FINALE

END OF AN ERA 1997-2023

Finale, September – November 2023, was the last exhibition of Holland Tunnel Newburgh. Paulien Lethen,

founder-director of Holland Tunnel Gallery, concludes an eventful history of 26 years. In 1997 she organized the

first art show with works of artists friends and herself in her newly installed garden shed in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

on the occasion of the Williamsburg Open Studio Tour. The New York Times described it as ‘one of the quirkiest

spaces in Williamsburg’ and ‘the tiniest gallery in the metropolitan area’. In 2000 she opened the summer

extension on the island Paros, Greece, with her sister Heleen Schuttevaêr. Stairmasters, mega art projects in the

staircase of her house next to the Williamsburg gallery, took place from 2004-2020. Holland Tunnel Newburgh NY

was launched in 2018.

Besides being an artist, Paulien Lethen has always set herself the goal to provide a platform for art and bring

people together. Finale, and beyond? It is her wish and aim that an organization, foundation or museum will

provide Newburgh with a new cultural destination in the gallery space and adjoining park garden. Let art and

music live on!

Take a look at the three locations of Holland Tunnel Gallery.

past events

Wood, Wool, Glass & Clay—an exhibition that is bringing together five artists whose work explores how diverse approaches to materials can shape narratives that invite the audience to look beyond what’s immediately visible.

Holland Tunnel Gallery is also pleased to present a live performance by Hearn Gadbois from 4-5pm during the closing reception.

Hearn Gadbois is a percussionist, instrument designer and builder, session musician, teacher, and composer for dance and film. He has performed and recorded with luminaries including Patti Smith, Yoko Ono, Meredith Monk, and Suzanne Vega.

Down To Earth:

Kent Peterson, Gerda van Leeuwen and Peter Yamaoka

JUne 10 to July 16, 2023

The first of Holland Tunnel Gallery’s Summer 2023 exhibitions brings together a trio of masters of color, texture and abstraction that reflects the environment around us. All three artists – Kent Peterson , Gerda van Leeuwen and Peter Yamaoka explore textures and process in ways that evoke moods leading the viewer to connect to both the surface and emotional resonance of the work. Please join us for this sensory experience in the gallery!

Kent Peterson is a painter / printmaker that lives in Newburgh NY. His abstracted works inspired by geology and anthropology have found their way into many private and public collections in the New York area.

Gerda van Leeuwen is originally from the Netherlands and lives in Roxbury, NY where she works and teaches printmaking Her work is on permanent display at the Longyear Gallery, Margaretville, NY Works by Gerda van Leeuwen are in private and cooperate collections in the USA, The Netherlands, China and Japan.

Peter Yamaoka lived and worked in Roxbury, New York. He studied painting at Rhode Island School of Design and did post-graduate work in printmaking at the Royal College of Art in London. His training as a painter and a printmaker was evident in his approach to his ceramic practice. Peter died last year and Holland Tunnel Gallery is honored to have his work as part of this exhibtion.

Season Opener

Three of a Kind : Gemma Kahng, Julie Lindell & Jacques Roch

April 22, 2023 to June 4, 2023

Newburgh NY.

In Three of a Kind, Holland Tunnel Gallery has brought together three separate artists Gemma Kahng, Julie LIndell and Jacques Roch that address human and animal forms while discussing the complicated nature of beauty. While at first glance the works by these artists may seem very different there is a surprising connection amongst the works that lead the viewer on a search of the unexpected and a dialog of relationship between the works.

Gemma Kahng may be best known for her work as a fashion designer. Her recent paintings on view in this show are bold, bright birds and animals that continue her interest in innate beauty and ornamentation. Ms. Kahng is a local Hudson Valley Artist and founder of the Beekman Arts Club that started in Hopewell Junction NY and now is located in Newburgh, NY.

Julie Lindell an installation artist The pieces for this show are also about physical beauty, but question both the value of that moniker and who gets to determine it.  Her work has been exhibited across the US and in Japan . Originally from Seattle, WA. Ms. Lindell now lives in Newburgh, NY.  

