Works by
Jimmy Leslie
Bruce McColl
Marlene Rye
Amy Schusser

September 4 – October 2, 2003

The artists in the exhibition are drawn together for their investigations into painting and mark making as a way to explore their roles and relationships to the often mundane or ordinary events and places in their lives. The impulse to create seems most often an attempt at transformation, a way to reassess those things that surround us and ultimately to help us understand who we are. It can also provide an opportunity to connect those situations to more universal themes. This impulse to examine the most ordinary of things, the clutter and order that continually define our experiences, responsibilities, encounters and dreams, allows the artists in this exhibition to re-shape those events and places by re-directing them through a kaleidoscope of color, light, shape, scale, space and texture.

Jimmy Leslie holds an M.F.A. from the Graduate School of Figurative Art of the New York Academy of Art, New York, NY in 1993. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at Atlantic City Arts Center, Atlantic City, NJ; Rowan University Gallery, Glassboro, NJ; as well as group exhibitions at Sotheby’s Auction House, New York, NY and The Oakland Street Gallery, Red Bank, NJ. He was a 1999 scholarship recipient for The Vermont Studio Center Artist in Residency program. He is currently an Instructor of Fine Art in the Department of Art and Design at Monmouth University in West Longbranch, NJ.

Bruce McColl received a B.A. from Brown University and an M.F.A. in painting from Wayne State University, Detroit, MI. Solo exhibitions include Yo Gallery, Manchester, NH; ArtWorks!, New Bedford, MA; The Roger Smith Gallery, New York, NY. Group exhibitions include Premier Etage Gallery, Newport, RI; DFN Gallery, New York, NY; and The New Bedford Art Museum, New Bedford, MA. Currently an Adjunct Professor at Bristol Community College in Fall River, MA, he has also lectured at Union College of Schenectady, NY and at Brown University. He is also a recent recipient of a Pollack-Krasner Foundation Grant and received an ArtWorks! Fellowship in Painting in 2002-03.

Marlene Rye received an M.F.A. in painting from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000 and her Arts Baccalaureate from Smith College in 1993. She currently resides in Northampton, MA and has most recently taught painting at the University of Pennsylvania and has worked with local high school students through a program called Academic Study Associates. Recent exhibitions include APE Gallery, Northampton, MA; Act II Gallery, West Hartford, CT; Pleiades Gallery, New York, NY and at the 2002 Cambridge Art Association National Prize Show, Cambridge, MA.

Amy Schusser resides in New Bedford and received her M.F.A from The Ohio State University in 1993. She has most recently taught at the South Coast Learning Network and at ArtWorks! both in New Bedford, MA. She is recent recipient of an ArtWorks! residency and has also received grants to work at Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC, The Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT and at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, MA. Recent solo and group exhibitions include shows at the Attleboro Museum, Attleboro, MA, the Fuller Art Museum, Brockton, MA; and Kohler Art Center, Sheybogan, MI. Her work can also be seen at the American Folk Craft Gift Store, New York, NY and at The Enchanted Forest, Soho, NY.