September 12 – October 9, 2019

10th Anniversary Exhibitions

Lines, Forms, Substance: Joan Mellon & Sumayyah Samaha

Confrontation: It’s as Clear as Black and White: Bette Klegon Halby

On the Wall: Vera Sapozhnikova

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 12th from 6 – 8 PM

Carter Burden Gallery is honored to celebrate its 10 year anniversary and present three new exhibitions: Lines, Forms, Substance in the East Gallery featuring Joan Mellon and Sumayyah Samaha;Confrontation: It’s as Clear as Black and Whitein the West Gallery featuringBette Klegon Halby; and On the WallfeaturingVera Sapozhnikova. The reception will be held September 12th, 2019 from 6 - 8 p.m. The exhibition runs from September 12 through October 9, 2019 at 548 West 28thStreet in New York City. The gallery hours are Tuesday - Friday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

10th Anniversary

Carter Burden Gallery (CBG) exclusively features the works of professional NYC artists over 60, fostering a supportive and culturally diverse community of re-emerging artists. Beginning ten years ago with 15 artists in a small alternative space on 7th Ave CBG moved in 2013 to a beautiful 2,000 sq. ft. gallery in Chelsea and has now exhibited over 300 different artists in 223 shows.  We celebrate our 10th year of this community's unique ability to share lifetimes participating as vital members of New York's arts culture. 

In furtherance of the CBN's goals, and in recognizing the unique cultural wealth possessed by older professional artists, CBG was born. While giving older artists an opportunity to show their work and engage in current contemporary artistic discourse, CBG recognizes that these opportunities are hard-won and often difficult to achieve. Therefore, CBG is committed to empowering re-emerging, professional older artists through the exhibition and cultivation of their work. 

Bette Klegon Halby

In her second exhibition at Carter Burden Gallery, Bette Klegon Halbytackles the dramatic social, economic, and political divide that is becoming more prevalent in our culture in Confrontation: It’s as Clear as Black and White. The contrast of both wall and pedestal pieces in black and white sets a striking tone to the space. Klegon Halby’s dynamic wall work explores the potential inherent in canvas itself; once soft canvas is now made hard, once two dimensional is now made sculptural – a duel between two worlds unfolds. Text and imagery have been transferred onto the sculptures, which have been created using bags as a mold. Pallid in color and ghostly, the once hollow vessels turned seemingly to stone contain acute emotion that is reflected, not only on the surface they stand upon or in the viewer but also by society at large. The artist states, “Not unlike our world today: sharply divided into good and evil; evaluating or viewing things as either all good or all bad; black and white morality; precisely defined and clearly cut. ... Sex and race, faith and ethnicity… the melting pot is boiling over.”

Bette Klegon Halby is a New York based abstract painter/sculptor. She earned a BS in Architecture and Design, and a BA in Education from the University of Michigan, studied at the University of California, Berkeley and California College of Art in Oakland and earned an MFA from Wayne State University. She has taught Art at The University of Michigan, Wayne State University and the Detroit Art Institute. Klegon Halby has exhibited in numerous group shows and solo shows throughout the country. Among them are the Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery in New York in 2009-2015, the Rubin Museum of Art in New York in 2015, the NY Armory Show in 2013 and 2014, the Alexandria Museum 2012, and the Detroit Art Institute 1962. Her works are included in numerous corporate and private collections. Klegon Halby currently serves on the Dean's Advisory Board, University of Michigan's Stamps School of Art and Design.

Joan Mellon

Joan Mellon presents process driven sculptural pieces from her series Substance and Space in the exhibition Lines, Forms, Substance, her seventh exhibition at Carter Burden Gallery. The physical act of making and the exploration of material are central to Mellon’s work. Her interest in how choice and chance are at the core of the creative process is always at play. Using both found and purchased components, the palette of the pieces was initially limited to the materials until they “called out for more”. She has said, " Working with physical materials and volumetric forms led me to explore how physical objects live in space... It is my hope that these objects convey the pleasure inherent in the process of making things and the unlimited possibilities of working with tangible materials.

