FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Isabel Alvarez
WEST STRAND ART GALLERY
INAUGURAL EXHIBITION: COLLECTING MEMORIES
Featuring 14 artists from New York City, New Jersey, Los Angeles California, the Caribbean and the Hudson Valley that are in the collection of Isabel Alvarez and Julio Nazario, artists and co-founders of The West Strand Art Gallery in Kingston
On view: May1st – June 19, 2021
Kingston, New York, April 26, 2021 ---COLLECTING MEMORIES is the exhibition launching the opening of the new West Strand Art Gallery, located on the waterfront in Kingston’s Rondout neighborhood. The gallery’s co-founders are artists Isabel Alvarez and Julio Nazario. COLLECTING MEMORIES features a selection of artworks including mixed media, prints on paper and photography made by 14 artists spanning several decades, from the mid 1970s to the present.
The West Strand Art Gallery’s mission is to exhibit artwork by mid-career and emerging artists from diverse backgrounds and to increase awareness of their art-making practices.
Throughout the years, Isabel and Julio, a married couple, shared a vision for collecting art and dreamed of owning an art gallery. As artists with limited resources, they bartered and raised funds to buy works of art created by talented friends from New York City, Newark New Jersey, Los Angeles California, the Hudson Valley and in the Caribbean. A selection of these works is on view in COLLECTING MEMORIES. Included in this exhibition, among other artists is Emma Amos, Robert Birmelin, Marielena Ferrer, William Grant, Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Naoko Oshima, Debra Priestly, and Juan Sanchez,
Co-founders and co-directors of the gallery, Isabel Alvarez and Julio Nazario recently retired as academic leaders and faculty from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. They have been living in Kingston for four years, where they have their art studios. The schedule at West Strand will also include group shows, and solo exhibitions organized by guest curators. The gallery will focus on showing mixed-media, works on paper, paintings, photography, textile art, video, ceramics, and sculpture.
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