Artist Statements

Margarita Asiain
Margarita Asiain is an abstract painter working mainly in oils as well as mixed media. She favors earthy tones and her work frequently suggests plant and water life to invoke a connection to the Earth and non-human world. She paints in abstraction for the freedom, spontaneity, and above all, the relinquishing of attachment to outcome and the discoveries this way of being brings. A Registered Nurse with a Masters in Public Health, she has lived in Saugerties since 2018 and is pursuing a life more grounded in the arts. She studies at the Woodstock School of Art and has shown work in WSA Student Exhibitions. She is a participating artist in the 2025 Saugerties Artists Studio Tour.

Edward Bakst
Given the constraints of human vision, perception, and imagination molded by the gravity and reality we live in, my work explores those realms otherwise imperceptible or inconceivable— those vying to break free of ‘what is’. My recent photographic explorations have been focused on discovering hidden spaces in Nature within seemingly plain-looking objects, substances, or scenes. Emerging from these images has been a series of tree drawings inspired by the unique characters clamoring to escape their sedentary disguise and their photographic footprint. I believe that trees, just like humans, are unique beings with their own personalities. If and when I am successful in unlocking their true nature, I am rewarded with lively temperaments, recognizable idiosyncrasies, and theatrical behaviors. Each tree study has its contribution to a larger work in progress—a Hero Tree inspired by a weighty and noble old-growth structure which, despite a radical tilt, was persevering and determined to stay alive until felled two years ago in a powerful storm. The current digital artwork weaves together these colorful characters and their vitality to tell of the powerful fighting spirit of that Hero Tree.

David Barnett
Combining found elements with those fashioned by my own hand, my work encompasses two- and three-dimensional collage and drawing as well as sculptural objects. Infused with a rich sense of history, the essence of my work lies in the age-old struggle between nature and the man-made industrial world. My challenge is to convey that sense of conflict in a way that resonates with the viewer.

I incorporate botanical imagery, anatomical diagrams, and mechanical components along with natural materials. Whether it’s a rusty piece of metal, branches from an oak tree, or tiny, turquoise-tipped rooster feathers, the right juxtaposition reveals itself to me—the more absurd, the better. A character is born, and a narrative begins to unravel. The theme of flight is recurrent, as is the conflation of anatomy and mechanics. The result is a menagerie of ethereal winged creatures, human and animal hybrids, and fanciful flying machines. In this era of mass-production and instant gratification, it’s my hope that these intimate and meticulously crafted works will also evoke a sense of rarity, delight, and mystery.

Carolee Bennett
When I became obsessed with power lines in the fall of 2024, there were two options: write myself off as more than a bit odd or figure out what the heck it was about. I chose both.

While perpetually taking photographs of the power grid – and worrying slightly that I may wind up on some kind of government watch list – I began to explore the presence of thick, looping wires, wooden utility poles, and steel transmission towers in my sketchbook. I also examined why they’d captured my attention and discovered a fascination with our tolerance for how they interrupt the landscape and our reliance on how they connect us. (They also divide, of course.) As such, power lines are connected to broader themes of fragmentation, boundaries, and attachment.

In this investigation, I re-discovered an interest in the juxtaposition of and conflict between human infrastructure and the natural world, the ways they literally bump against one another, and what this tension places at risk.

As a poet, I’ve spent years chewing on the clash between meeting our needs while foolishly and stubbornly jeopardizing our own existence. (I’m looking at you, Capitalism and Consumerism). The new power lines obsession represented a fresh metaphor for this – one I decided to consider in my visual art. Attention to the constant presence of the power grid expanded to other places where human infrastructure bumps against natural elements, forces that will ultimately disappear or take us out. As I get started, I’m focused on domestic life (food, for example) and the locations most personal to me, like the coast (specifically Southern Maine’s beaches) and wilderness (New York’s Adirondacks, in particular).

I’m compelled by the urgency of capturing both love of place and loss of place.

