Music and Rhyme for Children from Birth to 3s! A program for babies and their caretakers that incorporates music, rhythm, stories, and nursery rhymes to spur language development, body awareness, pre-reading skills, self-confidence, and cooperation. Gathering at 10:15 on the green behind the Visitor Center, the program begins at 10:30.

In case of inclement weather or other adverse conditions, this event will move inside to the Junior Room.

Registration appreciated, drop-ins welcome!

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is thrilled to announce our midsummer exhibition focused on three artists whose keen observation and connection to the natural world invites us to pause and appreciate.

Margot Glass focuses primarily on drawing, using various traditional methods and materials as a foundation for her work, including traditional silverpoint and 14k goldpoint, homemade organic inks and oil and acrylic painting with mixed mica using fine point crow quill pens in place of brushes.

Glass is inspired by the tradition of idealizing nature in art and design as ornament across cultures while seeking to observe and represent her subjects as accurately as possible in all their irregularity and imperfection.

Central to her work is the exploration of ephemeral, fragile subjects, focusing primarily on weeds or ‘waste plants’, and other plants generally considered to be undesirable, to recognize their beauty in all their imperfection and asymmetry. Her focus on these marginal plants is guided by the question of what we value, what we consider ‘belonging’ to mean, and to highlight the beauty of what is present in the disrupted landscape that we find ourselves in today.

Margot Glass grew up in New York City, and studied art at The Art Students' League, Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Fashion Institute of Technology. Glass’s work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally. She is a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council STARS Artist Residency; Lost and Found Lab Artist-in-Residence and an Oak Spring Garden Foundation Interdisciplinary Fellowship. Her work is in private and public collections including the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon, PA, Weatherspoon Art Museum, NC, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, VA, Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, MA, Hotel Del Coronado Collection, CA, Allentown Art Museum, PA, Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, IN, the Beth Rudin deWoody Collection, among others. She currently lives and works in Western Massachusetts.

Richard Klein has been copper plating organic objects for over three decades utilizing found objects that are intrinsically fragile and impermanent. The process allows Klein to encase natural objects in a thin coating of metallic copper, permanently preserving them. The alchemical transformation being both practical and poetic. 

In his most recent work, the artist juxtaposes electroplated natural findings with photo gravures of urban landscapes addressing our relationship with nature simultaneously reminding us that we are nature and that our detachment from nature is the source of much of the destruction to our planet. In particular, the artist’s interest in both fungi and copper hint at the convergence of natural and technological evolution: fungi, through their mycelium, connect virtually all terrestrial plant life, acting as natural communication networks; while copper is the material that the human-made electrical and digital networks depend on. 

Richard Klein is the former exhibitions director of The Aldrich of Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT. His work has been shown widely in US and is in the public collections of Norton Family Collection, Santa Monica, CA, De Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA, Connecticut Artists Collection, Hartford, CT and has been featured in The New Criterion, Two Coats of Paint, Hyperallergic, Art Forum, The Brooklyn Rail and Art New England to name a few. The artist lives and works in CT.

Francis Sills’s work is grounded in the perceptual-based, realist tradition. The artist works directly from observation in nature. In dealing with the intricacies and challenges of working from observation and the sustained experience of intense, visual scrutiny, the artist comes to understand and know his world. The flora series is an ongoing group of paintings utilizing the flowers and plants from the artist’s home garden. Sills recently been adding various shaped mirrors to the set ups, which both multiply the forms and fracture the space. Sills’ paintings are dense and subtle, revealing specific nuances of color, light, and form. Often, the underlying geometry and architecture of the composition are apparent in the application of paint, the artist’s analytic thinking about structure and his methodology still evident in the finished work.

Sills’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States, has been featured in publications such as Wall Street International Magazine, American Art Collector, The New York Times, I Like Your Work Podcast, and can be found in The Fine Art Program and Collection at Montefiore Einstein, New York, NY. Francis Sills earned his MFA at Parsons School of Design, New York, NY and BFA at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. The artist lives and works in South Carolina.

Please contact Lani Holloway, Associate Director, Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquires or to arrange a preview of the exhibition.

Bring your lunch, listen to stories, and enjoy a fun craft! All are welcome, this program is intended for preschool-aged children. This event will be offered in person in the Junior Room of the Library.

Registration is appreciated but not required.

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is thrilled to announce our midsummer exhibition focused on three artists whose keen observation and connection to the natural world invites us to pause and appreciate.

Margot Glass focuses primarily on drawing, using various traditional methods and materials as a foundation for her work, including traditional silverpoint and 14k goldpoint, homemade organic inks and oil and acrylic painting with mixed mica using fine point crow quill pens in place of brushes.

Glass is inspired by the tradition of idealizing nature in art and design as ornament across cultures while seeking to observe and represent her subjects as accurately as possible in all their irregularity and imperfection.

