Artists Preview

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Colombian-born artist Alexandra Schoenberg explores the intersection of architectural precision and contemporary art. Originally from Cali, she earned a degree in Architecture from Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá before practicing architecture for over two decades in San Francisco, Philadelphia, and New Jersey. In 2014, she pivoted to fine arts, earning her MFA from Montclair State University, where she began utilizing technical drafting as a primary medium.

In her current practice, Schoenberg uses tropes of architectural representation to "collide" and expose the mechanics of human observation. Based in East Orange, New Jersey, she serves on the Board of Directors for Manufacturers Village Artists and is a member of the Art Gang collective. Her work has been exhibited at venues including Out Left Art and First Street Gallery in New York City, CoAD Gallery (NJIT), Index Art Center, and The Gateway Project in Newark.

Amy Putman is a mixed-media artist whose work incorporates collage, textile, and assemblage to explore social consciousness, identity, and resilience through visual storytelling. After a 17-year career as a Creative Director at CBS News, Putman shifted her focus entirely to fine art following the 2016 United States presidential election. Her work has since been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in numerous private collections. Putman's artwork has been featured in local and national media, including NBC and Newsweek. Her piece She’s Got the Power was selected for the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Art of New Jersey exhibition at Newark Liberty International Airport. Putman is represented by the Contemporary Art Modern Project in Miami, is a founding member of the New York Collage Ensemble, and serves as a Trustee of the Montclair Art Museum. She earned her BFA from Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Christine Romanell’s art practice explores the infinite through intricate, expanding geometric patterns. Inspired by cosmology and sacred geometry, she translates digital drawings into sculptures and paintings using laser-cutting and 3D printing. Layered forms and vibrant color gradients create atmospheric experiences that balance structural order with the limitless expanse. Recent highlights include her immersive installation Sacred Transition at the Montclair Art Museum and an augmented reality exhibition at the Hunterdon Art Museum.

A New Jersey-based artist and organizer of Garden State Art Weekend, Romanell is a recipient of an NEA grant and a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship. Her work has been featured on the Smithsonian Channel and in Hyperallergic and Juxtapoz. Her art is held in the collections of Google and Memorial Sloan Kettering, among others. She holds an MFA from Montclair State University and a BFA from the School of Visual Arts.

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Cynthia J. Vaughn is a versatile artist, illustrator, and designer whose roots are deeply embedded in the cultural landscape of New Jersey. Born in Newark’s South Ward, she discovered her artistic abilities at nine, guided by an encouraging art teacher. Her education blossomed at Newark’s Arts High School, where she mastered diverse mediums such as acrylics and charcoal. Cynthia’s passion for art and fashion led her to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, specializing in Fashion Illustration and Design. Beyond her studio work, she has dedicated years to teaching art at the Boys Club of Union County, reflecting her belief in art’s transformative power. Her work, rich in storytelling, is inspired by urban life and jazz, often exploring themes of childhood and social justice. Cynthia’s art invites viewers into her world, offering personal narratives through each piece. Her diverse creations are showcased under Gallery LLC, including her wearable art line, Denim Palette, continually pushing the boundaries of her craft while celebrating her cultural heritage.

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Jamie Lehrhoff Levine creates highly detailed, labor-intensive art designed to provoke dialogue and impact the world beyond the gallery space. Exploring the tension between the beautiful and the grotesque, her practice centers on fragility, vulnerability, and cosmic connectivity. Her diverse forty-year career ranges from textiles at Syracuse University and genetic hybrids at SVA’s Bio Art Lab, to current painting and sculpture addressing Monarch butterfly preservation.

Levine’s latest clay and rope sculptures are deeply informed by marine biology and environmental hair mats used for ocean oil-spill remediation, transforming these ecological concepts into formal visual provocations.

A New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellow and recipient of an Excellence in Jewelry Award from Montclair State University, Levine also completed a BMW Guggenheim Lab research project with the ecological collective SPURSE. She has exhibited her work widely, including international shows in London, Berlin, and Italy.

maker + curator

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Laura Lou Levy has a BA in Fine Arts from Indiana University,

Bloomington and Universidad Complutense, Madrid, and an MFA

in Painting from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. A native of Kentucky, she

spent years in Brooklyn and Manhattan before migrating to New

Jersey to raise her family. Levy has shown her drawings and

paintings for decades in museums, galleries, and nonprofit spaces,

including the Newark Museum of Art. Her 36 years as a "Hedcut"

Illustrator for The Wall Street Journal gave her the unusual pleasure of

making a living drawing pictures. Her work has been mentioned, featured,

and reviewed in publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker,

Jersey City Times, njarts.net, The Star Ledger, and American Artist.

It is in private and corporate collections in the US, Spain, England, France,

and Israel, and the National Portrait Gallery.

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Mona Brody’s paintings, including her body of work Portals, Apparitions, and Other Voices, convey a mysterious and ineffable beauty. Her extensive solo exhibitions include the Montclair Art Museum, The Painting Center (NYC), and Pratt Institute. Brody’s work is held in prominent public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art Library, the Zimmerli Art Museum, and the New Jersey State Museum.

The recipient of three Geraldine Dodge Foundation Fellowships, she was nominated for a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant and received the New Jersey Governor’s Award in Art Education. Named Professor Emeritus by Pratt Institute in 2024, Brody holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. A foundational trailblazer and board member at Manufacturers Village Artists in East Orange, she continues to maintain her studio there as a community leader and mentor.