Early work on love of place avoids pristine scenes, showing instead the edges where nature and infrastructure (homes, hotels, docks, parking lots, bridges, and more) overlap. In these paintings, like “December Afternoon Snow on Ogunquit Beach, 2024,” human structures and natural beauty co-exist even as they invite our questions.

Early work on loss of place offers further inspection and even speculation, answering the question of what happens when our impact is irretractable, when the damage we’ve done threatens our lifestyle and our lives. These paintings are storytellers. One still life, “Canary #1,” for example, is set in an uncertain future. It depicts a table topped with breakfast food and a gas mask. In the background, a canary looks out a window at toxic clouds and rain.

I’m currently sketching and painting in an expressive style that permits strangeness and distortion. I’m attempting to use exaggeration and simplicity to focus the eye on inquiry – a tilted head, yes, but also curiosity about our fate and whether or not we have the will to alter it.

Collin Douma
I create digital sketches using a stylus on my phone, building a collection of dozens of portraits captured during my daily commute through the city.

I envisioned an interactive presentation with a phone or small tablet mounted on a pedestal, allowing viewers to scroll through the complete series at their own pace. This digital format mirrors the original creation and experience of the sketches. Additionally, I have hexaptych (six-panel arrangement) wall-mounted prints that showcase selected pieces from the collection.

I created these pieces using the Sketchbook app, and the collection on my phone is titled “The Subway Series” – a fitting name that captures the essence of the work. “The Subway Series” documents the shared experience of urban transit while demonstrating how mobile technology has transformed both art-making and our relationship to public spaces.

Lynn Herring
Historically, my work has taken the path of autobiographical storytelling, where I have used my relationship to love, career, family, and the American culture as a muse for my work. I delve into our mutual struggles of living in this time and place. The process is a conceptual journey expressed in various media with a touch of irony and humor.

As a child who had a grandmother that was a writer and editor, I was fascinated with her manual typewriter. I’d hit the metal keys hard and watch each symbol stroke and emboss the page. I loved the tactical and the visual experience including mashing up all the keys at once. This was my first experience of art and printmaking with type, and it left an indelible mark on my heart and mind.

As an adult artist, I have been drawn to the semiotics of the “X” and the “O” symbols. Those two simple letters in all their various forms, representations and meanings show up repeatedly in my work on paper, prints, video and sculpture. I’ve even involved the female body in relationship to X’s and O’s in my “Tit Tac Toe” print that came from one of my sketchbooks filled with scribbles, X’s and O’s, grids, and text as an anecdote or story. Sketchbooks and artist books have always been essential to my creative process, and I see them as works of art in themselves.

Ali Herrmann
I create as a multi-media painter, working with materials of acrylic, ink, and paper collage. Developing my work in layers, I create floating environments of pure abstraction and cytoplasmic, micro-biome landscapes. I believe that nature never gives us just one; rather, it is a dynamic system operating with innate replication processes to grow, evolve and thrive. Being heavily influenced by cycles of growth and decay, I combine elements of representation and abstraction, while incorporating a strong sense of color, light, design, and beauty. Within my paintings, I push the boundaries of depth through layering and collage. Organic cell shapes, fungi, and seed pods are commonly used motifs in my visual vocabulary, merged with repetition and patterning, in an attempt to understand and interpret rhythmic orders of living systems—micro and macro. My focus is driven by my desire to understand how individual elements exist and work together to create a universal whole.

Monica Krajcovic
This sketchbook encapsulates what living as an artist means to me. It has lots of sketches, drawings, paintings, recipes, tarot readings, RPG notes, and more. It is messy. This is a journal of creative thought and work. At its core, it’s an experiment. I put it down for stretches of time, move on to new books, then come back to it when I intuit the time is right. Living a creative life is about so much more than just creating the final art that people get to see. The sketchbook/notebook is a cauldron where ideas are breathed to life, where thoughts are alchemized into reality. It has a life that so few people get to experience, yet it is completely vital to living my creative life. Much of this sketchbook is deeply involved in fleshing out thoughts and ideas, but it also is filled with automatic drawing and writing. The direction my art is heading in isn’t charted; it’s on the border of something that isn’t quite solid yet. It is melding many paths into one and is very much in an awkward state of growth.

