Grand Opening June 6: Sarah Haviland at the Garden Gallery of Hudson River Health Center

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) June 3, 2009 -- In conjunction with Peekskill Arts Council’s 12th Annual “Open Studios” weekend on Saturday and Sunday, June 6 and 7, the Hudson River Health Care Center will officially open it’s Garden Gallery, a public sculpture garden integrally connecting art, community, and health care. The Garden Gallery opening and artist reception will take place on June 6, from 12 to 2 p.m. at the Garden Gallery at 55 Bank Street, Peekskill NY.

Sarah Haviland, a highly accomplished sculptor, has exhibited her abstract-figurative sculptures and installations in galleries, parks, and educational settings in six states, including a permanent bronze commission at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey. Her sculptures of semi-abstract figures—life-sized, miniature, or monumental—draw upon a cross-cultural legacy of images from ancient to contemporary times. Pairing individual experience with broader universal metaphors, they both honor and question our received ideals.

“My sculptures strike a balance between abstract form and human identity. Rooted in gesture, they embody layers of distilled emotion and archetypal presence. These simplified figures acknowledge contradictions, combining strength and subtlety, movement and stability, ancient and contemporary outlooks.”

The “Meditation” sculptures on view at Garden Gallery at the Health Center include:

• "Aegis," which refers to the shield of Athena, echoes the lines of Egyptian sculpture and the pose of Greek pediment statues.

• "Blue Immortality" is the first in a series of human-bird portraits inspired by mythological figures relating to the soul.
• "Curl" suggests movement and stability, the beginning source or spiral of Asian or Middle Eastern art and ritual, as well as Western ornamental scrollwork.
• "Reflection Bench" responds to the silhouette of the Hudson River Highlands, while extending welcome like Pre-Renaissance Italian madonnas and Colonial stone markers.
• "Tree of Inner Necessity" takes its name from Paul Klee’s description of the artist’s urge and was inspired by images of nature, resurrection, and birth.

Sarah Haviland has received numerous honors and awards, including a Creativity Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, fellowships from the New York and New Jersey State Arts Councils, and residencies at Sculpture Space, Skowhegan, and Yaddo. Ms. Haviland earned a BA from Yale University and an MFA from Hunter College. She lectures independently and teaches sculpture at Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY. She has been involved in Peekskill and the Downtown Artist District since she moved from Long Island City in 1993. Please see her new website at: www.sarahhaviland.com.

The Garden Gallery at HRHC is located at 55 Bank Street (the corner of Main and Bank Streets), in Peekskill, NY. For information, contact Wilfredo Morel at 914-643-4392

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