As a suburb of New York City, the Hudson Valley is home to a bounty of diverse artists producing original artwork in all areas of practice, style and concept. Our gallery partners with some of the best artists of our region, presenting their work to the public in our gallery as well as to the world through our partnership with Artsy.net, a premier gallery site.
Shawn Dell Joyce
Shawn Dell Joyce began teaching plein air classes in 2000, and continues weekly to this day. She founded a plein air school with an Arts and Agricultural mission based on the historic Hudson River School, called the Wallkill River School of Art. It still exists today as a nonprofit arts organization with a mission of bringing cultural tourism to the Hudson Valley region through plein air painting workshops and events on local farms, historic sites and open spaces.
Joyce has won many prestigious awards for plein air painting, and is a signature member of New York Plein Air Painters (NYPAP), and International Plein Air Painters (IPAP), and has been featured in many national newspapers and magazines like the New York Times, Plein Air Podcast with Eric Rhoads, Pastel Journal Magazine, Tampa Bay Magazine, and a painting in Plein Air Magazine. She is represented by six galleries around the country including Wallkill River School in NY, Woodfield Fine Art in St. Pete, and Lakeside Inn Gallery in Mount Dora, FL.
She teaches workshops in pastel and plein air techniques across the country in Staunton, VA, Olana, NY, Tampa Bay Florida, and is included in museum collections in the Georges Pompidou Museum in France and the Museum of Modern Art in NY.
Sarah Fortner Pierson
Sarah Fortner Pierson grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and received a Bachelor’s degree in Art Practice from UC Berkeley where she graduated with Highest Honors. She moved to New York City in 2001 to join Hunter College’s Master of Fine Art program. Pierson currently resides in Orange County, New York where she founded the Washingtonville Artist Collective in 2014. She is also an active member of the Goshen Art League and Orange County Arts Council and is the Executive Director of the Wallkill River School, a non-profit art gallery and art school in Montgomery, New York.
“It is my nature to jump back and forth between sometimes disparate projects. I have no more control of that tendency than I do over my breathing and I plan to continue both. An idea or a problem can catch my imagination, nag at my thoughts, tug me in different directions and to different solutions for months or years until I finally get my fill. Obsession is a fertile ground for art and once the fire is quieted, the skills and knowledge remain to inform the next round of making and fixation. The work I do on one project naturally informs my choices on the other projects which are in process at the same time.
The natural world is full of strange wonders and geometries. Natural elements such as plants, landscape and rocks are most often the starting point for my work. Art is about the experience of life; its subject is our thoughts, emotions, and senses. At its best, art points out something new to the viewer such as beauty in an everyday object, symmetry in what seems like chaos, a new perspective on a social issue or anything which deepens our experience and understanding of our lives.”
Robb Gomulka
Robb Gomulka grew up in Binghamton New York and received a Bachelors degree in Illustration and Graphic Arts from Marywood University in Scranton PA in 2004. He moved to the Village of Goshen in 2006 and works as a freelance graphic designer, illustrator, and artist. Gomulka has shown his whimsical acrylic paintings in solo and group shows as well as the annual art walks. Recently inducted as President of the Goshen Art League, Robb is active in the local art community and is a leading player in organizing and marketing exhibitions, public art events, and fund-raisers.
Cynthia Harris Pagano
Cynthia Harris-Pagano specializes in oil and pastel portraits in her North Light Studio in Otisville, New York – one hour Northwest of New York City.
Her studio, especially built on to her home brings in a North light which gives beautiful light and shade to the face and clothing.
