Local Exhibits Invite Visitors For UpstateArt Weekend

STAMFORD – Angelina Rivas is enjoying her residency at ARTS & REC Inc.  at Osmos Station in Stamford. It is giving her time to experiment and discover a new dimension in her work. 

Born in Kansas City, she now lives and works in Los Angeles, California. It is a distance from the quiet and calm at Osmos Station, located at 20 Railroad Ave. in the village of Stamford. It is certainly miles away from the downtown Los Angeles studio she shares with two other artists and the Sharp Gallery that sponsors her work.

She is the July artist-in-residence and she has been utilizing the studio in Stamford to work with airbrushing techniques and creating in a new environment.

She paints florid, flowing and voluptuous allegorical forms with airbrush on wood panel, paper and canvas. This week she was working on paper, a change from canvas. 

She has been enjoying her surroundings and is eyeing the local swimming pool which she passed on her way to the grocery store. She is planning on visiting it as soon as her show here opens. First, she said, she must continue to create pieces for the show, which she is very excited about.

She is also enjoying the open, friendliness she has found in Stamford. As she was carrying her groceries from the store, someone stopped to offer her a ride.

The other artist exhibiting at Osmos is Chelsea Culprit. She was born in Paducah , Kentucky, but now lives and works in nearby Conesville. She will be showing her very large-scale paintings.

Her work oscillates between the craft traditions of her Kentucky upbringing, often coded female, vernacular, and domestic, and the heroic traditions of expressive and process-based paintings, from Abstract Expressionism to Gutai. She embraces monumentality and intuition, and always aims to push the boundaries of scale, process, and materials. Her recent paintings operate within, as the artist describes, a ‘drop cloth vernacular’: a process by which the artist moves between the floor and the wall, as layers of stamped lace accrue atop quilt-like elds of bright color. Culprit’s new abstractions em- body the liberation and movement central to her practice. Referencing histories of gendered labor, craft, and folklore, Culprit’s paintings stitch together myriad elements akin to the formation of an exquisite corpse or the process of collage; for Culprit, bodies are always in states of mythic transfiguration. This is Culprit’s first exhibition in upstate New York, where she has lived since 2021. 

The two solo exhibits are part of the Upstate Art Weekend 2024, July 18-21 that covers 10 counties. These two artists will bring people to the Stamford community. There are special hours for the weekend, July 19-21, each day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The two solo exhibits of Rivas and Culprit, which Cay Sophie Robinowitz believes compliment each other, opened at Osmos Station on Thursday and the exhibitions will be on view until Sunday, August 11; Friday, Saturday and Sundays noon to 5 p.m. and by appointment.

ARTS & REC Inc. is a non- profit, tax-exempt charitable organization designed to bring people to Stamford to enjoy and participate in the arts.

They were busy installing the exhibits on Wednesday and inviting the public to step into the atmosphere of two creative talents.

For more information, visit Instagram pro les @artsandrec_catskills and @osmos.online.