The R Gallery at Arlene’s is pleased to announce Playful Messiness, featuring work by pastel artist Jill Gruben at 57 Fuller Rd. The exhibition will showcase pastel paintings of rich chorma that explore the play between stillness and movement. There will be an Artist Reception on March 4th from 4:30 to 5:30pm. 

 

Jill Gruben is always amazed at how still the world can appear and yet there is this underlying hum of movement. Sometimes it is subtle. Sometimes it bursts with energy. She gravitates to pastel as my medium of choice because she is obsessed with its playful messiness. There's something about being immersed in the thick of it, where the skin absorbs the dust as much as my homemade boards do.

 

Jill Alicia Gruben, a Ballston Spa, NY resident, studied drawing and painting for 10 years with Neva Powell at the Rockland Center for the Arts in West Nyack, New York. She wrote extensively about art and music in newspapers and national magazines throughout college at the University of Maryland, College Park where she majored in Journalism and minored in Fine Arts. Thereafter, in law school Jill focused on intellectual property and practiced for many years in this area of law as well as in labor/employment law. Jill is currently an arbitrator, investor, caregiver and artist. She enjoys making her own “paper” out of foam core or matte boards in which to create pastels, which are most often of abstract landscapes or animals. 

 

Playful Messiness will be on view at the R Gallery at Arlene’s, 57 Fuller Rd Albany NY 12205, from Friday, March 4th through Saturday, March 26th. The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 10am to 6pm, Thursday 10am to 7pm and Saturday 10am to 5pm. For more information, please contact the gallery at (518) 482-8881, or email arlenesartist@gmail.com.