Traveling to a client’s home to sketch and photograph, or, working from a favorite photograph sent to her, Ms. Harris-Pagano concentrates inwardly on the intonation of color, light, and how personality is expressed. Settling in Otisville with her husband, Angelo, and two children, she painted a semi-abstract series of large paintings, Genesis: Creation and Flood. After this and other large feminist/psychological paintings, she came to her full commitment in portrait painting. This led her back to the Art Students’ League Anatomy Lectures with Robert Beverly Hale and to a workshop in North Salem, NY with Daniel Greene. Then, the attachment of a North Light Studio of her own, in Otisville, and six more years of study with John Osborne at the Ridgewood Art Institute, New Jersey. This effort represents a “picking up” of the thread, started in Barbizon, France (Corot and Others Plein Air), and continuing thru the Academy Julien, Paris (where Women were first permitted to paint the figure). Cynthia’s portraits are now in Public and private collections in the USA, Canada, England, Sweden and Italy. In 2013, Harris-Pagano showed the Genesis:Creation and Flood paintings in Palmer Gallery, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY. Of this series the painting “Firmament” was chosen for Parting Shot (look for slide show) by Chronogram, Arts and Culture, Magazine.
Mike Jaroszko
Mike Jaraszko works as an illustrator and fine artist. His paintings grace the pages of many magazines like Cricket and publications by Scholastic and other national and international venues. He is a luminist painter in the style of the Hudson River School.
Patricia MacDonald
Pat MacDonald is a landscape and botanical painter, working in pastels and oils. Her paintings preserve a mystical moment in time with peace and calmness, while exaggerating the truth. She merges lines and soft edges, colors reflecting each mood and the atmosphere around it.
Mary Mugele Sealfon
Entranced by the Hudson Valley, award winning artist Mary Mugele Sealfon, enjoys pleinair landscape painting, portrait and still life in pastel and oil. After receiving her BA painting, UCSB and MA printmaking, NYU, she pursued a graphic design career in NYC and is currently teaching at SUNY Orange and The Wallkill River School. She is represented by the Wallkill River Art Gallery, Montgomery, NY. A member of the Garrison Art Center, Lower Hudson Valley Plein Air Painters, she also participates in the Palisades Park “ Artists in the Park” program, painting and exhibiting at several park locations.
Though I grew up amidst the amazing beauty of the San Francisco bay area and the Sierra Mountains of California, I find the Hudson Valley equally inspiring. Whether portrait or landscape, I prefer to work from life. Paintings are more alive when painted on location. Perhaps the joy of the experience is somehow transferred to the painting. Website: msealfon.weebly.com
William Noonan
William Noonan originally from Monroe, New York was born in 1962. After a career in graphics and publishing at The Village Voice in New York City, William returned full-time to his first love: fine art, and to the Hudson Valley, where he now resides in Newburgh, New York. He has a BFA from the State University of New York at Purchase and has since studied at the New York Academy of Art, the Woodstock School of Art, The International School of Art-Umbria Italy, and the Art Students League of New York.
An inclination for the figure, a deep love of Italian art and the investigation of his own Italian heritage, through travel and study, inform his work. While drawing on European traditions, his work is part of the continuum of American Realism.
He teaches at the Wallkill River School of Art and out of his home studio. Primarily working in oils he also includes pastels, acrylics, watercolor, drawing and printmaking techniques in his repertoire. His work has been exhibited locally, on Cape Cod, and through various Internet venues. He is in numerous private collections, home and abroad, and has several pieces in the corporate collection of Nielsen and Bainbridge.
Roberta Rosenthal
Roberta Rosenthal is an internationally published, exhibited and collected artist. Her paintings span the genres of fine art, illustration and graphic design.
In 1977 Roberta founded RSR Designs NY in Manhattan. The studio’s projects encompassed a huge range, from textile and packaging design to publishing to philatelics. She is known for a series of botanical postage stamp illustrations for the Republic of Palau and the Marshall Islands, Jewish New Years greeting cards and illustrations for gardening books, Glory of the Garden, Horticulture and Fine Gardening magazines and the New York Times.
As a fine artist, Roberta’s specialty is botanicals which she explores in a variety of styles and media. From watercolors in the European tradition of Redouté to colored pencil and oils to sumi-e ink brush techniques, Roberta is a master of many forms. Her work includes landscapes, natural science, wildlife and abstract exploration.
