the Boston Center for the Arts.

Daniel Kaminsky

Daniel Kaminsky

Artist's Statement:
Known as a retro artist, his work involves 16 mm film, view master film loops with sound and two-dimensional collage. Also a writer and a guitarist, Daniel will join his mother (on drums) and his brother (playing sax) as they make music for the evening.

Daniel Kaminsky lives in San Francisco where he is studying film at City College.

Samuel Gray

Samuel Gray: Lift my eyes to you

Artist's Statement:

As an artist I know that I have an opportunity to affect someone with my images. I want my work to connect to people and their emotions. As I strive to make a positive impact in this world and not let my talents go to waste, I am humbled by the responsibility to make a difference for good.

My exhibition in the Vault Gallery will be focused on children living in a ministry-based orphanage that cares for AIDS orphans and abandoned children in Mozambique, Africa. I will be living at the orphanage and helping to take care of these children during the summer and wanted to dedicate a body of work to them. The purpose of these pieces is to reflect the hope for change and promise that these children have in the midst of their hardship.

Samuel Gray is currently in the B.F.A program at the University of Arkansas and has additional representation in Little Rock at Boswell Mourot Fine Art Gallery. He has created all new work for his exhibition for the Fayetteville Underground. We are thrilled to have this dedicated young artist in our stable of studio artists at the Fayetteville Underground. Come and get to know him and his work.

Listen to artist Samuel Gray talk about his latest exhibition, "Life my eyes to you."
This interview originally aired on KUAF Ozarks at Large 91.3fm

As always there are open studios to tour, work in progress to see, and artists to meet. There will be new work by the talented underground studio artists in the back Vault gallery and the fine crafts you have come to expect in the E Street Gallery.

Once again this is all a part of the cultural amenity that is the visual arts on the First Thursday of every month at the Fayetteville Underground on the Fayetteville Square from 5-8p.m.

Tell your friends and see you there!
The exhibitions will remain up through June 26th.

The Fayetteville Underground
Basement of One East Square Plaza
East side of the Historic Fayetteville Square.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gallery Hours W-F 12-7pm
Saturday 10-5pm
4 galleries: Open Studios
www.fayettevilleunderground.com
www.fayettevilleunderground.blogspot.com