Joan Mellon, b. 1944, Brooklyn, NY, has a BFA from School of Visual Arts and a MA in Liberal Studies from SUNY Empire State College where she has been an adjunct mentor. Mellon has also been an artist-in-residence in hospital and cancer centers in NYC and taught artists with special needs. Her paintings and works on paper are represented in private and public collections including Franklin Furnace Archives at the Museum of Modern Art, Johnson & Johnson, New York Public Library Print Collection and School of Visual Arts. Exhibition highlights include one person shows in NYC and group exhibitions in the US and abroad. 

Sumayyah Samaha

In Lines, Forms, Substance, Sumayyah Samaha presents energetic abstract paintings from her series Lines and Forms for her fifth exhibition at Carter Burden Gallery. The artist’s stream of consciousness determines the composition; playful shapes and rich colors are connected by lines, which create boundaries between the negative spaces of the canvas. The artist’s focus in this series is on color, texture, contours, weight, and defining edges; these paired with her choice of appropriate medium tell her visual story. She states, “In my most recent body of work, ‘Lines and Forms,’ I paint with oil and draw with charcoal on canvas. I challenge myself to seek harmony between these two media.” 

Currently working and Living in Soho, Manhattan, Sumayyah Samaha was born in 1939 in Shweir, Lebanon. Samaha came to the United States on a scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh. She received her MA from the University of Pittsburgh and BA from the American University of Beirut. Upon the completion of graduate school, she moved to New York City and decided not to go back to Lebanon - seeking a freer and more exciting life.  Samaha’s solo exhibitions in New York City include: 22 Wooster Gallery, Denise Bibro Fine Arts, Skoto Gallery, Wilmer Jennings Gallery, and Kenkeeba House. Other solo exhibitions include: Blink Gallery, Andes, NY; Farleigh Dickinson University, NJ; Art Circle Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon. Her group exhibitions include: The Emo exhibition, Elizabeth Foundation, NYC; New York Chronicles, Virginia Common WealthSchool of Arts, Doha, Qatar; In/Visible, Arab American Museum, MI; Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Loretto, PA. Her work is represented in private and public collections including: Arab American National Museum, Cintrum Sztuki Museum in Warsaw, Poland, New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, Chemical Bank, Prudential Insurance, Pfizer Pharmaceutical, Bank Audiin Beirut, Lebanon, and Kenkeleba House in NYC. Samaha has also been the recipient of several awards and grants including Pollock Krasner Individual Grant in 2016 and Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Grant in 2015.

Vera Sapozhnikova

Vera Sapozknikova presents large, abstract, and vibrant oil paintings created during her time as Artist in Residence at the Carter Burden/Leonard Covello Center for On the Wall. Self-taught, her work is intuitive and full of energy and emotion. In her drive to paint, she has consistently challenged herself and continued to develop her style, evolving from representational to more abstract work. Through her artistic journey, she has adopted a signature palette steeped in rich crimson, orange, and blue. Her determination to paint results in unique and bold marks on the canvas, revealing Sapozhnikova’s optimistic approach to being a painter. 

Vera Sapozhnikova, b. 1939, was raised in St. Petersburg, Russia. She holds an MS in mathematics, a Ph.D. in Mathematical Physics, and worked as an associate professor of mathematics in several universities in Russia until she emigrated to the United States in 1978, where she continued to work as a mathematician in computer science and telecommunications. As a child in Russia, she attended an art appreciation program at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, in which she was exposed to the masterpieces of a variety of periods. This exposure had an indelible effect on Sapozhnikova. After being immersed in the world of mathematics for most of her life, in 1998 she felt an insuppressible urge to paint, and has been making work ever since. Sapozhnikova began exhibiting her work in 2010, including a solo and group shows at Carter Burden Gallery (formerly Gallery 307), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art Employee Group Art show.

Installation Views