James O'Shea, Valerie Hammond, Joshua Brehse, Aldo Della Chiesa and Pete Rinaldi
Reception: Saturday March 10 from 6 to 8pm
March 8, 2007 through April 15, 2007

CARRIE HADDAD GALLERY is pleased to announce the work of five regional
artists in their exhibit running from March 8 through April 15 2007. An
opening reception will be held on Saturday March 10 from 6 to 8pm. The
exhibit will include works by JOSHUA BREHSE, ALDO DELLA CHIESA, VALERIE
HAMMOND, PETER RINALDI and JAMES O'SHEA. All are welcome to attend. Carrie
Haddad Gallery is located at 622 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. For more
information please call 518.828.1915 or visit carriehaddadgallery.com.
Through a process of painting, pouring, digging, and scraping, Joshua Brehse
hopes to convey a sense of the history and turmoil that goes into the
production of his work while also presenting a fully resolved and seductive
piece of art. "Rather than directing my paintings towards any one idea" he
states, "I prefer to approach my work as a slow accumulation of solutions
and possibilities worked on and through."
The son of Italian immigrant carver Santino Della Chiesa and his wife,
Virginia, Aldo Della Chiesa was born in Quincy in 1903. Della Chiesa pursued
his love of art by attending the Massachusetts School of Art (now
Massachusetts College of Art), from which he graduated with a degree in
education in 1926. Della Chiesa taught art in Waterville, Maine and Lynn
Massachusetts, for several years before returning to the South Shore, where
he became director of the art department at Braintree High School. After
serving on the City Council and as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserves,
Della Chiesa returned to teaching art at Braintree High School until he
retired in 1955. He continued painting in his basement studio until he
suffered a stroke in 1972. He died in July of the following year.
In her own words Valerie Hammond states, "I begin by collecting ferns and
other organic materials, transforming them through drawing and the
printmaking process, creating images that marry the ferns with images of the
body. These images reflect the uniqueness of individual hands, as well as
reveal the tracing of the spirit." Hammond was born in Santa Maria,
California. She received her MFA from the University of California at
Berkeley, where she was awarded the Eisner Award. Hammond has taught
printmaking at Columbia University, New York University, the Yale Norfolk
Program; drawing at Cooper Union School of Art, and has been a visiting art
critic at RISD. Hammond lives and works in the Lower East Side of New York
City with her husband and two children.
James O'Shea, a first time exhibitor to the gallery, will be showing large
colorful abstract paintings. O'Shea was born in 1952 in Buffalo, New York.
He lived in London from 1970 to 1975 where he attended the City and Guilds
of London Art School studying with Eric Morby, and then Goldsmith's College,
University of London, where he majored in printmaking. Moving to New York in
1975, he spent 10 years life drawing and investigating color. He experiments
in most media, and is now primarily interested in oils and encaustic paints.
He divides his time between New York City and the Hudson River valley.
Photographer Peter Rinaldi has been making photographs for over thirty
years. "Many times I am asked, "Where is this?", and when told, people are
amazed at how they have passed this spot sometimes often but have never seen
its hidden beauty. That is my goal, to show how truly amazing ordinary can
be." This will be his first time exhibiting at the gallery.