Nan Ring is a visual artist, poet and author. In her artwork and writing, she focuses on ideas of vastness within the intimate, small moment. Ring received a Monmouth Museum Juror’s Award in their Annual Jured Exhibition, 2025, Vermont Studio Center Artist’s Fellowship Award, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation/NEA Fellowship Award, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Artists’ Fellowship Award. She has been awarded numerous artist-in-residencies, including Hambidge, I-Park, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ucross Foundation, Djerrassi, Vermont Studio Center, MASSMoCA. and Millay Arts, among others. Her national art exhibitions include Monmouth Museum, The Painting Center, NYC, Susan Eley Gallery, Hudon, NY, and 14C Art Fair, NJ among others. Her poetry has been published on Gray Sparrow Press, About Place Journal, Mom Egg Review, and is included in the anthology "The Color Wheel", Terrapin Books. She was a finalist for the Barbara Deming Fund for Women Grant in Poetry, 2025. Ring wrote and illustrated the critically acclaimed memoir, Walking On Walnuts, Bantam, 1996. She earned her MFA in Painting from The University of the Arts, PA, and her BFA in Studio Art from Syracuse University School of Visual and Performing Arts. She is co-director of the Hostetter Gallery in Basking Ridge, N.J. To learn more about Nan Ring, please visit nanringstudio.com or on Instagram @ring.nancy

Born in Bogotá, Colombia

BFA, New York University Tisch School of the Arts, New York City.

Drawing from a wide spectrum of influences—personal and collective, virtual and spiritual— Patti Samper’s work explores the relationship between light and matter, color and emotion. Her paintings investigate the intangible forces and documented effects of contemporary life. She continuously reflects on her ongoing interest in technology and the environment, the fragility within these systems, and their effects on our humanity.

Patti exhibits her work in galleries, museums, public art commissions, and has her paintings in private collections. Her paintings and curatorial projects have been featured in Hyperallergic and The Critic’s Notebook, among other arts publications.

Philemona Williamson’s narrative paintings explore the tenuous bridge between adolescence & adulthood. She has shown widely, with solo shows at Semiose (Paris), June Kelly (NYC), Jenkins-Johnson (CA) & a mid-career retrospective at The Montclair Museum (NJ). A recipient of numerous awards & residencies including Joan Mitchell Foundation, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, National Endowment For The Arts, NY Foundation For The Arts, Millay Colony, Anonymous Was A Woman & MacDowell. Represented in private/public collections including French National Contemporary Art Collection (CNAP); Kalamazoo Art Institute; Mint Museum; Smith College Museum & The Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection. Her public works include fused-glass murals created for a Brooklyn subway station & mosaic murals for a school in Queens. She created a series of paintings for the children’s book “Lubaya’s Quiet Roar” from Penguin Random House. Philemona has taught Painting & Drawing at Hunter, Pratt, SVA, Bard, RISD, Cooper Union & Parsons. She has served on the advisory board of the Getty Center for Education and is currently on the board of Doing Art Together in NYC and The Visual Arts Center of NJ.

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Ruth Borgenicht initially studied mathematics at Rutgers University before discovering a deeper capacity for visual creativity through clay. Twenty-five years later, earning an MFA launched a new direction for their practice, focusing on socially engaged and participatory projects that expand the role of the artwork within the community.

Deeply collaborative,Ruth Borgenicht’s ceramic expertise has been shaped by a robust network of community residencies, including Hunter College, Anderson Ranch, Greenwich House Pottery, Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts, William Paterson University, Chester Springs Studio, and the University of the Arts.

A recipient of two New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowships, they have taught workshops and served as a visiting artist at numerous institutions. They currently teach at Montclair State University and The Art School at Old Church in Demarest, New Jersey.

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Shayna Miller received her MFA in Studio Art from Hunter College, New York, and her BA from Drew University, Madison, NJ. Miller has presented solo exhibitions of her work at the Korn Gallery at Drew University, Madison, NJ and the Hostetter Gallery at Pingry, Basking Ridge, NJ. Her work has been featured at My Pet Ram in New York, NY and included in the group exhibitions Small Devotion at Elza Kayal Gallery, New York, NY (curated by Michael Reid), Mutable Landscapes at MAMA Projects, New York, NY, Material Girl at Athens Cultural Center in Athens, NY (curated by Lisa Corinne Davis), It’s Getting to a Point at Thomas Van Dyke Gallery in Brooklyn, NY (curated by Alex Feim and Jack Arthur Wood), and Facture Fracture at CHART in New York, NY.

Yvonne Duck is a multidisciplinary artist based in Montclair, New Jersey, whose practice spans sculpture and photography. Working with found and organic materials including rusted metal, weathered glass, roots, abandoned nests, and other remnants, she creates works that explore resilience, transformation, and the relationship between human systems and the natural world.

Her sculptures often bring together elements that suggest both containment and release, revealing tensions between structure and vulnerability, conformity and freedom. Through photography, Duck extends these themes into the landscape, using light, texture, and atmosphere to uncover quiet narratives of endurance, adaptation, and change.

Drawing from personal experience as well as environmental and social concerns, her work invites reflection on the forces that shape identity, memory, and belonging. Rather than offering fixed conclusions, she creates spaces for contemplation and discovery.

Duck holds a BFA from Pratt Institute and maintains an active studio practice at the 1-7Five community in New Jersey.