Smithtown Township Arts Council is pleased to announce In the Garden of Eden-Artists Reflections, an exhibition featuring the work of seven artists selected by guest curator Melissa Masci, to be held March 9 – April 14 at Mills Pond Gallery in St. James. The public is invited to an opening reception Saturday, March 16 at 5:30 pm to meet exhibiting artists and view their work. Regular Gallery hours are Wed. –Fri., 10 am-4pm; Sat. and Sun., 12-4pm. Visit millspondgallery.org or call 631-862-6575 for directions or information. Admission to the gallery is free. Please use our rear parking lot off Mills Pond Road, directly across from the two white stone pillars at Flowerfield, 199 Mills Pond Rd.

Exhibiting the works of eight artists whose work reflects duality of good and evil, innocence and guilt, death and birth showing how experience and choice have shaped and defined them as artists and in their process of creation.

Ashley Johnson is a visual artist working in Buffalo, NY. She works with ceramics, collage, and photography, but expresses her creativity most through stippled ink drawings and large-scale ink paintings. “My process is intuitive and I rely heavily on how I’m feeling at the time. I choose colors that resonate in that moment, and the size of the work is dictated by how deeply I’m willing to connect with whatever emotion is coming up.”

Brooklyn artist AM DeBrincat’s paintings create unique worlds where online and offline life meet and merge. Her mixed media technique combines fragments of images sourced from social media and online image searches which are Xerox transfer printed onto canvas and intermingled with lush oil painting. Combining digital and analog media like pieces in a visual puzzle, the artist builds paintings which explore how we create identity and sense of self in the digital age.

Lake Grove Artist and educator Nicholas Frizalone received his BFA from Stony Brook University and his MFA from Long Island University in Brookville. “Through the use of painting, drawing, and printmaking, I wish to investigate the implications of language in art, and communicate in a way words cannot accomplish.”

Jennifer Hannaford is a forensic scientist and contemporary artist based in Port Jefferson. Hannaford experienced some of the harsher realities of human nature. Her art allows her to explore beautiful moments of the living experience frozen in time on canvas; life, ascension, and balance. Using sensibilities that were born out of her professional training in forensic science, she understands how the body feels and reacts underwater.

Neta Leigh is a surreal-impressionist photographer from Locust Valley. “Creation starts when I notice potential in my surroundings- local locales ranging from beaches and parks on Long Island, to random scenes from my suburban morning commute, my neighborhood, backyard, and, more. Photography has gifted me a new, serendipitous path for release. In an effort to nurture the field that has so nurtured me, I allocate funds from all proceeds to art programs for organizations in need.”

Peter Bragino is multi-discipline, mixed-media artist, designer, treasure hunter, and soul searcher. “No matter the medium, my art has always been a manifestation of my personal spiritual journey. I share my vision with the world in the hope of inspiring a deeper connection between you the viewer and your own life journey. I make art to encourage people to live deeply, love fearlessly, and to appreciate this heavenly place called Earth.”

Smithtown artist Yvonne Katz believes “Art is the elixir that allows us to fluidly slip and break the threshold of all boundaries. As sentient beings we are exposed to the phenomenon of existence. Throughout hundreds of generations the concept of “being” has been forged with names, labels. Catalogued by categorization with the purpose to try to set boundaries that control what we perceive as chaos.