The Arsenal Gallery Presents ARBOREAL: A GROUP EXHIBITION 9/17-10/28

The Arsenal Gallery is pleased to present Arboreal, a group show of artists Barbara Andrus, Avy Claire, Nancy Manter and Adele Ursone. Working intuitively, and responding to nature and our fragile balance within it, they have produced a striking variety of paintings, photographs, drawings and sculptures that relies on the shared vocabulary of trees. In visual language, alternately bold and nuanced, their independent artistic voices render a rich aesthetic tableaux. Inspired by the urban and rural forest, these works raise our awareness of our environment, its resilience, complexity and majesty. The exhibit is on view from September 17 to October 28, 2010.

Andrus builds site-specific sculptures with found branches to reconstruct the forest experience. She not only uses repurposed tree limbs, but recycles materials from her old artworks into new pieces, suggesting sustainability. Claire uses written transcriptions of often disturbing contemporary news reports to build visual armatures of trees of beauty and poetry. Manter photographs trees through her marks in the ice, snow, and rain droplets on her car windshield, layering her imagery to signify our imprints on place and nature. Ursone delineates intimate details of tree branches, and crops her compositions, producing a splendid isolation of stark quietude, that illustrates the power of nature to transport us in the urban landscape.

For this exhibition in the heart of Central Park, the four artists have created new artwork for Arboreal inspired by one of New York City's greatest assets-its trees. There are 5.2 million trees in New York City's five boroughs. Approximately half of them live within the Parks system-24,000 trees in Central Park alone-and MillionTreesNYC is planting an additional 600,000 in Parks throughout city (an additional 400,000 with private partners).

The Arsenal Gallery is dedicated to examining themes of nature, urban space, wildlife, New York City parks, and park history. It is located on the third floor of the Arsenal, the NYC Parks & Recreation headquarters, in Central Park, on Fifth Avenue at 64th Street. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. except for holidays. Admission is free.