Gafney Library Art Exhibit Features Jeff Roberts

Press Release
For Immediate Release
Date: March 31, 2012
Contact: Berrie Donovan, 603-522-3401

Subject: Art reception and exhibit at Gafney Library

Wakefield – “A one of a kind art show; a collection of ingenious assemblage created using fine images, found objects and a collection of nuts, bolts, pins and needles,” is how Exhibit Coordinator Peter Abate describes the latest art exhibit at the Gafney Library in Sanbornville. The exhibit features the work of North Andover, MA artist Jeff Roberts and is titled “Poem Objects: Assemblage, Collage & Boxes -2012.”

The sixty six pieces include small free-form objects and box constructions using current pop iconography, and a number of thematically related collage works made from digital prints, cut paper and mat board, and a variety of found objects ranging from plastic storage containers to painted wooden blocks and colored pinheads. Each piece is delivered as a poem might be: with its own metaphor and rhythm and imagery. Individual works include “Black Moon, 2011” constructed of digital prints, pins, and a rubber pad on a wooden coaster, and “El Condor Pasa, 2011” comprised of a bamboo box, digital prints, a wooden cube, dowels and a nail. Jeff notes his belief that “any form of art is only successful if the work turns a common item or idea into an uncommon one – creating not only the poem or poem-object, but some form of emotional power chord; or sometimes just the sense, or possibility of that kind of alchemy.”

Jeff, who is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet has been producing interesting assemblage and collage art for a few years now and probably comes by it naturally. His grandmother Dorothy Cowles Pinkney was a well-respected poet in the 30s and 40s and his father Richard “Dick” Roberts was an artist and sculptor and Curator at the Stamford Museum in Stamford, Connecticut in the 50s and 60s. Jeff’s work is inspired and informed by the masters of assemblage - Cornell, Nevelson, Westermann, Duchamp, Schwitters, and countless others.

“The original spark between artist, art, and audience is as whimsical and unpredictable as it is between humans,” says Roberts. He continues, “Who knows why we are initially attracted to a piece of art. As with people, the first reaction is usually to some physical feature: form, color, subject, etc. Something either affects us or it doesn’t and that is perfectly acceptable. We explore. We discover. We winnow. A work of art needs to hit us somehow. It's what drives artists to create and art collectors to buy.”

Jeff is a member of The International Society of Assemblage and Collage Artists, The Academy of American Poets, and the New England Poetry Club. His first book of poems, Chatter in the Canopy, was published in 2009 and is available from Etsy and Amazon. His poems have appeared in The Aurorean, Meanie Magazine, Recursive Angel, 15 Credibility Street, The Hudson Street Review, The Pictish League, and Blood Pudding Press. His poem Her Unusual Journey won first place in the annual Lawrence (Massachusetts) Eagle-Tribune Poetry Contest (1999). Beach Glass, which first appeared in the Aurorean (Farmington, ME), was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2009. This is his first exhibition of art work.

Roberts invites one and all to a reception celebrating his work on Saturday April 14th from 11:30 to 1:30 p.m. The exhibit may be seen during open library hours for the month of April. Open hours are Tuesday and Thursday 1-7:30 p.m.; Wednesday and Friday 10-noon and Saturday 9-2. For more information call library director Beryl Donovan at 603.522.3401.