John Breiner: Exhibit on view from July 1 – August 29

Artist Talk: Thursday, July 10, 6:30 pm
Adriance Memorial Library
Registration required.

John will speak about his book, Power Kingdom: A History of Poughkeepsie’s Graffiti, and the archiving process he has been doing since he was a teenager. Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing after the artist/author talk.

Color My World with John Breiner
Saturday, July 12, 2-4 pm
Boardman Road Branch Library
No registration required. 

This is a drop-in art session where people of all ages can watch and/or help John work on one of his graffiti paintings.  Supplies will be provided for people to create their own art work to bring home with them. Rain date July 19.

John Breiner grew up during the pre-internet golden era of comic books, garden gnomes, building wooden jump ramps and being home when the street lights came on.  Discovering D.I.Y cultures like Skateboarding, HIPHOP, Graffiti & DJ-ing had a giant effect on him and helped craft him into the artist he is today. 

In 1999, John attended The School Of Visual Arts in Manhattan which expanded his creative horizons. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 sparked a fascination with old books and discarded paper. This shift led to the evolution of a mixed media style using salvaged materials—faded, water-damaged, and imperfect—which he repurposed to create narrative, texture-rich artworks.

“I began to embrace the book as way to communicate to my current audience. After all I only worked on the end pages where some will go to read the summary of the book. I also removed the pages so there is no width to scare anyone off. And Lastly a picture is worth a thousand words. I updated an ancient form of communication into a modern one. People began to appreciate the book when I reworked it. It was a play on the changing of an era, It also was a commentary on peoples laziness ( myself included ) when it came to reading. When I took the book apart and replaced it with only images, they embraced it again. A modern solution for a modern society. However the biggest draw ( aside from the sporadic nature of finding the surfaces ) was that it was now telling my story.”

John’s art has been shown on almost every continent in countless exhibitions. It also is part of numerous art collections and has been published in a number of publications. Around 2013, John was painting murals and curating public art projects in cities increasingly open to large-scale outdoor work. He played key roles in initiatives like O+ Festival and The Underpass Project, and collaborated with city departments on civic beautification efforts. In 2022, he launched a new chapter as a publisher and archivist with the release of Power Kingdom, a photographic chronicle of Poughkeepsie’s graffiti scene in the 1990s. The book sold out its first printing in a month, and he is currently working on a follow-up documenting graffiti across the Northeast.

James Arthur Wojciechowski: An extraordinary process of layering and blending colors and textures while exploring the possibilities of the empty canvas. 

June 1 – July 29

James Arthur Wojciechowski, 22, born in NYC, comes from a long family lineage of artists, designers, and musicians.

He has been experimenting with mixed media for the last few years. The resulting works are little gems. The emotional impact of each piece explodes from the canvas, vibrating with luminosity, and elevating the spatial quality of the unpainted surface to that of the painted.

Suzanne Bonser: Cabinet of Curiosities

April 30 – July 29

After discovering that 18th century scientists and naturalists collected specimens of nature and displayed them as “Cabinets of Curiosities”, I was inspired to use my own collection of trilobites, shells, geodes, fossils, scarabs, and butterflies, as subject matter for still life paintings. Many of these objects are thousands of years old and are still teaching us about the formation of our planet through time.

A series of paintings can be curated as a collection, like the original “Cabinets” which were often entire rooms filled with specimens. Charles Darwin published his theories on natural selection and evolution in 1838, and his notes, drawings and Lists of Species, in his own hand, are available in online archives. As a historical reference, many of my artworks are painted on a background of his documents.

Just as every child will pick up a stone or shell and keep it in a shoebox, it is our human nature to want to collect and save the beautiful natural treasures that intrigue us.