Monday, September 16, 2013

Art of the Southern Tier Takes Center Stage

Clothesline Season by Christine Sullivan, 30 x 40" Oil on Canvas, 2013 Southern Tier Biennial

The 2013 Southern Tier Biennial (STB) opens this Saturday, September 21 with dual receptions at Olean Public Library Gallery at 3pm and Jamestown Community College's Center Gallery at 4:30pm. The exhibition and receptions are free and open to the public. 

The STB invited established and emerging artists within the nine rural counties that make up the Southern Tier of New York State to enter the exhibition and selected, through an intense jury process, a limited number of works they feel best represent the vitality and diversity of contemporary art in the region. 

This years jurors were Kate Koperski, Director of the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University located in Niagara Falls, New York, and John Vanco, Director and Curator of the Erie Art Museum located in Erie, Pennsylvania. Together they selected 38 artists out of the hundreds that applied. 

The STB is spearheaded by Anne Conroy-Baiter, Executive Director of the Cattaraugus County Arts Council who, together with the Olean Public Library Gallery, Jamestown Community College and Cattaraugus Region Community Foundation, has built this into a high quality, regional contemporary art event. A four-color catalog and unique artist-recorded cell phone tour nicely compliment the exhibition experience.  

Four cash awards will be presented at the reception this Saturday and both participating galleries are within walking distance of each other.

If you are able to make it to the exhibition I know you will enjoy the quality art, the friendly people as well as the beauty of the city and surrounding area. Cradled by the "enchanted mountains of Cattaraugus County," Olean was sculpted by glaciers and built on the confluence where Olean Creek flows into the Allegheny River. It is home to Jamestown Community College and, just a few miles west, St. Bonaventure University as well as Allegheny State Park. 

You can explore this year's STB artists at southerntierbiennial.com
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SOUTHERN TIER BIENNIAL
SEPTEMBER 21 - OCTOBER 25, 2013

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 
           3:00 PM   RECEPTION & AWARDS, OLEAN PUBLIC LIBRARY GALLERY
        4:30 PM   RECEPTION & CELEBRATION, JAMESTOWN COMMUNITY 
COLLEGE CENTER GALLERY
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The Southern Tier Biennial is presented by the Cattaraugus County Arts Council, the Olean Public Library Gallery, Jamestown Community College, and the Cattaraugus Region Community Foundation made possible by an endowment from the estate of F. Donald KenneyKenney, who died in 1997, was a graduate of Holy Cross and received his Masters in Business from Harvard. He spent his life working at the highest levels in the international investment banking world and served as chairman of the Board of the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts as well as on a number of international arts boards including the International Council of Museums, the Finnish Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Ireland–America Arts Exchange, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Not bad for a kid from Olean, NY. 

Links: 
Southern Tier Biennial www.southerntierbiennial.com
Cattaruagus Council of the Arts www.myartscouncil.net
Olean Public Library Gallery www.oleanlibrary.org/arts
Jamestown Community College Center Gallery www.sunyjcc.edu
Cattaraugus Region Community Foundation www.cattfoundation.org