Available Light / Upstate Update

Jeremy Willis-Available Light

Jeremy Willis is an American contemporary painter whose oil and acrylic works frequently examine the push-and-pull between light and shadow, representation and perception. Central to his artistic vision is the idea that light defines space and meaning, and casts shadows revealing our interdependence with illumination.

These paintings are meditative investigations of how illumination locates us and constructs meaning. Light appears as luminous washes set against dark atmospheric fields, suggesting the sublime amid boundary between presence and absence.

Willis describes a key moment in 2020: his shadow falling on a blank canvas illuminated by an overhead light catalyzed his current focus. He reflects deeply on how light names objects, anchors identity, and instills significance in otherwise empty space.

Willis earned his BFA at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and his MFA from Hunter College in 2008, where he later served as an adjunct painting professor
Solo exhibitions include Awkward Tan Lines (2019, Cape Cod), Interventions (2013, New York), and earlier shows in New Orleans, Salt Lake City, and Providence dating back as early as 2001
His works have appeared via galleries such as Allegra LaViola, DuMois, AFP Gallery, and Misc., among others

Jeremy Willis’s paintings interrogate how light (and its absence) shapes our perception and sense of self. Through layered brushwork, bold color, and symbolic motifs like mouths and flashes of illumination, he explores identity, communication, and the elegiac beauty in everything that lies in shadow. His art operates between figuration and abstraction, framing vision itself as a subject.

“Available Light” is both a technical term in visual art and photography, and a philosophical concept that has been embraced by Willis as a metaphor for perception, presence, and meaning-making.

In a technical sense, “available light” refers to any existing, natural or artificial light source that is not added by the photographer or artist; such as sunlight, moonlight, streetlamps, or ambient indoor lighting.

In Willis’s case, his “Available Light” paintings investigate how light locates us. His shadows often symbolize the boundary between presence and absence, grounding the viewer in the world while acknowledging what lies beyond.

Available Light isn’t just what’s visible;

it’s about what we choose to see, what we can’t see, and how the conditions of perception affect meaning. It’s a gesture toward being present with what’s already there, while recognizing how easily meaning flickers, fades, or blinds.

UPSTATE UPDATE

The show is curated by Neal Hollinger, and brings together a thought-provoking group of contemporary artists based in the Hudson Valley. Each artist contributes a unique lens—sculptural storytelling, body-object hybridity, and miniature surrealism.

Neal Hollinger brings a fresh, thematic cohesion highlighting emergent voices shaping what’s next in Upstate New York art. All four artists are rooted in the Hudson Valley region, making this a snapshot of Upstate’s thriving creative ecosystem. Upstate Update offers a compelling glimpse into the inventive and genre-defying practices of these regional artists, curated through Hollinger’s thoughtful thematic vision.

Meryl Bennett is a sculptor based in Kingston NY. Her work explores the boundaries of human and animal behavior in our contemporary world. She often merges ordinary objects into uncanny, evocative sculptures that blur boundaries and stir narrative resonance. Her work consistently addresses the porous line between humanity and animality, exploring how instinctual behavior, ritual, performance, and identity intersect in contemporary life .

Two art on the wall

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Wriggling Worms (in green)

Aqua resin, pigment, wood

Wriggling Worms (in blue)

Aqua resin, pigment, wood

Swamp table

Epoxy resin, glass mosaic

Neal Hollinger is a Hudson Valley based artist whose work bridges painting, sculpture, and functional object-making-most notably sculptural lamps. He channels geological inspiration and childhood fascinations into handcrafted, experimental works that blur the line between art and design. His process with destructive molds, handcrafted tools, layered finishes adds poetic resonance to each unique, illuminated form. Hollinger emphasizes an intuitive, process-driven approach, combining organic shapes with functional design. His lamps balance sculptural aesthetics with utility and each piece is both an art object and a working light source. Recurring motifs draw from nature such as volcanoes and geological forms with tactile textures and hand-made finishes that reflect both craft and conceptual depth.

Pink Flowers Lamp.

Lamp Pod.

Purple Candle Mountain Lamp.

Stump Punk Lamp.

Galen Djuna Green (often known simply as Galen Djuna) is a multidisciplinary artist celebrated for her surreal, handcrafted puppets and mini-sculptures that merge wit, grotesquerie, and narrative flair. Her work ranges from crocheted finger puppets to scaled-up sculptural fantasies, blending dark humor with uncanny imagination.

Galen’s inspirations include horror, B-movie archetypes, surrealism, and literary mashups. She cites Alice in Wonderland, T. S. Eliot’s Macavity, and European puppet auteurs like Jan Švankmajer and the Brothers Quay as touchstones for her imaginative. Her dolls often evoke a sense of dark whimsy, theatricality, and uncanny embodiment and small in scale but rich in persona and expressive detail. Her art feels like a dialogue between craft and cultural critique with nods to camp, ritual costuming, and imaginative storytelling grounded in DIY aesthetics.

Galen Djuna pushes the boundaries of puppet art, merging lyricism, humor, and provocation in handmade miniatures. Whether crocheting a cheeky pop icon or animating surreal spider‑women, her work reimagines scale, folklore, and identity through miniature sculpture and puppet form. The effect is often whimsical, sometimes unsettling…but always thought provoking.

Roadkill Reliquary, wool, bone, teeth, wax

Upside Down Block, acrylic on wood

Lady Laying Lock, acrylic on metal

Bad Dream Lock, acrylic on metal

Finger Puppets

St. Agatha

Rosemary + Baby

Soo CatWoman

Lauren Carly Shaw, born 1986 and based in upstate New York, is a sculptor whose body of work interrogates the limits and mutations of the human form through surreal, tactile transformations. Shaw’s practice centers around the body’s “object-ness” and its malleability, cultural politics, and potential for mutation and evolution. She challenges viewers to reconsider what it means to be human in a post‑human context. Her sculptures blend human castings with animal traits, synthetic materials, and found objects, creating chimeric, myth‑like entities that are both familiar and unsettling. Drawing on folklore, children’s stories, and myth, her work generates a psychological resonance and playful levity alongside an uncanny undercurrent.

Lauren Carly Shaw’s work invites viewers into a liminal space between body and object, familiar and alien, human form and symbolic simulacra. It uses grotesque beauty, myth‑inspired absurdity, and emergent material translations to reflect on our evolving identities and self‑image in a hyper‑mediated world.