Central to her work is the exploration of ephemeral, fragile subjects, focusing primarily on weeds or ‘waste plants’, and other plants generally considered to be undesirable, to recognize their beauty in all their imperfection and asymmetry. Her focus on these marginal plants is guided by the question of what we value, what we consider ‘belonging’ to mean, and to highlight the beauty of what is present in the disrupted landscape that we find ourselves in today.

Margot Glass grew up in New York City, and studied art at The Art Students' League, Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Fashion Institute of Technology. Glass’s work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally. She is a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council STARS Artist Residency; Lost and Found Lab Artist-in-Residence and an Oak Spring Garden Foundation Interdisciplinary Fellowship. Her work is in private and public collections including the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon, PA, Weatherspoon Art Museum, NC, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, VA, Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, MA, Hotel Del Coronado Collection, CA, Allentown Art Museum, PA, Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, IN, the Beth Rudin deWoody Collection, among others. She currently lives and works in Western Massachusetts.

Richard Klein has been copper plating organic objects for over three decades utilizing found objects that are intrinsically fragile and impermanent. The process allows Klein to encase natural objects in a thin coating of metallic copper, permanently preserving them. The alchemical transformation being both practical and poetic. 

In his most recent work, the artist juxtaposes electroplated natural findings with photo gravures of urban landscapes addressing our relationship with nature simultaneously reminding us that we are nature and that our detachment from nature is the source of much of the destruction to our planet. In particular, the artist’s interest in both fungi and copper hint at the convergence of natural and technological evolution: fungi, through their mycelium, connect virtually all terrestrial plant life, acting as natural communication networks; while copper is the material that the human-made electrical and digital networks depend on. 

Richard Klein is the former exhibitions director of The Aldrich of Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT. His work has been shown widely in US and is in the public collections of Norton Family Collection, Santa Monica, CA, De Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA, Connecticut Artists Collection, Hartford, CT and has been featured in The New Criterion, Two Coats of Paint, Hyperallergic, Art Forum, The Brooklyn Rail and Art New England to name a few. The artist lives and works in CT.

Francis Sills’s work is grounded in the perceptual-based, realist tradition. The artist works directly from observation in nature. In dealing with the intricacies and challenges of working from observation and the sustained experience of intense, visual scrutiny, the artist comes to understand and know his world. The flora series is an ongoing group of paintings utilizing the flowers and plants from the artist’s home garden. Sills recently been adding various shaped mirrors to the set ups, which both multiply the forms and fracture the space. Sills’ paintings are dense and subtle, revealing specific nuances of color, light, and form. Often, the underlying geometry and architecture of the composition are apparent in the application of paint, the artist’s analytic thinking about structure and his methodology still evident in the finished work.

Sills’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States, has been featured in publications such as Wall Street International Magazine, American Art Collector, The New York Times, I Like Your Work Podcast, and can be found in The Fine Art Program and Collection at Montefiore Einstein, New York, NY. Francis Sills earned his MFA at Parsons School of Design, New York, NY and BFA at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. The artist lives and works in South Carolina.

Please contact Lani Holloway, Associate Director, Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquires or to arrange a preview of the exhibition.

Fridays from end of May through mid-October. 3:00 TO 6:00 PM Rain* or Shine!

Held at the KENT LAND TRUST FIELD, 37 South Main Street (Route 7 just south of the traffic light) and across the road from Kent Greenhouse & Gardens

Fresh produce, baked goods, homemade preserves, fresh poultry, gourmet mushrooms, herbal teas & products, honey, maple syrup, salsa, guacamole & chips, and more!!

*In case of heavy rains or storms we will be located at CT Antique Machinery Association, 31 Kent Cornwall Rd (Route 7 North) - advance notice will be given.

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is thrilled to announce our midsummer exhibition focused on three artists whose keen observation and connection to the natural world invites us to pause and appreciate.

Margot Glass focuses primarily on drawing, using various traditional methods and materials as a foundation for her work, including traditional silverpoint and 14k goldpoint, homemade organic inks and oil and acrylic painting with mixed mica using fine point crow quill pens in place of brushes.

Glass is inspired by the tradition of idealizing nature in art and design as ornament across cultures while seeking to observe and represent her subjects as accurately as possible in all their irregularity and imperfection.

Central to her work is the exploration of ephemeral, fragile subjects, focusing primarily on weeds or ‘waste plants’, and other plants generally considered to be undesirable, to recognize their beauty in all their imperfection and asymmetry. Her focus on these marginal plants is guided by the question of what we value, what we consider ‘belonging’ to mean, and to highlight the beauty of what is present in the disrupted landscape that we find ourselves in today.