For the past 29 years Roberta has shared her expertise with hundreds of students as an instructor in both Botanical Art and Business Practices for Artists at the famed New York Botanical Garden and locally at Desmond Campus of Mount Saint Mary College, Wurtsboro Art Alliance and the Wallkill River School and Gallery and the Catskill Art Society. She currently teaches privately at her studio.
Recently, Roberta has expanded her repertoire into the highly specialized and personal field of Ketubahs, Jewish wedding contracts. Original botanicals, landscapes and multilingual calligraphy are combined into unique, museum quality family heirlooms for all faiths. Please CLICK on the Ketubah page.
Her art is exhibited internationally, collected by individuals and corporations. Roberta continues to travel finding unusual botanical specimens to paint or landscapes that she captures in plein air or sketches for future studio work.
Her current studio, Squirrel’s Nest, is located on top of Shawanga Mountain in Sullivan County, New York.
Vaune Sherin
VauneSherin studied art at SUNY Orange, and received a BA in art from SUNY Binghamton with a concentration in painting. Her early work experience was in the art department of a silk screener for the garment industry. She is now a pastel painter focusing on still life and plein air landscapes. A represented artist with the Wallkill River School of Art, she also belongs to the Goshen Art League, and exhibits frequently with both groups. Her love of nature and the beauty of the Hudson Valley inspire her artwork.
Judi Silvano
Singer/composer/visual artist Judi Silvano has worked in the New York area since 1976 when she moved from her native Philadelphia and her diverse career as modern dancer and then jazz singer has taken her to clubs, concert halls and universities around the world. To date Judi has released 14 music recordings on Blue Note, Soul Note/ Black Saint, Zoho, Jazzed Media and JSL Record labels to critical acclaim and she sings from the heart each time in the genres of jazz, healing-meditation and chamber music. She has played and/or recorded with such artists as Joe Lovano, Kenny Werner, Jim Pepper, Bill Frisell, Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden, Steve Swallow, Paul Motian, Tim Hagans, Vic Juris, John Abercrombie, James Emery, Victor Lewis, Warren Smith, Newman Taylor Baker, Wynton Marsalis, Gunther Schuller, Manny Albam, and Michael Abene among others. Ms. Silvano’s latest recording is “Lessons Learned” released in 2018 on Unit Records. This project with her 2-guitar Zephyr Band brings her “Stories of Life and Love” to the fore in unique original songs with new Lyrics to tell each story. Silvano chose Grammy Winner and Sax-Master Joe Lovano as producer to guide the session to fully express her concepts as songwriter and singer, plus included his signature sound on two tracks. She features musicians with whom she has worked a lot through the years so there is a lot of empathy in their musical interactions. Drummer Bob Meyer played on Judi’s seminal Blue Note Records “Vocalise”, bass virtuoso Ratzo Harris has been a regular in Silvano’s explorations of new material at The Knitting Factory and other clubs and Adam Kolker’s versatility as a reedman makes him a great front-line partner with Silvano’s affinity for blending. Hearing guitarist Kenny Wessel on the scene with the late-great Ornette Coleman led Judi to invite him to be part of her new band and Bruce Arnold’s processed guitar approach offered fresh options in creating her 2-guitar concept for this Zephyr Band album. Recent recordings include Silvano’s 2015 release “My Dance” featuring Judi in a duo setting with veteran pianist Michael Abene in an all- Silvano Originals program – some with lyrics while leaving the story of other songs to the listener’s imagination.
