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Ranney School's Alumni Art Exhibition


Ranney School welcomed back its alumni on Saturday October 6, 2012 to reunite with former classmates and teachers, participate in the dedication of the Walling Aquatics Center to longtime Aquatics Director and swim instructor, Emmett Walling, and to induct former athletes and one coach into the Panther Athletics Hall of Fame. Carrying on the tradition, the Alumni Art Exhibition was also on display in the Panther Hall Art Gallery for guests to admire.

According to Kate Greenberg, Fine Arts Department Chair, the exhibition serves two main goals. It is a representation of the mentoring relationship between faculty and students and its continuity well beyond graduation. It is also a tangible manifestation of the deep commitment that Ranney School has to its students—both past and present. “The exhibition is always an inspiration to our current students,” says Ms. Greenberg. “They see so many of the possibilities that await them when they move on to college.”

This year’s exhibition features nine alumni artists whose creativity ranges from classic brush painting to jewelry and architectural design. Among the alumni exhibiting works are Gabriele Gargano ’01, Tim LeComte ’06, Sarena Rabinowitz ’07, Kristine Rodriguez ’08, Sasha Sickles ’09, Ben Weakley ’10, Stephen D’Onofrio ’10, Melissa Kowalski ’11, and Charlotte Fleming ’12.

These artists have continued to pursue their passion for art after graduating from Ranney and have achieved a great deal throughout their journeys. Gabriele Gargano, a Ranney lifer who graduated in 2001, went on to complete her Bachelor of Arts at Brown University and has worked at Goldman Sachs ever since. While currently a sales trader in their Prime Brokerage – Securities Lending group, she continues to find creative outlets in various mediums, which most recently includes jewelry. Her work is often characterized by an organically chic design that balances rough and pristine qualities. The goal is to display the beauty of the materials through this juxtaposition and to allow for the pieces to be worn from day to night.

Also featured in the exhibition is Tim LeComte. Tim has been playing with colors since he could hold a crayon and color on furniture as a young boy. It was not until he moved to Austin, Texas after graduating in 2006 that he started painting larger murals on walls. Tim formed a team of artists that could help each other grow and influence. “Fire in Youth” was created last year in November (11-11-11) and has put on two shows so far. It has grown from 8 artists to over 30 in a year and is still growing as new members who paint, write, and photograph are added. Soon the group will be launching a website which is currently under construction. Prior to being featured in the Alumni Exhibition, Tim was also the featured artist for the University of Texas Art Store for the month of September.

Another featured painter, Ben Weakley, class of 2010, attended the University of Miami in the Visual Arts and Entrepreneurship programs after graduating from Ranney. His work demonstrates highly developed skills and refined use of materials. Both the sensitive use of materials and his realistic style are defining characteristics of his work. Capturing nuances and subtle changes in color, value, and form, Weakley’s images draw the audience in to look longer and deeper. His rich use of value and contrast create form with little use of line. His fellow classmate, Stephen D’Onofrio is also featured in the Alumni Exhibition. D’Onofrio is currently enrolled at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, studying painting and graphic design. His recent work is concerned with images of war and conflict and toll it takes on humans. The expressive gestural brush work and color schemes speak to the emotional and physical effects of war but manage to do so without the obvious references to the tragic effects on the body. His symbolic representations avoid the cliché images of war, isolating body parts but without the literal representation of blood and injury. “You are so taken by his painterly approach and the expressive quality of his brush strokes that you don’t immediately recognize what you are seeing,” added Ms. Greenberg.

Although art is typically thought of as paintings and sketches, Sarena Rabinowitz, class of 2007, displays her art in a unique form. Sarena is currently in her final year at Pratt Institute in a five year architecture degree program. Her interests are in urban planning and sustainable architecture. Her design on display in the gallery is an urban water filtration system that also functions as a park and gathering place, which serves a multitude of social, reclamation and environment functions within an urban setting. Like many of the alumni featured in the Art Exhibition over the years, Rabinowitz attributes her success to Ranney’s pioneering art program. “The variety of art courses at Ranney enabled me to explore many mediums of expression. From the challenging assignments, I gained the confidence to try new things that once seemed out of reach.”

Kristine Rodriguez, class of 2008, also has art on display in the gallery. Kristine graduated from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2012 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design and currently resides in San Diego, CA. She is interested in areas that transform graphic design into a spatial experience, specifically knitwear and display design. Her work is tactile and bold and more importantly, conceptual and human. The three works on display were a portion of her senior exhibition which challenged the very idea that graphic design must be print or video. Suggesting that the main tool of the graphic designer, the computer, once was programmed using punch cards, she used a punch card system to design the patterns on the knitwear by using a knitting machine. Through this once traditional female medium she explores the roles of women.

Representing the class of 2009 is Sasha Sickles, who is currently enrolled at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. On a screen in the exhibition, there is a commercial for Doritos from the “Crash the Super Bowl Competition.” It was created with motion design majors from Ringling College of Art and Design. As an advertising design major, Sickles jobs include concept development, scriptwriting, sound work, and various production activities. It is an example of the collaborative nature of advertising and film production. Sickles advertising campaigns for the Humane Society and The Boys and Girls Clubs show a witty, humorous, and slightly off beat approach to advertising. She demonstrates a fresh approach to looking at her product and turning it on its head. Another artist continuing to flourish in creativity is Melissa Kowalski, a graduate from the class of 2011. Melissa is currently attending Drexel University and studying Digital Media and Animation. She has been developing characters for a new video game and studying design throughout her college education. Melissa’s work is influenced by popular culture imagery and film characters. Several of her design projects are based on images from Star Wars but applied to an overall pattern. In each design she further manipulates the recognizable image into a design that subjugates the image into an overall pattern.

The most recent Ranney graduate featured in the exhibition is Charlotte Fleming from the class of 2012. She is currently studying at Williams College in Massachusetts. Fleming’s work was inspired by a book and represents her visual interpretation of the title, “As I Lay Dying”. Her work is characterized by fine detail, exquisite control of her medium, expressive brush work, and beautifully balanced positive and negative space. Her interest in Asian culture informs her horizontal format and use of sumi-like brush work defining the edges as a contemporary interpretation of a scroll. The delicate treatment of organic forms is a hallmark of her artwork.
The Alumni Art Exhibition will be displayed in the Panther Hall Art Gallery throughout the NJAIS Conference, which is being held at Ranney School on Monday October 15th. The biennial conference is held for leaders and members of independent schools across the state and aims to refresh and expand the perspectives of this audience through a full day of interaction with respected presenters throughout the academic world. “I am excited to show other independent schools that we maintain this connection with our alumni, stated Ms. Greenberg. It will be great to celebrate the great foundation the art faculty provides in preparing our students for successful art careers in the future.”
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