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“Games of Chance”, paintings by Fern T. Apfel

March 16, 2022 - April 16, 2022

      

The Lake George Arts Project’s Courthouse Gallery presents “Games of Chance”, a solo exhibition of paintings by Fern T. Apfel.

Listen to NCPR’s interview with Fern HERE.
View Dayna Peck’s interview with Fern on Look TV’s recent episode of “Where’s Dayna?” HERE.
View our online talk with the artist from Saturday, March 19 HERE.

Abstraction and narration fold together in Fern Apfel’s acrylic paintings. Her images contain memorabilia she has collected over many years.  Playing cards, letters, handwritten notes and other various ephemera are placed on top, or layered above, colored backgrounds in an intentionally considered minimal composition. In our contemporary time, where so much communication is digital, and emails are often deleted, these painted objects can center and ground us in the physical world, reminding us of our connections and threads of discourse through time, triggering memory, as well as recording our lives. Intricate and intimate, all the lettering is done freehand.

She says: “Most of the letters in my paintings can be read. They come from different decades and locations, but their content is amazingly and endearingly timeless. My paintings are about tracking the days of our lives: what we did when, who we saw, wrote to or thought about. Carefully placed, an empty notebook can evoke an elusive and often ambiguous new meaning, and a box of old playing cards can remind us of a past time. Playing cards can become our companions on a rainy afternoon or our accomplices in a magic trick. They suggest that we ponder the notion of chance and unpredictability in our lives”.

Fern Apfel earned her BA at the State University of NY at New Paltz, and also studied at The Art Students League of New York. She has exhibited widely in the Hudson Valley & Capital Region of New York where she lives. Currently her work is included in a show titled Pieced Together, at Pine Bush Library in Albany, NY, and a solo exhibition of her work will take place in early 2023 (date TBA) in the Main Gallery of The Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy, NY.  Recent past exhibitions include The Vision of Care, Woodstock Art Association. & Museum (Juror: Robert Shane, The Brooklyn Rail); Fence & Fence Select, The Art center of the Capital Region, Troy, NY; One in a Year 2020: Virtual Exhibition, The Painting Center, NY, NY; Fence & Fence Select – Best in Show, The Art Center of the Capital Region, Troy, NY (Juror: Ian Berry, Director of The Tang Teaching Museum, Skidmore College); Making a Way, South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend, IN; 2020 National Juried Exhibition, First Street Gallery, NY, NY (Juror: Andrew Arnot, Tibor de Nagy Gallery); National Prize Show, Cambridge, MA Art Assoc. (Juror: Sharon Butler, Two Coats of Paint); About What’s Going On, Hopkinton Center for the Arts, Hopkinton, MA; En Masse, Thompson Giroux Gallery, Chatham, NY; Upstate Invitational 2019, Laffer Gallery, Schuylerville, NY (Juror: Laura Von Rosk); Ear to the ground, Ely Center for Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT (Curator: Julie Torres).  In addition, Apfel’s work has been has exhibited at the Davis Orton and Concepto Galleries in Hudson, NY; The Ely Center for Contemporary Art in New Haven, CT; PULP Gallery in Holyoke, MA; Albany Center Gallery, Albany, NY; and Collar Works, Troy, NY.  Her work has been included in numerous presentations of “Artists of the Mohawk Hudson Regionial”, and she is four-time recipient of “Mohawk Hudson Regional Purchase Awards”. Other awards include a 2019 Martha Boschen Porter Fund; Individual Artists Grants from New York Foundation for the Arts and Twin Counties Cultural Fund Decentralization Program, and four SOS Grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts and Rensselaer County Council on the Arts.  Her work is in the in the permanent collections of The Hyde Collection, The Tang Teaching Museum, The Albany Institute of History & Art, SUNY Albany Museum, The Shaker Museum, Mount Lebanon, The Columbia County Historical Society & Museum, and The Art Students League of NY. Learn more at her website: https://ferntapfel.com.

View a slideshow of works in the exhibition HERE
View checklist of work for sale HERE

Learn more about Fern Apfel’s work from these online links:
WMHT’s AHA! A House for Arts, Season 6 Episode 28: Fern Apfel
Wave Farm Radio – Interview with Fern Apfel

The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets in Lake George, NY. During scheduled exhibitions dates our in-person office and gallery hours are Wednesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm. If you need to reach us between active exhibition dates we are available through phone and/or email:
Laura Von Rosk, Gallery Director, 518.323.5499, [email protected]
Tanya Tobias-Tomis, Executive Director, 518.832.0183, 
t[email protected]

We are committed to public safety within our community and beyond. We remain active and open, yet until further notice, all entering our office and gallery space will need to wear a mask. We will provide masks for those that need one, and provide hand sanitizing stations throughout our space.

Please NOTE: Regular Gallery hours may change due concerns for public health regarding possible spread of COVID-19.  For updates, please call 518-323-5499, or email [email protected].

This exhibition is funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Legislature; the Town and Village of Lake George; Price Chopper’s Golub Foundation; 518 Profiles; The Alfred Z Solomon Charitable Trust and LGAP members. Please Join us today!

thank you to our sponsors:
    
          

Details

Start:
March 16, 2022
End:
April 16, 2022