Margot Glass grew up in New York City, and studied art at The Art Students' League, Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Fashion Institute of Technology. Glass’s work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally. She is a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council STARS Artist Residency; Lost and Found Lab Artist-in-Residence and an Oak Spring Garden Foundation Interdisciplinary Fellowship. Her work is in private and public collections including the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon, PA, Weatherspoon Art Museum, NC, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, VA, Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, MA, Hotel Del Coronado Collection, CA, Allentown Art Museum, PA, Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, IN, the Beth Rudin deWoody Collection, among others. She currently lives and works in Western Massachusetts.

Richard Klein has been copper plating organic objects for over three decades utilizing found objects that are intrinsically fragile and impermanent. The process allows Klein to encase natural objects in a thin coating of metallic copper, permanently preserving them. The alchemical transformation being both practical and poetic. 

In his most recent work, the artist juxtaposes electroplated natural findings with photo gravures of urban landscapes addressing our relationship with nature simultaneously reminding us that we are nature and that our detachment from nature is the source of much of the destruction to our planet. In particular, the artist’s interest in both fungi and copper hint at the convergence of natural and technological evolution: fungi, through their mycelium, connect virtually all terrestrial plant life, acting as natural communication networks; while copper is the material that the human-made electrical and digital networks depend on. 

Richard Klein is the former exhibitions director of The Aldrich of Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT. His work has been shown widely in US and is in the public collections of Norton Family Collection, Santa Monica, CA, De Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA, Connecticut Artists Collection, Hartford, CT and has been featured in The New Criterion, Two Coats of Paint, Hyperallergic, Art Forum, The Brooklyn Rail and Art New England to name a few. The artist lives and works in CT.

Francis Sills’s work is grounded in the perceptual-based, realist tradition. The artist works directly from observation in nature. In dealing with the intricacies and challenges of working from observation and the sustained experience of intense, visual scrutiny, the artist comes to understand and know his world. The flora series is an ongoing group of paintings utilizing the flowers and plants from the artist’s home garden. Sills recently been adding various shaped mirrors to the set ups, which both multiply the forms and fracture the space. Sills’ paintings are dense and subtle, revealing specific nuances of color, light, and form. Often, the underlying geometry and architecture of the composition are apparent in the application of paint, the artist’s analytic thinking about structure and his methodology still evident in the finished work.

Sills’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States, has been featured in publications such as Wall Street International Magazine, American Art Collector, The New York Times, I Like Your Work Podcast, and can be found in The Fine Art Program and Collection at Montefiore Einstein, New York, NY. Francis Sills earned his MFA at Parsons School of Design, New York, NY and BFA at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. The artist lives and works in South Carolina.

Please contact Lani Holloway, Associate Director, Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquires or to arrange a preview of the exhibition.

Join the Sherman Chamber Ensemble for Bartók’s World, the music of Béla Bartók and his influencers.

Inspired on one hand by the folk music of eastern Europe, and on the other by Strauss and Debussy, Bartok created his own unique style and is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century. The Piano Quintet, written when he was just 22, is richly scored with a virtuoso piano part and is a post-Romantic masterpiece.

• Suite Paysanne Hongrois for flute and piano (trans. Paul Arma)

• Piano Quintet, Sz 23 in C

Performing are Margaret Kampmeier (piano), Eliot Bailen (cello), Susan Rotholz (flute), Doori Na (violin) and Sarah Adams (viola).

Tickets $30. Children ages 16 and under free. As seating is limited, we recommend purchasing tickets in advance at https://www.scemusic.org/ticketsandprograms. Tickets available at the door, subject to availability.

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is thrilled to announce our midsummer exhibition focused on three artists whose keen observation and connection to the natural world invites us to pause and appreciate.

Margot Glass focuses primarily on drawing, using various traditional methods and materials as a foundation for her work, including traditional silverpoint and 14k goldpoint, homemade organic inks and oil and acrylic painting with mixed mica using fine point crow quill pens in place of brushes.

Glass is inspired by the tradition of idealizing nature in art and design as ornament across cultures while seeking to observe and represent her subjects as accurately as possible in all their irregularity and imperfection.

Central to her work is the exploration of ephemeral, fragile subjects, focusing primarily on weeds or ‘waste plants’, and other plants generally considered to be undesirable, to recognize their beauty in all their imperfection and asymmetry. Her focus on these marginal plants is guided by the question of what we value, what we consider ‘belonging’ to mean, and to highlight the beauty of what is present in the disrupted landscape that we find ourselves in today.

Margot Glass grew up in New York City, and studied art at The Art Students' League, Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Fashion Institute of Technology. Glass’s work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally. She is a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council STARS Artist Residency; Lost and Found Lab Artist-in-Residence and an Oak Spring Garden Foundation Interdisciplinary Fellowship. Her work is in private and public collections including the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon, PA, Weatherspoon Art Museum, NC, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, VA, Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, MA, Hotel Del Coronado Collection, CA, Allentown Art Museum, PA, Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, IN, the Beth Rudin deWoody Collection, among others. She currently lives and works in Western Massachusetts.