Josh Kramb
In my artistic practice, I find my roots embedded in the rich tradition of figurative abstraction. While I am inherently drawn to the spiritual and elusive facets of nature, my creative journey consistently revolves around the exploration of the human figure and the realm of abstraction. Being a visual learner, I perceive the human form as a direct conduit to my emotions. I find drawing provides a secure arena for me to visually investigate, unbridled by fear or judgment.

The current series represents a dedicated exploration of the human figure in space, that explores the concept of social simultaneity. Through the layering of the human figure on a single focal plane, I aim to unveil emotional connections intertwined with a rational comprehension of abstraction. Motivated by a profound impulse to unravel the intricacies of our world and our role within it, I aspire to expose the intermediate spaces that exist between theoretical concepts and physical states of being. This endeavor is fueled by a desire to establish a connection with the unspoken, and to acknowledge the various states of being we inhabit as members of society. These states often go unnoticed but wield a substantial influence on both our private and public lives, consequently shaping the world we inhabit. The recognition of these multiple, often self-imposed personas of existence reveals an inherent inequality. My intention is to bridge historical perspectives of space and abstraction with rational ideas, unveiling the essential connections or “glue” that bind us together.

Pam Krimsky
I have always enjoyed drawing. Drawing is the most fundamental element in my painting. I enjoy drawing and painting both figure compositions and landscape.

As an art student, I worked frequently from live models and often drew from people on NYC buses and the subway. At Queens College, among other outstanding professors, I worked with the well-known drawing teacher, Gabriel Laderman, who taught Drawing based on the “overlap and plane change” method. It was interesting and I found it extremely useful as a beginning drawer.

During the 1990s until 2007, I lived overseas and was sometimes without a painting studio. In those times, I continuously drew. I drew copiously, filling sketchbooks and also making larger drawings, as complete works in themselves. Overseas, I also had the benefit of lots of live, clothed models among friends and my husband’s family.

I don’t often feel the need to draw from a live model, but when I do, there are several places not far away offering models. My sense of space is good, and my figures are not based on precise anatomical correctness. Volume is important to me drawing from models, but capturing gesture is much more important.

My figure compositions are frequently based loosely on my pencil sketches. My paint application is also loose. It is my practice to never fear working and reworking my paintings. Usually, the work improves and I feel it is a necessary risk.

In my studio, which is in my home, I favor acrylic paint, because of the oil paint/medium fumes and slow drying time, but I love oil.

Richard Davalos Léon
Richard Leon was born in the Bronx (1954) and traveled to Ecuador as a young boy and later to Paris, Rome and London. He received a BS in Psychology from Fordham University (1974) and an MFA from the New Jersey City University (2003). In 1987 he initiated a program of independent study under Peter Homitzky at the Arts Students League which progressed for 15 years.

In 2020 he initiated a new work and living space with his wife Gail, also an artist, in the town of Saugerties, NY. We are looking forward to many years of creative explorations!

His work can be seen on Pinterest and on Saatchi online.

Yvette Lewis
There is a need for all of us to remember our connection to nature. We often speak of how we need to save the planet, save the animals, save the atmosphere and all of this is true but what is also true is that the earth can heal and save us. In our relationship with nature we can ground our fears and despair and breathe into the air words loneliness, sadness, grief or even love and listen to words of healing and hope. My paintings and prints express the desire to be connected to nature. To be able to feel the variety of sights and sounds while walking through the forest, sitting by the water knowing we are held by the nurturing power of the earth.

