Romano Gallery Artist Exhibitions

Titled Life Comes First, the exhibition featured figurative compositions painted in small increments that reflect Mr. Torrence's life and the lives of his family and friends. Together, the daily images comprise a visual poem or metaphorical diary of the people, places and things that have been present throughout the artist's life.

The exhibit's title comes from a line in a song Mr. Torrence wrote many years ago: "Life has always got to come first." "It's important for younger folks to know that no matter how passionate you are about achievements, about the things you love, what matters most is life," he explained. And, to Mr. Torrence, life includes your sense of faith, family and friends, as well as "the many wonderful qualities you have, if you just take a moment to recognize them."

An award-winning artist whose career spans 40 years, Mr. Torrence holds a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Rhode Island School of Design and a master of fine arts degree from Yale University School of Art. His work has been featured in dozens of solo and group exhibitions throughout the Northeast, and he has taught at the college and high-school levels. Mr. Torrence currently serves as art department chair at Miss Porter's School in Farmingdale, Connecticut.

Founded in 1989, the Princeton Artists Alliance is a working artists' group comprising painters, sculptors, printmakers, photographers and more. The group has exhibited throughout New Jersey and in neighboring states, and frequently channels its creative energy for commentary on social, political and cultural issues. Politics of Water featured artists' visualization of a variety of water-related concerns, ranging from climate change and pollution to the economics of water and access to a limited supply.

The artists featured in Politics of Water included Joanne Augustine, Hetty Baiz, Joy Barth, Anita Benarde, Rajie Cook, Clem Fiori, Tom Francisco, Carol Hanson, Shellie Jacobson, Judy Langille, Eva Mantell, Pat Martin, Charles McVicker, Lucy Graves McVicker, Harry Naar, Jim Perry, Maria Pisano, Richard Sanders, Madelaine Shellaby, Marie Sturken and Judy Tobie.

Artist and educator Brian Emery examined the experience of place through photographic and video works in Placescapes.

Having devoted his art practice to observing and documenting urban environmented, Mr. Emery experiments with recording-media as he captured a neighborhood or scene to create unique methods for re-presenting the qualities of the place. In Placescapes, he composited multiple images and video together, using a variety of techniques to portray notions of the urban fabric over time.

In some of his recent work, Mr. Emery has juxtaposed digital technology with history: In 2016, as a fellow in 3D visualization at the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, he developed a long-term multimedia project centered on the attic space of the 1729 Robert Carter III house in Williamsburg, Virginia. Earlier this year, he served as an artist-in-residence in alembic arts with the National Park Service at Gettysburg National Military Park, where he worked on an experimental documentary using a modified antique stereo-view camera.

Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, artist Will Rothfuss headlined at Blair's Romano Gallery in 2017-2018 with an exhibition of two-dimensional collage and three-dimensional assemblage works. In Repurposing Art, Mr. Rothfuss used recycled materials—including men's shirts, magazine clippings and glass wire—to create works that appropriate the imagery and vocabulary of modern art while exploring the relevance of image-making in a postmodern era. The pieces on display in The Romano Gallery built narrative meaning and aesthetic form through the juxtaposition of dissimilar elements.

Mr. Rothfuss has been creating abstract works of art, ranging from small collages to large paintings, for more than 40 years. A 1975 graduate of Cornell University, he studied realism at the Art Student's League of New York City under Robert Beverly Hale and Frank Mason. Mr. Rothfuss worked as a custom cabinetmaker and scenic designer in theatre and television for a number of years to support his growing family, but recently returned to full-time art-making.

Having exhibited in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, Mr. Rothfuss has received several awards for his artworks, some of which are now part of corporate and private collections. His large body of work includes geometric abstraction with fabric, collage and mixed-media; assemblage and installations; and hyper-realism painting in watercolor or oil.

The Romano Gallery's first exhibition of 2018 featured the nature photography of New Jersey artist Danielle Austen. In Echoing Cascades, the award-winning fine-art photographer focuses on the mystical element of water, exploring its movement through the interplay of light, patterns, tones and the abstract imagery it creates. Highlighted by image pairings that demonstrate the correlation between the vibrancy of color and the drama of black-and-white elements.

Having always been drawn to nature, Ms. Austen described how her nature photography reflects a desire to capture the many tranquil aspects of her journeys that are often missed by the casual observer. "I focus on documenting intimate portraits of the environment with the intent to communicate to the viewer the spirituality I envision in each moment," she said. Her investigation into the movement of water has revealed results that "can be surreal and even ethereal," she continued. "I believe these images are pathways into an unexpected depth of the natural world."

Ms. Austen received her bachelor of fine arts degree from Cornell University and worked as a graphic designer for seven years before attending the master's program in photojournalism at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Her editorial work for newspapers and magazines has been published locally, regionally and nationally, and she has exhibited her fine-art photography in dozens of juried shows in the United States and abroad.

The recipient of a host of awards, Ms. Austen garnered "honorable mentions" for the past two years in the International Photography Awards and was named a national winner of Canon's "Project Imaginat10n" photo competition in 2013. 

Bruce Dehnert received a bachelor's degree in creative writing from the University of Montana and earned his MFA in ceramic sculpture from Alfred University. He has taught at Hunter College and Parsons School of Art and Design in New York City; The School of Art in New Zealand; the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak in Malaysia; and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Among his many artistic honors, Mr. Dehnert is the recipient of a New Jersey Artist Fellowship Award, a three-time winner of the Fletcher Challenge International Ceramics Award and a finalist in the Robert Wood Johnson International Figurative Competition. His work is held in the White House collection, as well as the collections of museums around the world, including the Crocker Museum in California, the Yixing Museum of Ceramic Art in China, the New Dowse Museum in New Zealand and the New Museum in New York City.

Mr. Dehnert has written extensively on ceramics and pottery and has published journal articles and forwards for exhibition catalogs and books. His own bestselling book, Simon Leach's Pottery Handbook, was recently published by Abrams Publishing of New York City, and he is currently writing a biography on noted Japanese artist Takeshi Yasuda.

In 2016, Mr. Dehnert was named a fellow to the International Academy of Ceramics. He currently serves as head of ceramics at Peters Valley School of Craft in Layton, New Jersey.