Graffiti Gallery to open new location with solo show by OC artist

Oil City artist CJ Hurley will hold the inaugural show in the new Graffiti Gallery space at 228 Seneca Street. 

Hurley's show, titled "The Lyrical Landscape", will be a five-week, multi-faceted exhibition featuring recent paintings, a program on Romanticism in art history, an artist demonstration, and community outreach with programs for students. 

The opening reception for the show will be held from 6 to 9 p.m., Friday, Sept. 8. The exhibit will run through Saturday, Oct. 14. ​

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The show will mark a new phase for the Graffiti Gallery, which was been in the basement area of the National Transit Annex Building for more than a decade. The Oil City Arts Council, which coordinates the not-for-profit art space, recently announced it was moving the gallery to street-level space down the block. 

The move will be complete when Hurley opens his show, which describes as a "fresh look at his lifelong influences" such as the art of Japan, the Post-Impressionists, Art Nouveau artists, and the teachings of Arthur Wesley Dow.

 “The new work has moved towards creating a greater sense of depth, with a greater understanding of recognizing the shapes found in nature.

​This is combined with the concentrated use of small details, rendered in ink, which, generally, dominate the foregrounds of the compositions," he said. "I revisited the teachings of Arthur Wesley Dow, and they hit me in a new way.

Revisiting Dow has altered my view of Japanese art, which has been my greatest influence over the decades, and I think the changes in my approach to image making (are) evident with this new series.

​The Lyrical Landscape is my ultimate vision of nature. It is a vision of our world where people are guests of a majestic and sacred place – not despoilers, exploiters and profiteers.” ​

"We are honored to have been awarded a NWPA Arts Recovery Grant from Erie Arts and Culture to fund the programs that accompany the exhibition," Hurley and his wife, Barbara Pierce, posted in their art newsletter.  ​

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Hurley accepted into regional art organization​

It has been a busy summer for Hurley, who was ​recently accepted into the Northwestern Pennsylvania Artists Association.

NPAA is a regional arts organization based in Erie. It was founded in 1974 to help professional artists promote the visual arts and to protect their artistic endeavors from being exploited by an uninformed public.

​The founders based the NPAA on the national organization, "Artist Equity," which required its members to be accepted to at least three national exhibits.

Now in its 49th year, the NPAA organizes several annual exhibits for its 130+ members.

The organization also donates college scholarship monies to local graduating high school seniors, and generally promotes the visual arts in the region.
 
Hurley's first exhibition with the group is at the Kada Gallery in Erie. The open reception was on Aug. 4 and the show runs through Sept. 2.