Faculty Art Exhibits

Bio:

Thomas Germano is a Professor in the Visual Communications Department @ FSC. He teaches painting, drawing, and art history.

 

Artist Statement:

These works represent recent studio projects. The smaller works are the oldest among this grouping and because they’ve hung in the studio, they preserve the continuity with the earlier images acting as peripheral landmarks and points of reference. All of the works are oil paint on canvas or panel. Unlike the plein-air paintings I create in nature, these are all painted from memory and experience in my NY studio. All were preceded by drawings in a sketchbook made on-site. Working from memory and using the pencil drawings forces me to edit the less important elements and leads to a concentration on only the pertinent information that nature provides, while constructing with formal elements and seeking an aesthetic result. I use light, color and geometry to unify my compositions, then I imagine the viewer psychologically navigating through invented pragmatic pictorial spaces.

The Great Falls one of a series of eighteen paintings and watercolors exhibited earlier this year at the American Labor Museum in Haledon, NJ and reproduced in the book published in 2021 titled, The 1913 Paterson Silk Strike, The Children’s Story.

Certain visual elements, themes and motifs run throughout these works such as my interest in shapes that flatten the picture plane, before applying renaissance perspective to confound two dimensionality by creating deeper space. The polarity between the abstract skies and rigid architecture often occurs and my interest and fascination in signage and typographic forms are evidenced throughout my work. The passage of light that creates geometric shapes of light and shadow while using color to harmonize form and the interaction of color remains a continued interest. Additional work can be seen on Instagram @thomas_germano_artist

 

Bio:

Roshanak Keyghobadi, EdD, teaches art and design as well as global art and graphic design histories at the Visual Communications Department, Farmingdale State College (SUNY). She holds a doctoral degree in Art and Art Education from Columbia University and her MFA (Indiana University) and BFA (University of the Arts) are both in Graphic Design. She studied Visual Communication at Tehran University’s School of Fine Art prior to moving to the USA. Roshanak is a researcher and writes regularly about contemporary art and design history and artists in global context. Her essays have been published in the United States (AIGA Voice, Design Observer) and Iran (Neshan). She was also the managing editor of Graphis publications in New York City. Roshanak’s artworks have been exhibited in museums and galleries nationally and internationally and featured in books and magazines (Fiber Art Now) and newspapers (NYTimes). She just presented at Revealing, Recording, Reflecting Conference 2022, which was focused on generations of women graphic designers from Southwest Asia and North Africa, and the diaspora.

 

Statement:

Trained as a graphic designer, my works have always been about clarity, control, structure, and simplicity. When I discovered paper making as an undergraduate student, I found its process and outcome in such contrast to my professional practice that I immediately was drawn to the organic, chaotic, and liberating nature of it. I have always been engaged with language, writing and typography and narratives, sentences, words, and letters are the main components of my art in any medium that I choose to work.

 

My stitch series are my explorations in the realm of dichotomies. Through deconstructing a structured unit such as a book, newspaper or magazine and reconstructing it in a new form I search, find, and create new contexts and meanings. When I tear apart a printed page, soak it in water, transform it to pulp and make a piece of paper again, the sentences become broken, and words misplaced. Through this process I break apart the physical and intellectual nature of the written matter and reintroduce new possible poetic interpretations. Hand stitching as a drawing tool and a ritual adds another dimension to my creative process which is unifying and meditative. With needle and thread, I stitch together what is fragmented and dislocated and compose alternative visual possibilities.

 

With the display of my works, The Faculty Center at Farmingdale State College has provided me an artistic and pedagogical space where I can share my art and start a dialog and communicate with students, colleagues, and viewers to possibly spark new ideas or start collaborative projects as a result.