JUMP again = A Forum for New World Culture. A blog by Ray Grist.

Omni Contemporary Art Gallery opens the current exhibition season featuring the works of Ray Grist.

The genius of Ray Grist is his ability to combine his influences – from Miro, Picasso, Cezanne, and Kandinsky – into a wholly new form.  He also takes inspiration from African traditions and Black American artists Hale Woodruff and Romare Bearden.  But whether he is working in the expressive non-objective to contemporary still life and landscape, his dynamic us of form and color give his paintings a remarkable quality of aliveness.  His canvases and prints fairly vibrate with what can only be called “spirit,” so that the viewer has the impression that the work is animate.  

Ray Grist  has shown at museums and galleries worldwide, from Alaska to Mumbai.  His work is included in many public collections, among them the Studio Museum Harlem, New York; the Biblioteque Nationale, Paris; and the International Symposium, Eisenstadt, Austria.  His paintings can be found in numerous private collections as well.

JUMP again - a forum for new world culture. A blog by Ray Grist

Omni Contemporary Art Gallery closed its exhibition season on Saturday, July 25, 2015.  Located in Freeport, NY, the 7^th coolest town in the US, according to the travel website, Matador Network, and reported by CBS on February 26, 2015. Omni Contemporary Art Gallery is devoted to the work of contemporary painters, sculptors, photographers, and mixed-media artists. Omni Contemporary brings to Nassau County a new and exciting venue for artists, art lovers, and collectors.  The gallery features fine art of the highest standards. 

This latest exhibition features the works of three artists:

Lauren Chenault -  Upon graduation Lauren Chenault treated herself to a camera and was quickly smitten by the photo bug. Her focus is landscapes, the ocean, and beach.  Lauren says, “it's calming here (the beach) and I feel that I can never take the same photo twice.” Lauren grew up in north Massapequa.  She says,  “I want to be the best that I can, and stand out from the rest.” Lauren has not formally studied photography, but is mostly self-taught.

Ray Grist has exhibited his works in museums and galleries from Alaska to Bombay.  His paintings and prints are included in numerous public and private collections both in the US and abroad.

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Thurston H. Randall Jr. attended the High School of Art and Design, studied design at Pratt, and spent 2 years at the  NYU Film Intensives program. He has been creating digital works of art during the last 13 years. 

Lauren Chenault

Ray Grist

Thurston Randall

JUMP again - a forum for new world culture. A blog by Ray Grist.

Omni Contemporary Art Gallery continues its exhibition season on Saturday, June 6, 2015.  This latest exhibition will feature the works of two artists:

Anthony Barboza was born 1944 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, with roots originating from Cape Verde, Barboza’s wide-ranging traditional and innovative works have been exhibited in public and private galleries, museums and educational institutions worldwide. He is well known for his photographs of jazz musicians during the 1970's - 80's. He says,“When I do a portrait, I’m doing a photograph of how that person feels to me; how I feel about the person, not how they look. I find that in order for the portraits to work, we have to make a mental connection as well as an emotional one.”

Barboza’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, Newsweek, Business Week, TV Guide, National Geographic, Town and Country, Vanity Fair, People, Esquire, Elle,  Vogue, McCalls, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Ebony, Black Enterprise, and the New York Times Sunday Magazine, among dozens of others.

Eric Alugas was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana.  He studied painting at the University of New Orleans, and was awarded a scholarship to l’Ecole Nationale Superieur des Beaux Arts, in Montpellier and Paris, France. He remained in Paris for many years, exhibiting there and throughout Europe, before returning to the United States.

  

Alugas works with ideas from myths and folklore, arts and philosophy and the concrete elements of painting: the canvas, gesso, paint, the brushstroke, and splashes of paint.  Each painting, or series of paintings, is an essay, or meditation, which explores both its subject matter and the very nature of the painting materials. Each calls for, shatters, pushes and pulls against the other, like strands woven to form a tapestry of meaning. The result is a painting, a concept to be read.

Eric Alugas:

Anthony Barboza:

JUMP again - a forum for New World culture. A blog by Ray Grist.

Omni Contemporary Art Gallery mounted its second exhibition on Saturday, March 21, 2015.  Located in Freeport, NY, the 7^th coolest town in the US, according to the travel website, Matador Network, and reported by CBS on February 26, 2015. Omni Contemporary Art Gallery is devoted to the work of contemporary painters, sculptors, photographers, and mixed-media artists. Omni Contemporary brings to Nassau County a new and exciting venue for artists, art lovers, and collectors.  The gallery features fine art of the highest standards. 

This exhibition included the works of three artists:

Tyrone Mitchell has had solo exhibitions at G.R. N'Namdi Gallery in Chicago; Bomani Gallery San Francisco; the Bronx Museum of Art, and the Newark Museum. His group exhibitions include the Studio Museum in Harlem, Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia, and the Fukui Fine Art Museum in Japan. He’s received fellowships from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Lila Wallace Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Mitchell currently teaches Sculpture art Queens College NY.

Shawn Walker says, “Coming from the urban realism of The Ashcan School, my newest portfolio works to move my inner vision of the world around me into reality; to make the invisible visible. I seek to reveal what is usually hidden - to manifest rather than to create. Following from the Be-Bop artists like Monk, Bird and Miles, from the works of Fellini and Antonioni, and from the cubists and abstract expressionists, I am developing a surrealist modernist view drawn from an African aesthetic, advancing the legacy of Romare Bearden, Charles White and Jacob Lawrence.”

Ray Grist has shown his paintings around the world, most notably in Lisbon, Munich, Paris, Bombay, and Eisenstadt, Austria.

Tyronne Mitchell

Shawn Walker

Ray Grist