Art Gallery Exhibit on Display until 12/20

The Gallery at Sussex County Community College (Building C) is proud to present So, What’s the Alternative?, a group exhibition showcasing the works of four New York metropolitan area-based artists who utilize various approaches and alternative processes in the art of photographic image-making. The participating artists have exhibited regionally and globally and have works in private collections.

So, What’s the Alternative? explores the path of dissent by defying the accepted chemical and optical methods of photographic representation. Through exploration and experimentation, this group of artists pushes the boundaries of conventional analog and digital photographic practices and ventures into frontiers of their own making. Curated by Anna Carina Sinocchi, the coordinator of SCCC's Art Gallery, the exhibition features work by Michael Paris Mazzeo, Andreas Rentsch, and Lois and Tom White.

Michael Paris Mazzeo: His multiple exposures convey the complexity of energy, time, and space within nature. Michael’s post-photographic, digital collage and layering effects may come to symbolize an autobiographical interior space for the artist. When a photograph corresponds to something in oneself, the experience, in some measure, becomes equivalent. The strength of Mazzeo’s work lies in the creation-expression of his imagery, transcending as visual metaphors that not only serve the artist but, in regard, may come to serve the viewer.

Andreas Rentsch: With an interdisciplinary approach to his practice, Andreas combines performance art, drawing, and painting with alternative practices in photography. Process-orientated, his works rely on chance and experimentation. His applied unorthodox techniques revolve around the social concerns of justice, incarceration, and humanism. An homage to German Expressionist cinema, the photographic stills from Rentsch’s short film, The Wanderer is reminiscence of a kindred spirit who travels through life endlessly searching.

Collaborative work: Collaborative husband and wife team Tom & Lois White are multidisciplinary artists working in photography-based new media. Much of their work explores the vagaries of light through multiple exposures, color, black and white, and positive/negative relationships. “It is important to us to challenge the traditional understandings of photography and fine art, remove typical distinctions of what a photograph or painting is, and allow the viewer to focus on the image without needing to define the medium.”

• • Lois White: Her abstract work involves single frame in-camera long exposures that express the gestures and motion of light. The resulting images are portrayed in the negative and appear as otherworldly impressions. For her, the use of the lens is less about capturing a moment and more about an intent or visceral experience that is palpable to the viewer. The camera serves as the conduit between the real and the emotional.
  • Tom White: A new media artist, Tom's work lives in the opportune space between discovery and invention. His hybrid process involves the disciplines of photography, painting, digital imaging, design, science, and technology - using both analog and digital media. A labor-intensive process, Tom uses the digital platform as a blank canvas to reshape his photographs and deconstruct the original images. They are reimagined using montage, digital painting and imaging, and contemporary printmaking, resulting in both representational and abstract imagery that communicate the power of concept, color, shape, spatial illusion, and implied motion. In Street Frescoes, the head busts of antiquity are renewed within a contemporary visual context bringing together time and space inspired by his love of art history.

So, What’s the Alternative? will be on exhibit from November 19 to December 20, 2024. The artists’ reception will be held on Tuesday, 11/19/24, from 4:30 to 7:00 p.m. This event is free and open to the public.