Ivy Brown

Owner and curator of Ivy Brown Gallery, NYC

Ivy Brown Gallery represents and exhibits contemporary art of all mediums with a focus on work with a 3D element. The gallery has dedicated itself to supporting both emerging and established artists of every ilk, from local to international. Ivy Brown is committed to her community, she sits on the board of her local business improvement district board, the Meatpacking District BID, she co-chairs a women’s art dealers group and has participated in the programming for Little Island. Brown takes her 25 year experience from the commercial arts world and brings it to the fine arts arena.  Her commitment to art and the critical part it plays in our humanity is the grounding force behind the gallery. 

Chase Cantwell

Artist, teacher at the Visual Art Center of NJ and independent curator, West Orange, NJ

Chase Cantwell grew up in Trenton, NJ, majored in Painting at CW Post College, LIU and received his BFA from there he migrated to New York City in 1978.  There Cantwell came to paint storefronts and eventually portraits.  Having a day job for 25 years in the music business Cantwell took care of major recording projects and worked for just about every recording label there was. At night he went home to paint in isolation.  Eventually Cantwell would show in 1997 at Gallery Asyl in New York’s burgeoning Chelsea area.  After 9/11 he moved out of the city back New Jersey to raise his two children and then they moved back closer to New York City and he began to find his art community.  Cantwell took up encaustic painting to transform what was going on in oil only to realize that medium was excellent for him to portray an earlier love of geometrical abstraction. Stripes, Walking Lines, Curved, By Inference, and Cubes are all series involving a simple motif like the stripe and evolving it.  After a decade of working in encaustic Cantwell turned back to oil to create his Artist Portrait Project where he painted various artists in his community and was shown at The Painting Center in New York City in February 2023. Currently Cantwell is working towards his solo exhibit next spring 2025 at The Painting Center.

Cantwell maintains a studio practice in West Orange, NJ and also teaches oil and encaustic privately and at the Visual Art Center of NJ. Cantwell is collected here and abroad.  He has been in countless exhibitions throughout the United States.

Raymond E. Mingst and Arthur Bruso

Co-directors and co-founder of Curious Matter,  a non-profit project and exhibition space in Jersey City, NJ

Raymond E. Mingst is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, arts advocate, and media producer. He is the recipient of a 2021 New Jersey State Council on the Arts fellowship. He has exhibited, curated, and collaborated with numerous galleries and institutions including, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC; Leslie Lohman Museum, NYC; Center for Book Arts, NYC; Takashimya Gallery, NYC; Proto Gomez, NYC; Hudson County Community College, Benjamin J. Dineen, III and Dennis C. Hull Gallery, Jersey City, NJ; William Paterson University, Ben Shahn Center for Visual Arts, Wayne, NJ, among many others. He founded The Cabinet Gallery in the East Village of Manhattan, an early iteration of Curious Matter, an exhibition and project space he co-founded and currently runs in Jersey City, NJ.

Arthur Bruso is an artist, curator, and arts writer. He received his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. His work is sometimes based on his studies in esoteric symbolism and sometimes based on his upbringing in an Italian-American community in Albany, NY. He constantly revisits the past whether in European Medieval cathedrals, defunct Victorian museums, abandoned cemeteries or his antique armchair. He has exhibited in the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, the Rice Gallery at Albany Institute of History and Art, LaMamma LaGalleria in New York and many other venues. He currently is co-Director of Curious Matter, a non-profit project space.

Patricia Miranda

Artist, educator, curator and founder of The Crit Lab and MAPSpace, NYC and Peekskill, NY

Patricia Miranda is an artist, curator, and educator, working with donated, repurposed, lace and linens in sculpture and installation. She is founder of The Lace Archive, a historical community archive of donated lace and family histories; The Crit Lab, graduate level critique and professional practice seminars for working artists; and MAPSpace artist-run project space. Within these artist-run organizations she has developed artist residencies in Italy, Port Chester, and Peekskill, NY. She has received grants from the Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation; Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA); two artist grants from ArtsWestchester/NYSCA; Anonymous Was a Woman Covid19 Relief Grant; and was part of a year-long NEA grant working with homeless youth. Residencies include Constance Saltonstall Foundation; I-Park Foundation; Weir Farm; Vermont Studio Center; JV Printmaking Residency, and Truro Center for the Arts. She has been Visiting Artist, Critic, and mentor at many institutions, including LMCC Workspace Residency (NYC), Vermont Studio Center, Leslie University MFA, MASS Art, the Heckscher Museum, and University of Utah. She has been faculty in numerous undergraduate and graduate programs including NHIA, Montclair State University, MASS Art; and as faculty at Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts she led the first study abroad program in Prato, Italy. Miranda has developed education programs for K-12, museums, and institutions, including Franklin Furnace, the Hudson River Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian Institution. She is a noted expert on the history and use of natural dyes and pigments, and teaches about environmentally sustainable art practices. Recent solo exhibitions include The Olin Fine Art Center, PA; 3S Artspace, NH; Jane Street Art Center and Garrison Art Center (Hudson Valley, NY); ODETTA Gallery and Maine Window DUMBO (NYC). Group exhibitions: Spartanburg Art Museum, SC; Dunedin Fine Art Center, FL; Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, CT; Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, Williamsburg Art+Historical Center, The Clemente Center, NYC. Her recent work has been featured in Art New England, Hudson, Valley One, and Brooklyn Rail. She lives and works in New York City and Peekskill, NY.