In 2016, her foray into Electro-Acoustic improvisations with Bruce Arnold resulted in the first of several releases featuring Digital Effects on both the guitar (SuperCollider) and vocals (Eventide). Their first adventurous sonic landscape “Listen To This” (Muse Eek) was released in 2016 and a set of gentle excursions “Cloudwalking” (JSL) in 2018. As a progressive composer and arranger, Silvano has written over 45 pieces for chamber music and jazz ensembles incorporating written material with improvisation. She has won a Meet the Composer grant, champions the work of under-performed American Women Composers (her “Women’s Work” CD) and her chamber music songs have been played in NYC and Europe for New York Women Composers, Vox Musica and Ars Nova concerts. Her broad inspiration has led her to develop Educational Workshops called “Pathways to Music and Dance” (winning two New York State Council on the Arts grants), being named Top 10 Vocalist in Downbeat Magazine four times, Best Jazz Singer in the Hudson Valley and to contribute articles to All About Jazz & Jazz Improv Magazine.
In addition to music, Judi Silvano is also a painter. Her Watercolor, Oil, Acrylics, Pastel and Encaustics draw inspiration from the beauty of nature in New York’s Hudson Valley as well as the music and musicians she has witnessed around the world. Silvano’s work has been shown and sold in Solo and Group exhibits in the Tri-State area, the MidWest and online and has received awards in juried shows. She is a Represented Artist of the Wallkill River School and Galleries and is a member of the Middletown Art Group, Goshen Art League, Woodstock Art, Washingtonville Art Collective, North East Watercolor Society and the Crawford Arts Association. For more about Judi’s musical and visual art Events please visit: www.judisilvano.com
Joseph Sundwall
Joseph Sundwall was raised near Chicago when the arts were still considered an essential part of a child’s education (his first oil was painted in third grade). When it came time for college he chose the Kansas City Art Institute with the intention of majoring in painting, but after getting a taste of other arts in the first year foundation program, he became fascinated by the peculiar work being done in the graphic design department. The rigorous program was based on the design and color ideas Josef Albers developed at Yale. It included color theory, composition, photography, typography and printing. Of key importance was the development of sensitivity to negative spaces, including the relationship of spaces between forms and within forms. Students were encouraged to consider design less a decorative art than one of problem solving, which should yield a solution relevant to the content and objectives of the problem. It was about being clear and simple in execution. And elegant. Minimalist.
After college Joseph moved to New York City and worked for several years as a graphic designer and type designer before taking up the study of fine art again. He took oil painting courses at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design, and at St Oswald’s Studios in London.
“The teachers I studied with were primarily portrait painters: David Leffel, Ron Scherr, Everett Kinstler, Charles Hardaker. I’d been painting portraits since I was a kid and always had good eye/hand coordination, patience with myself, curiosity about my materials, and a child’s love of just watching how the work gets done; I’m still enthralled by the process of painting and because of my design background, I’m never not aware of the ‘big picture’ – how the central focus of the painting relates to the whole, whether I’m being direct or indirect, and whether the technique agrees with the inner intention of the work.
“Having focused for years on people portraits, on a lark I went to see a polo match and found myself captivated by the ponies – their beauty, intelligence and athleticism astonished the city boy in me. Before long I was painting polo and other equestrian events, including dressage, foxhunting, bassetting and horse racing, then all kind of hounds and birds and animals leapt into my work. I feel that I was somehow destined to paint the figure – humans and animals in motion and at rest. “
Today, Joseph divides his time between figure painting and landscape, which usually include animals. As much as possible he paints from life, preferring the simple oil sketch as reference material to the use of photography, though it is indispensable for small children and animal subjects. And early this year he discovered a new subject: War of Independence reenactments. “Dedicated actors on foot and on horseback, period costume, and blue smoke issuing from muskets and cannon: it’s like a movie,” Sundwall said recently, “only louder.”
His painting style relies in great part on wet-into-wet techniques, plus the juxtaposition of areas of flat paint with modeling and vigorous brushwork playing off areas of studied strokes.
“I’m a realist painter,” Joseph says, “but more than just making things look ‘real,’ I’m interested in putting down no more than is necessary to get a point across… to discover what can be left out or merely implied; this requires more conscious involvement in the process of painting for me, and invites greater participation by the viewer when coming in for a closer look.”
