Feb. 13 - Works of Two Rider Professors Part of New Jersey State Museum Exhibition

LAWRENCEVILLE – The works of Harry I. Naar, professor of fine arts and director of the Rider University Art Gallery, and Dr. Robbie Clipper Sethi, professor of English at Rider, will have their work included in the collaborative exhibition, “Vision and Voice: Princeton Artists Alliance in Dialogue with Contemporary New Jersey Poetry,” on view weekdays from February 22 through May 13 at the Galleries of the New Jersey State Museum at 225 West State Street.

The exhibition includes over 40 works by 20 members of the Princeton Artists Alliance (PAA), a group of noted central New York artists who exhibit frequently together, as well as on their own.  Paintings, ceramics, drawings, prints, constructions, books, sculpture, video and photographic installations are all part of “Vision and Voice.”

Dr. Sethi’s two poems, “Heat,” and “Sea Legs,” will accompany Naar’s two ink drawings – “Heat,” ink on board and “Luminescence – “L’Avventura,” ink on canvas.  Naar’s drawings were finished in collaboration with Sethi through a discussion of the drawings and poems.

For Naar, creating a visual image is a solitary and personal experience. “I wanted to find a poet and poem that I could relate to on a personal level so I chose a colleague of mine,” said Naar.  “The images and sounds that we both created came from our ability to react and interact with our thoughts and observations.  Both the drawings and the poems evolved out of this continuing dialogue.  We develop imagery out of reality, what we see in the world around us and in our imaginations.”

Sethi concurs.  “For ‘Heat,” Harry read the poem, suggested the title, suggested the title, then took the title himself and continued to work on the drawing.  I call this the perfect collaboration,” she added.  “The drawing, ‘L’Avventura,’ from the movie by Antonioni, took longer to inspire words, and when it did, I found a lyric rather than a narrative poem.”

Said Naar:  “Our collaboration became as the French painter Jean Helion expressed, ‘like going on a journey to reveal the invisible through the visible.’”

For more information, call Naar at (609) 895-5588 or Sethi at (609) 895-5578.