AVA Gallery and Art Center is pleased to present three solo exhibitions featuring Nick Lamia: Tailwaters Project | Elizabeth Rowland Mayor Gallery; Elizabeth Nelson: Boreal | E.N. Wennberg Gallery; Katya Roberts: Reclamation: Through the Woods | Rebecca Lawrence Gallery Entry and Clifford B. West Gallery. Three artists who work in painting and installation in themes which signify water, landscape, and ecology. Opening Reception, Friday, October 14, 5-7 PM
Nick Lamia: Tailwaters Project | “Overlaps of nature and society fascinate me and inspire my artwork. I collect information by drawing and painting recognizable subjects and scenes “en plein air” and then use memory and intuition to create studio artwork which evokes, rather than illustrates, the intertwining of society with nature. I’ve been inspired by experiences hiking remote glaciers, wading urban trout streams, and sailing boats through storms at sea. Lately, I’ve been exploring the tailwaters of New York and New England. Access to the tailwater is often well downstream of the dams, navigating carefully upstream for several miles through the cold current is long and challenging, when I finally get my first glimpse of an enormous dam through the trees, it is as if I am seeing something completely alien. It is a remarkable moment to see a familiar object as if it is something brand new and mysterious. It means you have let go of your preconceptions about the thing and you are truly seeing it clearly.” —Nick Lamia
Nick Lamia has a bachelor’s in environmental science from UC Berkley and an MFA from Boston University. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and has attended residencies at Wave Hill, The MacDowell Colony, the Robert Blackburn Print Workshop, and the Triangle Artists Association. 500 of his small-scale drawings were included in the inaugural Bronx Museum Biennial in 2011. Recent solo exhibitions include Cloud Architecture at Planthouse Gallery in New York and Greenhouse, for which he created a group of site-specific wall works for the Richard Meier building at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn.
Click here to view Nick Lamia’s website
Elizabeth Nelson: Boreal | “After a short visit to Iceland in 2012, I experienced an irresistible magnetic pull, a need to return for a longer time to paint what I saw and felt of the landscape and weather. Five years later I was able to go back to Iceland as an artist in residence at SĺM, (the Association of Icelandic Artists), an organization that supports a cultural exchange of visual artists with all countries of the world. As a result of the experience of Iceland my painting became a collaboration. Instead of me being the solitary maker, the paint and the surface had their say too. As I continued, I became acutely aware of the relationship of the changing climate to what was happening on the surface in front of me; all was coming together to become an expression of change, of melting glaciers, of storms, and unsettled weather.” —Elizabeth Nelson
Elizabeth Nelson was born in New York City and began painting when she was eight. She graduated from Rhode Island School of Design and then lived in Guatemala for a year, upon returning earned her master’s degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been a teacher, dairy farmer, museum curator, and always a painter. She has exhibited throughout Vermont and New England as well as in juried shows in Reykjavik, Wisconsin, New York, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. She was a resident at the Vermont Artist Week at The Vermont Studio Center in Johnson VT, and a two-time artist in residence at the SÍM (Association of Icelandic Artists) in Reykjavik, Iceland. She has lived in northern Vermont for over fifty years where she raised her children.
Click here to view Elizabeth Nelson’s website
Katya Roberts: Reclamation: Through the Woods | “I am drawn to boundaries and where they meet, where dualities converge or diverge. Perhaps this is a result of moving to the U.S. from Ukraine at the age of twelve. Living at the intersection of identity, places, languages, and ideas has been a rehearsal for the ways I see the world, now reflected in my art. My past work has explored our relationship to time, community, history, and the natural world. Iceland and other geologically dynamic landscapes become the backdrop against which I explore those concepts. Most recently I have been inspired by the Black Sand Basin in Yellowstone National Park and by walking through the woods of New Hampshire. Weaving together installation art, painting, sculpture, and video, the work is immersive and read as a whole; singular works are in conversation as they inform each other. Working in a variety of tactile materials, my intention is to create an experience which is visceral, nostalgic, or meditative.” —Katya Roberts
Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Katya Roberts grew up in California and has a BS in Sociology with Art Emphasis from UCLA. In 2002 she received the UCLA Women in Art Award. After working at Fox Studios, she taught and developed the visual arts curriculum at Pacifica, a college preparatory school in Santa Monica, CA. In 2015, Roberts exhibited a series of three installations for KCRW’s Chinatown summer nights in Los Angeles, CA. In 2016, she moved to Rochester, Minnesota and founded the Mayo Art Group. In 2017, she had a winning sculpture proposal for the public art series Art4Trails, Unbroken, an aluminum sculpture now on permanent installation at Mayo Park. She was a recipient of the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council grant for a solo exhibition titled Traverse at the Rochester Art Center. In 2020 Roberts exhibited This Side of the Sun in the Turret Gallery at the historic Castle building in downtown Rochester, MN. Roberts has lived in New Hampshire since 2020.
Click here to view Katya Robert’s website
Opening Reception: Friday, October 14, 5-7 PM
Artist Talk: Nick Lamia, Elizabeth Rowland Mayor Gallery | Friday, October 28, 2022, 5:30-6:30 PM
Artist Talk: Elizabeth Nelson, E.N. Wennberg Gallery | Friday, November 4, 5:30-6:30 PM
Artist Talk: Katya Roberts, | Clifford B. West Gallery and Rebecca Lawrence Gallery Entry | Friday, October 21, 5:30-6:30 PM
(Masks are optional and encouraged.) All talks will be recorded and posted on our website.
AVA galleries are open to the public and free of charge.
Exhibitions are generously sponsored by:
Global Forest Partners LP
Revision Energy
