Meet the artists behind Riverdale gallery’s ‘People and Places’ exhibit

Elisa Contemporary Art Gallery’s newest exhibit,  “People and Places,” features six artists, whose mediums range from painting to wood to puzzle pieces. But as summer air blew through the gallery’s open door, owner Lisa Cooper explained there is a thread that ties them together.

Cooper debuted her Riverdale location in 2008, and remains the only contemporary gallery in the neighborhood. She said to curate the exhibit, she drew from emotions that arise as the weather warms.

“That feeling of kind of escaping into the water and that sense of peace,” Cooper said, referencing a theme in three of the artists’ work. She added she also enjoys mixing landscape and figurative work as the combination is “something different that makes people come in and just look around and wonder.”

The show will run through Sept. 2.

Dean Moore, mosaic pop art

Riverdale resident Dean Moore uses excess tile from housing projects to create mosaic pop-art.

His piece from the exhibit, “Fragmented Figure,” is different from others he’s done, which typically depict iconic characters such as Wonder Woman and Basquiat. The outline of a faceless woman’s body, with vibrant tiles laid across, is more abstract.

“Fragmented Figure” was made using leftover tile from other projects. Moore said he was exploring making free-flowing curves, adding the colored blocks for structure. Typically, his process consists of studying an image for shade and tone, picking tiles and laying them on mosaic mesh while referring to the image.

Moore said though art isn’t his full-time job, he takes it seriously, and is a bit of a perfectionist. He started his work around the time he moved to Riverdale two years ago, and his first piece was a portrait of his two daughters, Eva and Emi.

Betty Ball, painter capturing light

Betty Ball’s two featured works are “Delafield” and “Looking East,” rendered in oil paint. They are part of a larger series called “Land and Sea” that started years ago. The Connecticut-based artist said she was with friends, sitting at a park picnic table, and watched as the sun set over the water. She noticed light was coming from waterfront houses too.

“The light reflections just became more beautiful by the minute,” she recalled. “It gave you the feeling that there were people all around you, yet you didn’t exactly see the people.”

Ball also paints abstract works, as well as series that depict still life, landscape and building structures. She also works in print making.

Carol Bennett, painter drawn to flow of water

Carol Bennett is a painter based in Kauai, Hawaii, and a majority of her work is centered around water. One featured painting, “Malibu Dawn Patrol,” shows her son riding a surfboard, and another, “Dripping in Diamonds,” depicts silhouettes in shallow water.

Bennett typically works from reference photos, and aims to illustrate subjects in water “having a solo moment,” she explained. Bennett said she is process-oriented, and uses sponges, brushes and splattered paint.

“A phenomenon that I’m attracted to is that the body floats and the mind drifts,” Bennett said. “I think that that’s what happens when you are in the water.”

Sherry Karver, multimedia artist using jigsaw puzzles

Sherry Karver’s featured piece is “Roots Go Deep,” based on a series of photographs she took of people walking in Milan, Italy. She shipped the photo to a company that makes puzzles, had her husband put the pieces together, and then deconstructed it by removing sections.

Her jigsaw series started during the Covid-19 pandemic, when Karver and her husband were assembling a lot of puzzles. She said she realized that a puzzle looks more interesting with pieces missing. Those missing pieces can play into a bigger, universal theme of missing human connections.

“I’m really interested in people and how people react or interact in public spaces,” Karver said. “We are individuals, but yet we are within a broader context of being. In a group, but we’re alone in a group.”

The title, “Roots go Deep” was a reference to the extensive history Italy has, Karver said. It is a combination of photography, painting and resin.

Mitch McGee, pop art made from layered wood

Mitch McGee’s style is influenced by famous pop art painter Roy Lichtenstein. According to McGee’s website, the easiest way for him to recreate a Lichtenstein piece in another medium was to use wood, something he was already familiar with.

Based in Houston, one of McGee’s featured works at the gallery is “So Do I,” a rounded wood piece, layered with shaped wood and paint to create a pop-art style brunette woman.

Some of his other wood pieces include recreations of superheroes like Batman and the Avengers, as well as Western-themed pop art, depicting men in cowboy hats and canyon backdrops.

Jeffrey Palladini, bold lines and minimal detail

Jeffrey Palladini uses oil charcoal and oil paint to create figures that lack detail, an intentional technique used “to provide as little visual information as possible, while still trying to get maximum connection with the viewer and emotional punch,” he said. 

Some of his work shows figures laying poolside or in front of a plain background, their faces turned away. One featured piece at the exhibit, “Around Again,” shows a person’s head four times, surrounding the edges of the frame in a swirl. He said his work draws from his interest in the contradictions of sleep.

“At the same time that we’re laying there completely inactive and static, everything else is going on in the world around us,” Palladini explained. “Time is passing, we’re aging, earth is hurtling through the universe.”