My work expresses these ideas through the shapes and forms that suggest growth from seed to maturity. Also expressed are both the flowing and stillness of water through an emotional abstraction of images. My experiences with plants and rocks, trees and water fuel my ideas about the cycle of growth and decay

Color is an important element in my paintings. There is a communication, a relationship of one color area to another that I look for as I experiment with color that can quiet an element or shout out the emotion of exuberance or anger.

I most often start with an idea, a feeling or sometimes with a drawing. There is an internal dialog with myself and the work. I work with both the abstract formal elements and with an expressive use of paint. Flowing in the inner spaces, I find the core of the work that satisfies my vision and will communicate a universal concept of our place in the cycle of nature.

Iain Machell
My drawings and wall sculptures are observations of forms, shapes and textures found in nature. Rather than working realistically, I’d rather look beneath the surface and see what stories are to be found there. There you can find a darker layer of human interference and threats derived from environmental and climate changes, raising questions about the relationship between humans and the natural world. I don’t want to imitate nature, I would rather interrogate it.

André Malkine
My work emerges through improvisation. Influenced by surrealism, I draw instinctively —starting with a gesture or detail and building outward without a fixed plan. Even in more representational work, I prefer discovery over design, though I’ve recently begun embracing more structure.

Themes of fantasy, science fiction, and horror recur throughout my work, shaped by a lifelong love of comic books, which I regard as a form of high art. Anatomy, organic forms, and strange figures often take center stage.

I work primarily in black and white for its rawness and intimacy. It favors suggestion over realism and leaves space for mystery, tension, and imagination.

Ann Morris
My reductive woodcuts are organically designed. Working from an unplanned, spontaneous sketch has proven to be a sure fire method for me. I love the surprised that arise with each print. In the case of reductive printing, it’s never a sure thing as the colors layer over each other.

I have been a multi-disciplinary artist all my life, with a 50 year ceramics practice. In the last few years, I have widened my focus to include printmaking, particularly collagraph, movable collagraph, woodcut, collage, abstract drawing, and encaustics.

Tracy Phillips
My sketchbooks are the junk drawers of my art practice. This is where I doodle, scribble, explore forms, and sometimes record what I see around me. I started this sketchbook in 2023 right before I went to Venice for a two-person show. I finished the sketchbook during a trip for another two- person show this month in PA.

Chris Seubert
As a draftsman, painter, printmaker, and educator, I work from observation and memory to describe how light creates volume, form, and life. Drawing is my shorthand, while painting informs how I depict volume, light, and space. The two practices are interchangeable, both aiming to create dimensionality and breathe life into my work.

My landscapes focus on the textures and temperatures of naturally occurring aggregates and the movement of flowing water. I explore these themes using oil paint, watercolor, charcoal, and pastel, working both en plein air and in the studio.

Clark Stoeckley
Thoughts & Prayers began as a response to the numbing repetition of violence in the news and the hollow platitudes that often follow. In a world saturated with social media declarations and performative concern, I turned inward toward a meditative process that allowed me to make sense of the chaos around me. These drawings are rituals. They are prayers without words. Each mark is deliberate, intuitive, and layered with meaning, offering a space for contemplation and resistance.

The series draws on the visual traditions of stained glass, psychedelia, sacred geometry, and scientific illustration — forms that have historically offered transcendence, clarity, or order. I blend these references with street art’s spontaneous energy and contemporary digital life’s visual noise. The compositions often feel chaotic at first glance, but within that chaos is a search for harmony; each asymmetrical pattern and each fractured mandala reflects a world trying to piece itself together.

As an artist, I’ve long been driven by the idea that art is not an end but a tool for social
engagement and transformation. My background in performance, graffiti, court sketching, and activist art informs everything I do, even when sitting in silence, pen in hand, drawing concentric patterns on paper. In Thoughts & Prayers, the act of making becomes both protest and prayer. These works are not passive reflections. Rather they are visual chants, meditations on violence, healing, and the politics of care.