Joseph has taught oil painting privately and at regional art associations in New Jersey. He demonstrates the art of portrait painting before art groups and at fairs. His work is to be found in many private collections in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and in Europe. He lives in Bridgewater, NJ, and is represented by J. M. Stringer Galleries in Bernardsville, NJ and Vero Beach, FL.
Richard Weber
Richard Weber’s studio is in Pine Island, NY where he works in a wide range of media including ceramics, photography, collage, painting and mixed media sculptures.
4/2022 “Life From Earth” Wallkill River School, Montgomery, NY
3/2022 “Flight” Goshen Art League, Goshen NY
3/2022 “Members Exhibit” Wallkill River School, Montgomery, NY
2/2022 “Self Portraits” Wallkill River School, Montgomery, NY
9/2021 Curator “Braving the Storm: Creativity Thrives in Difficult Times” Goshen art League 7/2021 “In the Mood: Art Inspired by Music Goshen Art League
5/2021 “Ex Libris: Artists Explore Literature” Goshen Art league
2/2021 “Where the Road Leads” Goshen Art League
3/2020 “Reclaimed Slate, Fundraiser Auction: Goshen Art League
10/2019 “Opposites Attract: Opposing Images in Art” Goshen Art League 10/2019 Curator “Less is More” Goshen Art League
10/2019 Group Show Fundraiser Hilltop Art School, Sparta, NJ
9/2019 “Nature: Art Inspired by the Earth” Goshen Art League
8/2019 ”Music: A Visual Perspective” Orange County Community College 6/2019 “Painted Trotter” Illuminate Goshen
5/2019 “New Members Exhibit” Goshen Art League
5/2019 ”Spheres of Influence: Sculpture by Rick Weber” Mindy Ross Gallery, Newburgh, NY 2/2019 “Bridges” Goshen Art League
2/2019 “Water:Master of Disguise” Warwick Library, Warwick, NY
9/2018 “Rinse, Repeat” Goshen Art League
8/2018 “Members Show” Amity Gallery, Warwick, NY
7/2018 Solo Show Griffith Olivero Realtors, Goshen, NY
10/2017 Group Show Fundraiser Hilltop art school, Sparta, NJ
6/2017 “Three Person Show” Amity Gallery, Warwick, Ny
4/2017 Up-Front Gallery Port Jervis, NY
10/2016 Up-Front Gallery Port Jervis, NY
10/2015 Group Show Fundraiser Hilltop Art School, Sparta, NJ
11/2014 Holiday Art Craft Show Morristown, NJ
10/2014 Brooklyn Museum Art Show, Brooklyn, NY
7/2014 Berkshires Art Festival Great Barrington, MA
5/2014 Art/Craft Fair at Lyndhurst Tarrytown, NY
10/2013 Featured Artist Hilltop Art School, Sparta, NJ
10/2012 Group Show Fundraiser Hilltop Art School, Sparta, NJ 10/2011 Group Show Fundraiser Hilltop Art School, Sparta, NJ
10/2008 Rhinebeck Craft Fair Rhinebeck, NY
9/2008 Woodstock/New Paltz Craft Fair New Paltz, NY,
2003-2007 The Artery Gallery Milford, PA
1996-2014 Art teacher at Warwick Valley Middle School
1994-1998 Masters Degree in Art Education, SUNY New Paltz,n New Paltz, NY 1993-1996 Art Teacher at Nanuet Elementary and Middle School 1990-1993 Graduated with a BS in Art Education
1987-1990 Custom kitchen manufacturing and installation
1986 Welding shop making sets for Broadway and entertainment 1985 Costume Armor making props for Broadway and Rock and Roll 1984-1987 Studio 18 Gallery Middletown, NY
1976-1982 Operated a small pottery business
1974-1984 UPS Package Driver
1969-73 SUNY new Paltz Art Major
1959- present create art: drawing, painting, sculpture,
photography, ceramics and multimedia