Atim Annette Oton

Designer turned curator and founder of Calabar Gallery in NYC 

Atim Annette Oton is a Nigerian-born, American and British-educated designer turned curator.  She founded New York based Calabar Gallery in 2016 and showcases contemporary African Artists and African Diaspora artists globally. She has curated New Jersey exhibitions: Latin American Art at NJCU Galleries, Afrofuturism at Papermill Playhouse, Newark Arts Festival, and Contemporary African Spirituality at Walsh Gallery at Seton Hall University and South Orange Performing Arts Center. She runs art residency programs at CoLAB Arts in New Brunswick, at Governors Island with CaribBE­ING House, and in Grenada. She serves as curator for The Yard at Columbus Circle, Shopboy in Tribeca and Chef Massimo Bottura’s nonprofit food project, Reffetorio Harlem. She lives in Jersey City.

Zsolt Bátori and Borbála Jász

Educators, philosophers of art, curators and Director/vice-director of PH21 Gallery in Budapest, Hungary

Zsolt Bátori is a curator, photographer, photography theorist, philosopher of art, and educator. He is the founder director and curator of PH21 Gallery, providing group and solo exhibitions to photographers internationally for over a decade in PH21 Gallery, Budapest (www.ph21 gallery.com) and in cooperation with galleries in Barcelona, Jersey City, and Rome. Zsolt has nurtured the careers of many photographers who received further exhibition and career opportunities after exhibiting at PH21 Gallery. He has taught and conducted research at universities in Hungary, the USA, Argentina, and Spain, and his own photographic work has been exhibited internationally. Currently, Zsolt serves as a member of the executive committee of the International Association for Aesthetics and the Association of Hungarian Photographers. He also serves as a juror for Photolucida Critical Mass for the years 2023 and 2024. For Zsolt’s website, please click here: www.zsoltbatori.com

Borbála Jász is a curator, art historian, philosopher of art, and educator. She has served as the vice-director and curator of PH21 Gallery of many years, providing international exhibition and career opportunities for photographers worldwide. As an art historian, Borbála is especially perceptive to the cultural and historical context, significance, and interconnectedness of photographic images. She also has first-hand experience with the artistic, legal, and practical aspects of collections, having worked extensively with collectors.

Vida Sabbaghi

Independent curator, founder and executive director of Creative Opportunities Promoting Equality New York City (COPE NYC), NYC

Vida Sabbaghi is the founder and executive director of Creative Opportunities Promoting Equality New York City (COPE NYC), a non-profit cultural organization that is dedicated to bridge communities through art and design. COPE NYC works with communities to promote social relations through evolving art exhibitions, artist in residence programs, fashion shows, and art and design education programs. Sabbaghi, under COPE NYC, founded The IW Gallery at 630 Flushing Avenue Brooklyn, NY – which provides opportunities for global artists and designers. Vida Sabbaghi creates relevant art and design programming with the Gallery’s exhibitions to enhance community engagement.

Vida has served as guest curator at Queens Museum and organized the USSEA three-day international conference at the Museum.

Vida’s curatorial expertise extends to traveling exhibitions, including at A.I.R. Gallery, HUB Robeson Gallery at Penn State, and Pen + Brush Gallery. Her traveling exhibition Repsychling showed at Queens Museum, Adelson Galleries, Rockland Center for the Arts, Acumen Capital Partners Galleries, and Columbia University. Her Repsychling Nature curation (the 6th iteration) was presented at Siao-Long Cultural Park in Taiwan in their Children’s Museum. In 2023, Sabbaghi designed the 630 Flushing’s Penthouse for NYCxDesign, and its South Lobby Gallery with the ongoing exhibition Blue featured in White Hot Magazine.

Sabbaghi is the recipient of Honored Curator of Taiwan-NY Siao-Long Artists Exchange Program award by the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Tainan City Government. She is currently the director of A.I.R. exchange projects in Siao-Long Cultural Park, Taiwan, and in Germany.

Sabbaghi co-edited Routledge’s Bridging Communities through Socially Engaged Art, with art educator Alice Wexler. She is also the host and co-organizer of Fashion Week Brooklyn and has contributed to it as Art Director and designer.

Sabbaghi graduated with Distinction from Pratt Institute where she studied Industrial Design, Theory, Criticism, History of Art, Design and Architecture, and Art & Design Education. She is the recipient of The Pratt Circle Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement, and the Certificate of Excellence Award for Outstanding Merit in Graduate Art Education. She was awarded the Art Advocate of the Year by the New York City Art Teachers Association and received the USSEA Edwin Ziegfeld Service Award.