"Even the most graceful pieces in the show crackle with marks, color, and visual information, like Isabelle Duverger’s stellar observations in ink" - by Tris McCall, Studio Tour ’24: Despite the Controversies JCAST Pulls off a Winning Show, Jersey City Times, October 11, 2024
"While Pro Arts has never expanded aggressively, the roster adds new names every year. This keeps things fresh, and helps infuse an operation dominated by lifers with creative energy. “First Impressions,” a group show at the narrow but friendly ART150 Gallery in the Powerhouse Arts District in Jersey City, focuses on the latest sorcerers to join the cabal. New members they are, but kids they aren’t. The 13 participants in “First Impressions” include several who have been refining a personal vision for a long time, even if they haven’t shown all that often. They have been summoned to the Arts District by Nanette Reynolds Beachner, a Jersey City artist with a background in theater, an eye for drama, and a taste for provocation. [...]
“Love Egg” (see above), her piece in “First Impressions,” is part of a series of ink drawings of faceless human beings, almost certainly female, whose bodies are composed of black and white spots in long parallel lines. By varying the rhythm and size of the spots, Duverger is able to suggest contour, suppleness and sexuality. Yet they also feel alien, possessive of integrity and economy of form that eludes mere humans. She encases her two dotted figures in a cracked shell that appears ready to burst. They carry the future with them. And the future, it seems, is every bit as strange as the past." - by Tris McCall, Pro Arts welcomes strikingly talented artists into the fold with ‘First Impressions’ group show
, NJ Arts, January 21, 2025