Linda Suskind-Kosmer
I am a mixed-media artist living in upstate New York. I create paintings, collages, and sculptural ceramics. My work blends imaginative and observational imagery that evokes dreamlike qualities. I merge figures, landscapes, and abstract patterns, similar to how a dream alters and remixes reality. I highlight our interconnectedness as human beings within the larger environment, reminding myself that we are all intertwined parts of a whole. Observing and interpreting my surroundings is central to my artistic process.

My paintings inspire my sculptures and vice-versa. I transform my drawings and paintings into three-dimensional objects using clay. Through experimentation with form and texture, I aim to give these sculptures a distinct presence. As a result, they evolve beyond their original compositions and develop a life of their own, guided by the demands of the materials I use. Before painting or sculpting, I use my sketchbook ideas to inform and inspire my work.

Carl Van Brunt
As a young person looking for answers to life’s big questions, I came across a book by Walter Evans-Wentz entitled “Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines.” In it was something entitled “The Yoga of the Great Symbol,” a translation of a meditation practice hundreds of years old. As I remember it now, after going through the preliminary instructions to calm and focus the mind, the adept was lead by the guru to a point of realizing that there is no essential difference between the moving and the not moving, the flow of thoughts and feelings and the cessation of thoughts and feelings, being and non-being. And that there is no valid way to describe ultimate reality because it is beyond conceptualization and therefore must be directly experienced if it is to be experienced at all.

Several months ago while on the job as a gallery attendant at Dia:Beacon in the room where Sam Gilliam’s huge painting/sculptures were hung, I was approached by an irate person holding one of the informational laminates Dia provides in each gallery to give visitors some background on the artist on view and their work. “I hope that this one is better than the others you provide”,they exclaimed. ”These things don’t explain anything. Nothing about what the art means!” I began to reply that I would be happy to share some thoughts about Gilliam’s work, but the person was gone already, onto the next gallery delivering the same harangue to the attendant there about the dearth of information provided on the artist whose work was displayed.

In my view, this person was looking for a narrative composed of words tied to the art, a kind of allegory of “this means that,” a translatable symbolic visual language that added up to something explicable to be grasped where there was in fact no such thing to be found. Art in all its forms must be directly experienced in a way that ultimately eludes description.

My work is the result of what I call, with a touch of irony, a dialogue with a machine. That machine being a Mac and the language used a combination of fractals generated with a software program called Chaotica, images arising from improvisational digital painting using Painter software with a digital stylus, and Night Cafe Artificial Intelligence visual processing software; all of which are composited in Adobe Photoshop and/or Adobe Premiere.

My art practice is integrated with my meditation practice. A friend, an art writer, called my pictures postmodern mandalas and I think this is an accurate description as far as it goes. My process does not adhere to any specific meditative methodology though years of reading Buddhist texts and commentaries has led me to a practice of my own that could be thought of as the cultivation of an open mind. My experience has been that working and meditating in this manner has helped me to harness my creativity as well as manage some of the anxieties of life. It has also helped me once in a while to experience a glimmer of the basic connection that links us all.

When creating an art work, the initial object of my meditation is an image I have discovered through some sort of computer processing such as digital fractal generation or A.I. text instruction image making, or a photograph, or alternatively a pencil drawing I have made in one of my many notebooks. From that point on, I free-associate using a drawing tablet and stylus to add layers of abstract shapes, colors and patterns as well as on occasion, recognizable images that seem to resonate and harmonize with each other. Because I compose my pictures and animations digitally, I am able to move things around and add and subtract elements freely which enables nearly complete absorption in the process. I call the process “digital painting” because the finished work involves the use of a hand held tool and software responding to my free hand gestures. Also relevant are the many years I spent using conventional painting tools and techniques prior to my current digital practice. My goal is to create a field of visual events that will engage the viewer in a meditative state of mind that potentially can lead to their own personal realizations.