Gallery hours: Friday, Saturday, Sunday: 1:00- 4:00 PM. Gallery also accessible by appointment OR during office hours (9:00- 12 & 1:00- 3:00 PM Mon-Fri)

If you would like to have your work considered for an exhibit at the Arts Guild, send us a sheet of 20 slides, a current resume/bio and a brief (2-3 paragraphs) statement about your work. DO NOT send three ring binders, DO NOT send digital prints of artwork. Include a self-addressed envelope with sufficient postage for return of slides. Mail these to: The Arts Guild of Rahway, Attn: Arts Selection Committee, 1670 Irving St. Rahway NJ 07065. PLEASE DO NOT SEND JPEGS BY EMAIL.

Artwork is reviewed by committee four times each year. Dates for submission for each quarter will be posted on this site (or contact us at 732-381-7511 artsguild1670@verizon.net).

The current art selection committee is:
Lawrence Cappiello, Artist, Executive Director/ Arts Guild of Rahway
Patricia Brentano
Rachel Faillace
Denise DeVone
Roger Tucker
Nicholas Impalli

11th Season Art Exhibits

When fragments of ancient sculpture have been unearthed over the centuries, a head, or a torso, an arm or a hand gave testament to the great skill of the artists who created these works and imparted a sense of the grandeur of the “whole”.

In cave paintings dating back 40,000 years, outlines of a human hand have been found—possibly a ‘signature’ by the artist or possibly with some spiritual significance.

Most people would probably argue that in regards to the human form, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Yet we all have a distinct response or sense of recognition of the entire form when we see a part of the human body, whether it is just an eye, or lips, and arm, a leg or a torso. In a sense we become collaborators with the creator of the image and visualize the entire form or body---we recognize it by its ‘type’. We possibly even imagine the personality or persona.

In this exhibit, Body Parts, we feature ten artists that have used individual body elements or deconstructed human figures to express a different sense of the figure to communicate an emotional or intellectual concept or who employ these parts as a design motif that appears for its resonance as a part of the idea of the artwork. The exhibit includes painting, prints, photography and sculpture that focus on a fragment to transmit a sense of a new ‘whole’.

Walter Chandoha has made a long commercial career of photography. Back in the 1950’s he was commissioned to create promotional photographs for the Barnum & Bailey Circus. These largely black and white photographs are featured in this exhibit. Ellen Denuto, a well-known New Jersey photographer has produced a large body of work on the theme of circus performers. These color images are highly polished in concept and execution and focus both on the performers in “quiet” moments as well as details of objects and sites around the circus tents.

Ellen Denuto, a well-known New Jersey photographer has produced a large body of work on the theme of circus performers. These color images are highly polished in concept and execution and focus both on the performers in “quiet” moments as well as details of objects and sites around the circus tents.

Nancy Ori, (Berkeley Heights) one of New Jersey’s most active exhibiting and teaching photographers, is represented here by a series of small, charming sepia toned prints created during a stay at Circus World in Michigan. These prints focus on performances and accessories of the circus from behind the scenes.

Grigory Gurevich (Jersey City) has produced brilliantly colored photographs of clowns from a foreign circus at times shown through color filters which create a dazzling, bright tone of these performance action photos.

Montclair artist Jay Seldin has created a variety of toned photographs of performers and circus vehicles which will round out the exhibit.

Encaustic painting preceded oil painting and was first developed and used by artists in ancient Greece and Egypt to create vivid naturalistic images. At the Metropolitan Museum in New York City in the Egyptian collection, viewers can see beautiful realistic portraits on narrow-wooden panels which represented the deceased and were place in their tombs. These brilliant portraits created with the wax encaustic paint are as bright and beautiful as they were when they were painted over 3000 years ago.

Long ignored or superceded by the popular tempera used for frescoes for centuries and eventually oil paints, encaustic was a forgotten medium for centuries. In the 1950’s New York artist Jasper Johns found encaustic to be a very suitable medium for his innovative, post –expressionistic paintings of the American Flag, targets and other abstract pieces.

Over the past dozen years there has been a surprising resurgence of interest in this amazingly versatile technique and material. Many contemporary artists are using the hot encaustic technique or using clear molten wax to add a soft-luster surface over paintings done in oil paint or acrylics. Other artists are using a soft cold wax additive to their oil paint to give it additional body and textural capabilities.

The artists featured in Bee-ing are all working with encaustic paint either exclusively or as an enhancement for other techniques. In order to communicate the extraordinary range of techniques possible with wax paint, this exhibit features both abstract images and very naturalistic or realistic paintings.

As amazing as the wondrous variety of food products is the great culinary arts and the many, many ways that food is prepared for eating. Almost every nationality, every country, has a great history of recipes specific to each region of the country and the local produce, seafood or meats available.

In America, most regional cable companies broadcast a food channel dedicated to the screenings of cooking shows featuring top chefs from the US and Europe cooking some of the most delectable and delicious dishes from countries around the world.

Our habits today not only include a love of well prepared foods of all kinds but we have developed a great desire for what we commonly call “fast food” and “junk food”. Ice cream, candy, ring dings (!!!), cookies, cakes, doughnuts—the list of junk food is nearly endless and there is there is probably hardly one person who has not stopped for a fast food burger or bucket of chicken. Food whether “high” or “low” is always in demand.

This exhibit is intended as a celebration of all that we eat—the foods that delight us as well as some thoughts about the least beneficial or nutritious varieties of what we eat. The artists featured in this show present food in all of its glory and with many thoughts and/or humorous looks at what’s for dinner. Come join the feast!

In this exhibition I present 10 artists who have adapted this process for their own particular voice and means of expression. The process is a peculiar one in the sense that it is quite labor intensive and not the least bit prone to modern adaptations. It stubbornly hearkens back to earlier times and remains there. However, within those parameters resides a technique that continues to offer artists a strong and potent vehicle for expressing ideas in a way so fundamental as to be almost obtuse. Yet, in that obtuseness, rests the strength of its claim for a mode of expression that will never go out of fashion or give way to the exigencies of momentary aesthetic dictates. It will remain rooted in the historicalness of tradition, the basics of tools and materials and its singular voice of expression.

The Arts Guild of Rahway began to present visual arts exhibits and a jazz concert series in February 1999. In 2000 we began to offer multi-week art classes for adults and children. Over the past ten years we have also screened independent films, conducted lectures and seminars on arts-related and cultural topics, conducted a monthly artist networking night and a variety of other art activities.

In March 1998 we opened our first art exhibit with large scale color photographs by notable New Jersey photographer, Nancy Ori. That year we ran five more exhibits which showcased fewer than twenty artists. During the 08/09 session of eight art exhibits we are showing recent work by over seventy artists. It has been our self-imposed priority to showcase the works of many of the wonderfully talented emerging artists of New Jersey. We do not consider these artists as “local” artists in the diminutive sense that they are too often described in newspaper reviews. The artists we choose for exhibitions here are professional in attitude, concept and execution of their work. Many exhibit in other states or other countries. They are in our estimation, the equal of artists in any other state and we take pride in being champions for the cause of bringing their fine work to the public.

In EVOLUTION: 20 @ 10, twenty artists from our first ten years of exhibits return to show their work. The exhibit is indicative of the many mediums, styles and genres we have presented and in particular the overall very high quality of the work we include in these well-crafted exhibits at The Arts Guild of Rahway. For any non-profit space to survive for ten years is an accomplishment in itself but to do so with style in a consistent, thoughtful, educational and entertaining manner and to develop into what many of gallery goers and artists visitors consider to be a successful art center is worth celebration.

So---Come and join us for this 10th Anniversary Celebration!