Upcoming Art Exhibitions: “Amanda Church and Doreen McCarthy: Advice To The Lovelorn” & “James Waller: Cracked Pot”

Art by Doreen McCarthy

The Mueller Gallery at Caldwell University will present two exhibitions Oct. 26 to Nov. 30. “Amanda Church and Doreen McCarthy: Advice To The Lovelorn”  and  “James Waller: Cracked Pot” will open Oct. 26 with artists’ talks at 5 p.m. followed by an opening reception at 6 p.m.  Admission to the talks, reception and exhibitions is  free and open to the public.

Exhibition “Amanda Church and Doreen McCarthy Advice to the LoveLorn”

Caldwell University Mueller Gallery Director Suzanne Baron says “The suggestive nature of the work in this exhibition inspired the choice for the title which is taken from the 1933 American pre-code film of the same name.  “Advice to the Lovelorn” also served as the inspiration for a satirical advice column that appeared in Spy Magazine in the 1990’s by the controversial American feminist academic and social critic Camille Paglia.

About the Artists

Amanda Church has been showing throughout the U.S. and Europe for over 20 years, with solo exhibitions in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Louisville, San Juan, Prague and Marseilles. Recent exhibitions include “Recliners” at High Noon, New York; “CKR” at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York, “Heads and Tales” at Espacio 20/20 in Puerto Rico and “Minimal Baroque” in Copenhagen, for which she received a grant from the Danish Council on the Arts. She is also a recent recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as grants from the Pollock Krasner Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her work is in many private and public collections including Deutsche Bank, the Chambers Hotel, New York, the Progressive Corporation, Cleveland and the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton. Church lives and works in New York City.

Doreen McCarthy is a sculptor based in New York City.   Since 1985 McCarthy’s work has been exhibited in the United States, Europe, China and Japan. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions in Cologne, Bonn, Berlin and Sylt, Germany, Shanghai, China, Miami, Art Prize in Grand Rapids, Michigan and several in New York City.  In 2021 a survey exhibition of her work “Polysemy” opened at Indiana University.  She has participated in residencies in Berlin and Cologne, Germany, Santa Fe Art Institute and Edward Albee’s “The Barn”.  

McCarthy has received grants from The West Collection, Foundation for Contemporary Art and The Joan Mitchell Foundation which supported her residency at Santa Fe Art Institute.  She has been invited to participate in Equidistances project | Residenze Artistiche, a residency originated by Magazzeno Art Gallery in Ravenna, Italy (COVID permitting). 

McCarthy’s exhibitions have been reviewed extensively including in publications such as Sculpture Magazine, The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Flash Art, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Sylter Spiegel, NY Arts Magazine, Koelner Stadt Anzeiger.  Her work will be included in part two of “Bad Art” (which debuted in London in 2021) in Glasgow, Scotland in 2023. 

Exhibition “James Waller: Cracked Pot”  

The exhibition “James Waller: Cracked Pot” will also open Oct. 26. 

It will provide an insightful look into the imaginative artwork of James Waller. “Color is an obvious area of great interest to Waller and he uses it to elicit a strong emotional response from the viewer,” said Gallery Director Suzanne Baron.   “Imagery alluding to spiritual realization and self-exploration are evident through imagery related to Christian iconography, Greek mythology, popular culture and ancient and modern textiles.”

Baron explained that “the influence of abstraction is explored within the context of recognizable imagery. Spirals, paisleys, and even animals are repeated to form a sense of cohesiveness within the unknown. Unwilling to assign definite meanings to these symbols, Waller invites viewers to engage with his work on its own terms.”       

 About the artist

James Waller,  69,  is an emerging artist. Although he took many studio art classes in college, after graduating he stopped making art almost entirely and didn’t restart until 2005, when he was 52. In the 30 years between, he earned an M.A. in philosophy of religion from Columbia University; taught courses in philosophy, religion, and writing at a number of New York City colleges; and as he said, ‘had a haphazard career as a freelance writer and editor.” He has written several books, including the four-volume “Drinkology” series (2003–2010) on cocktails, wine, and beer. Another boozy book, “Cocktails, A Still Life,” illustrated by painter Todd Casey and co-written with Christine Sismondo, was released in August.

When he decided to try making art again, Waller took a number of courses at Parsons and dabbled in various media. His work has appeared in group shows in New Jersey and New York, but the Mueller Gallery exhibit “Cracked Pot” is his first solo show. Lately, he has focused on drawing, using a mixture of markers, brush & ink, gouache, and colored pencils. His drawings are mostly highly colored and straddle the border between figuration and abstraction. Although the work borrows from numerous sources, Waller believes that after 17 years of art-making, he has finally begun to find his own visual language.

For more information contact Suzanne Baron at sbaron@caldwell.edu