Opening art exhibition featuring Syracuse based artist Penny Santy
Penny Santy Interconnected opening on January 10 from 5 PM to 7 PM at 167 Genesee Street, Lower Level of the Westwood.
Penny has received local jury awards in both 2022 and 2023, and her artwork has been showcased in 1340 Art magazine. She identifies as a figurative abstract painter, capturing the connections between nature and humanity in her pieces.
Enjoy a cash bar and complimentary hors d’oeuvres. It’s free and open to everyone! We look forward to seeing you there!
This event is brought to you by 4 Elements Studio, with generous support from the Bank of Utica. The Westwood gallery is a satellite program that has been made possible thanks to the generous donation from the Carbone family.
BIO:
Penny Santy, an abstract figurative painter from New York State, earned her fine art degree from Syracuse University. With 36 years experience as a painter, her work is award winning with the most recent being the 2023 Jurors Choice Award at the Main Street Arts Plein Air Event, Clifton Springs, NY., and the 2022 Dorothy Bostwick Campbell Memorial Prize at the Cooperstown Art Association national juried show. She exhibits regularly across the northeast including at Dacia Gallery, New York City; Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY; Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, NY; and is represented by Hamilton Center for the Arts in Hamilton, NY.
Her work has been published in 1340 Art magazine, April 2018, and has been accepted for publication in Stone Canoe Number 18, to be published in Spring 2024. Santy has been painting in oils since 1984. As an undergraduate student, she discovered that painting was her passion. It excited and challenged her, and she has built upon her skills ever since. “Aspiring to paint well is a life-long learning process, and that is stimulating to me,” Santy says. She regularly paints en plein air landsapes and does figurative drawings from the model to feed her inspiration and hone her skills. Her studio work draws upon her experiences from those artistic practices and from the world as she experiences it.
Artist Statement:
I grew up in central New York. I still live here in Syracuse, NY, where I am surrounded by wonderful nature which enriches my life and heavily influences my work. I earned my bachelor of arts from Syracuse University. That’s where I really delved into drawing the figure, usually in large format charcoal drawings, and built my love of working in oils.
When I was a young teen, I saw an Anselm Kiefer massive painting in Philadelphia, and that was the moment I knew the power of art. I’ve always been really moved by abstract works. I think it’s because you move out of the world you live in and your brain is free to explore and invent. The Bay Area painters Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, each with their own styles, were huge influences on me because they’re both masters at abstracting the figure. Also, just a couple of years ago I saw the Jenifer Packer show at the Whitney. Wow, can she use the figure in such a powerful way with her use of simplified color and information! Those are some examples of artists I’ve been influenced by.
I’ve been incorporating the abstracted figure to my canvases for around 8 years, now. I love getting to the essence of the figure, an emotion, or describing motion. I’ve been exploring the relationships between figures, both physically and emotionally. I use the figure along with an influence of nature to speak to subjects like climate change, relationships, or human struggle. I think my work is intriguing because I really delve into the process of painting. I get into making different kinds of lines, with oil sticks, the brush, a rubber scraper, and my finger nails. Many of my pieces move into a rhythm, taking the eye across the canvas, moving in and behind shapes, using repetition of form, value or color. That’s where my energy really gets transferred to the work. As a result of the journey, the painting exudes more vitality, and the history within the layers tell a story of time that relates to the sensitivity of humanity.
