Gallery Opening Reception: Sunday, January 21, 3-5pm with an Artists’ Talk preceeding reception at 2pm.

Gallery Hours: Friday-Sunday 1-4pm or by appointment. For more information go www.thebaird.org or call (973) 378-7754. All events are free to the public.

Layers can refer to material elements, conceptual ideas and moments in time. This exhibition brings together five artists whose works display complex, unique layers through the use of colors, shapes, mediums, and content. Featured works include painting, fiber collage, and wall sculpture by artists Virginia Schaffer Block, Rachel Leibman , Judith Plotner, Kenneth Schnall , Barbara Straussberg.

Virginia Shaeffer Block , from Upper Montclair, NJ, creates paintings with acrylic and mixed mediums that explore content related to artifacts, portals and the passage of time. From recent trips to China, Block has created a series of paintings that let the viewer feel the visually rich culture and the deep layering of centuries of tradition through the building up of numerous layers, the balancing of universal forms, and the saturated use of color. Block has her works in several private collections through out the U.S. and has exhibited extensively throughout the tri-state area, including City Without Walls in Newark, NJ

Rachel Leibman , from Montclair, NJ creates collages that tell stories about the uneasy coexistence of the natural and synthetic, about the religion and politics that shape our society, and about the difficulties and choices we face when navigating our way through this existence. Leibman’s recent collages titled, Illuminations, uses manuscripts of different religions, languages and styles, cutting them up and reconstructing them into a different story, illustration or icon. The imagery within the collages is cross-cultural, depicting items such as hybrid creatures, planetary objects and elaborate intersecting lines that are typical symbols for almost every religion. Leibman has exhibited extensively throughout the tri-state area including City Without Walls in Newark, NJ and the Broome Street Gallery in New York.

Judith Plotner , from Gloversville, New York, creates fiber wall hangings that explores and blurs the relationships between fabric collage, painting and printmaking. Working improvisationly, Plotner’s latest series draws from her life experiences as an artist through multi-layered colors, shapes, and fabrics. She has exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. including The Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York and The Renwick Gallery in Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.

Kenneth Schnall , from Milford, NJ, uses painting and drawing on mounted paper surfaces to create three-dimensional wall structures. As they break with the conventional form of a painting, these works declare themselves, decisively, as transformed painted objects. Schnall’s purpose is to maximize meaning and visual presence in the content of the painting through the juxtaposition of perceived moving surfaces, the suggestion of hidden spaces, and the play of manipulated canvas. Among receiving several painting fellowships from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Schnall has exhibited extensively throughout the