Jacques Roch began painting human figures again in the 60’s, although they appeared as semi-abstract signs and caricatural characters that popped from the painterly ground like knots of light or ghost-like figures concretizing space. A long time contributor to exhibitions at Holland Tunnel Gallery the works on view are part of his estate and Paulien Lethen is honored to be able to share these works with the public on the estate’s behalf.

Previously During the 2022 Season…

“Willis deals in the fusion of opposites: translucency and opacity;expansion and contraction; open and closed; tension and release. His paintings explore beginnings, first steps, and the building blocks of picture-making--the progression of point to line to plane; and of movement arrested in the plane...and whole planes of scratchy color churn with a flurry of brushwork, reminding us that flat color--vibrating, pulsing--needn't sit there inactively."

- Lance Esplund on Willis

Bix Lye is a British-American artist whose sculptures challenge definition. “Lye’s sculpture simultaneously reads as a contained, solid object and a construction of modular components…. Its finely crafted geometry conjures up references to Tony Smith and even Sol LeWitt; however, the work provides just enough color and whimsy to eschew the reductive stereotype”. -The Brooklyn Rail

Please join us at Holland Tunnel Gallery Newburgh as Poets Ron Horning and Richard Stull grace us with an afternoon reading of their works. As we round out our 2022 season with reflections on life through the eyes of these two poets surrounded by the artwork of Thornton Willis and Bix Lye on view in the exhibition Matter of Fact.

A wine and cheese reception will follow the reading with a chance to speak with both poets while enjoying the exhibition.

Ron Horning has published poems and translations in The New Yorker, Vanitas, Sal Mimeo, and Blazing Stadium. His books of poems include To our amazement, Blind date, Two poems and a letter, and The Dante, the Tevere, the New Riviera.

Richard Stull’s poems have appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, Sal Mimeo, Blazing Stadium, and The Traveler’s Vade Mecum, an anthology edited by Helen Klein Ross. He has been a resident at Yaddo and was awarded an Ingram Merrill Foundation Grant. His poems have been published in several limited, privately printed editions. These include A Walk with Jane, Drugged like Mirrors, and Canal.

Holland Tunnel Gallery presents Otherness works by Hudson Valley Artists Chantelle Norton, Carl Van

Brunt and Joseph Ayers

For Otherness Chantelle Norton, Carl Van Brunt and Joseph Ayers weave together an eclectic array of

combined media, approaches and subjects. Sharing interests in time, history, myth and phenomenology, each

artist explores notions of one’s ‘self’ in relation to the ‘other’.

Chantelle Norton reinterprets the myth of medusa through ceramic plates and wallpaper designed with

hand-made drawings. Norton said of her approach “my idea to incorporate ceramic plates came from thinking

about stoneware and Medusa’s power turning men to stone, and Athena’s circular shield with an image of

Medusa’s head”. The wall paper patterns that Norton creates retell this ancient myth, and reexamine the story

in a modern context. Medusa was a rape victim who was punished and beheaded. Her head became an iconic

symbol used in both domestic and public spaces throughout the ancient world.

Carl Van Brunt continues to push the boundaries between notions of the self in the face of the emergence of AI.

Using hand made drawings and sketches as well as digital sources such as fractal and 3-D renders, Van Brunt

uses AI technology to transform these into seemingly infinite permutations. Combining video, animation,

analogue drawings, and prints, Van Brunt draws on the spiritual self, past and present, as a way of tapping into

the future alter-ego of AI.

Joseph Ayers uses a combination of traditional media, new technology, video, sound, and sculpture to explore

both connections and disparity between physical and psychological perceptions. For Otherness Ayers will

present a meta-cluster of drawings and paintings, and a pairing of sculptures that can on the one hand be seen

with the eyes, juxtaposed with video-sculptures that can only be felt with the hands. Ayers has said, “as a

multimedia artist I think a lot about appearances and perceptions, and how relationships between these two

things influence, and to some degree, have authority over, everything we experience.”

Visit our archive of previous exhibitions and eventS To read more about:

Holland Tunnel Gallery Parikia Paros Greece

Holland Tunnel Gallery Williamsburg Brooklyn

Holland Tunnel Art Newburgh New York

Stairmasters Williamsburg