FIRST STREET GALLERY caps off the year with the 2017 Annual Affiliates Exhibition, highlighting the unique and dynamic work of member artists Gilles Giuntini, Greg Green, Carolyn Sheehan and Jane Shoenfeld.

Gilles Giuntini uses “Painted Bronze” by Jasper Johns as his subject matter. The piece by Johns incorporates Ballantine Ale cans and is an icon and progenitor of the American Pop Art movement. With his pieces occupying two referential time-frames, Giuntini hopes to create an awareness and acknowledgement of, and perhaps, a lament over the tectonic shifts having taken place in the world of economics and international fine arts since the primacy of Mid-Century America.

Greg Green’s formalism is not an end in itself. His paintings explore subject matter such as history, pain, sex, and quiet, even though we may not always recognize it at first. Green walks a fine line between the empirical and the unseen; a glimpse of a timeless presence. The eternal.

Carolyn Sheehan creates art works that are best described by color and images. She combines creativity and imagination with emotions in every piece with the sole purpose of not only creating an aesthetic that impacts the feelings but causes pleasure as well. Every piece is worked like a sculpture which is three dimensional and they take shape in a style in which the icon is always the focal point.

Jane Shoenfeld’s new series of pastel and mixed media paintings respond to W. B. Yeats’ ominous, prophetic poem, “The Second Coming.” She invites allusions to imagery within her abstractions and as always, her work speaks through color. Her process is to meditate on a line from the Yeats’ poem and follow the urgings of the personal and collective unconscious.