Richard Klein has been copper plating organic objects for over three decades utilizing found objects that are intrinsically fragile and impermanent. The process allows Klein to encase natural objects in a thin coating of metallic copper, permanently preserving them. The alchemical transformation being both practical and poetic. 

In his most recent work, the artist juxtaposes electroplated natural findings with photo gravures of urban landscapes addressing our relationship with nature simultaneously reminding us that we are nature and that our detachment from nature is the source of much of the destruction to our planet. In particular, the artist’s interest in both fungi and copper hint at the convergence of natural and technological evolution: fungi, through their mycelium, connect virtually all terrestrial plant life, acting as natural communication networks; while copper is the material that the human-made electrical and digital networks depend on. 

Richard Klein is the former exhibitions director of The Aldrich of Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT. His work has been shown widely in US and is in the public collections of Norton Family Collection, Santa Monica, CA, De Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA, Connecticut Artists Collection, Hartford, CT and has been featured in The New Criterion, Two Coats of Paint, Hyperallergic, Art Forum, The Brooklyn Rail and Art New England to name a few. The artist lives and works in CT.

Francis Sills’s work is grounded in the perceptual-based, realist tradition. The artist works directly from observation in nature. In dealing with the intricacies and challenges of working from observation and the sustained experience of intense, visual scrutiny, the artist comes to understand and know his world. The flora series is an ongoing group of paintings utilizing the flowers and plants from the artist’s home garden. Sills recently been adding various shaped mirrors to the set ups, which both multiply the forms and fracture the space. Sills’ paintings are dense and subtle, revealing specific nuances of color, light, and form. Often, the underlying geometry and architecture of the composition are apparent in the application of paint, the artist’s analytic thinking about structure and his methodology still evident in the finished work.

Sills’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States, has been featured in publications such as Wall Street International Magazine, American Art Collector, The New York Times, I Like Your Work Podcast, and can be found in The Fine Art Program and Collection at Montefiore Einstein, New York, NY. Francis Sills earned his MFA at Parsons School of Design, New York, NY and BFA at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. The artist lives and works in South Carolina.

Please contact Lani Holloway, Associate Director, Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquires or to arrange a preview of the exhibition.

Join the Sherman Chamber Ensemble as the musicians "let their hair down" to bring you a hand-clapping, toe-tapping free Bluegrass concert.

Featuring The SCE Bluegrass Band, fiddler Paul Woodiel, plus special guests. Free Admission. Donation of $10 per person suggested. Tickets available at https://www.scemusic.org/ticketsandprograms

Online exhibition curated by Lani Ming Holloway with artwork by Maya Tihtiyas Attean, Laura Barr, Jordann McKenna, and Benoît Trimborn

exhibition dates:  August 1 – September 30, 2025, on www.kbfa.com

Stories told in light and silence

Poetry will make me violent

Violets outside our yard…

Why does the world have to be so hard?

Encompassing the hidden truths

 Of things unseen in what we view.

-       LMH

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is pleased to present the online exhibition Stories told in light and silence curated by Lani Ming Holloway featuring Maya Tihtiyas Attean, Laura Barr, Jordann McKenna, and Benoît Trimborn.

Maya Tihtiyas Attean is a Wabanaki artist raised on the Penobscot Reservation in Maine. Excerpted from her artist statement: “Through the lens of Wabanaki history and culture, my photographs intertwine forgotten truths within the landscape of what is now called Maine. My work explores the deep, complex relationships between the land, its people, and the lasting impact of colonization. The energy embedded in the landscape reverberates through my creations and reveals the scars left on both the earth and our bodies. My work invites contemplation on occupation and ownership, prompting reflection on who exploits the land and how systems of oppression have disrupted its balance.”

Maya’s work expresses the dichotomy the artist exists within, marrying mediums and different cultural techniques. “Does the Land Remember?” is an ongoing series photographing landscapes that hold the history of devastating events of colonization. The power of that residuum is felt in the images in a supernatural way, as the dualism of her lived experience is pronounced in the contrast of light and dark. Sunlight shimmers through the leaves as bright stars overhead look down upon the land, a fire burns. Maya’s work calls us to remember that nature feels the spirits.

Maya Tihtiyas Attean lives and works in Portland, Maine or Machigonne. She earned a BFA in Photography from Maine College of Art & Design, Portland. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME and the Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, ME.

Laura Barr’s work explores impermanence through oil paintings and oil pastel drawings on paper capturing passing moments in color, reflection on water, and light. Simplifying forms and illuminating the scale of special glimmers, her work considers the preservation of water and the protection of our environment. In Laura’s paintings in the exhibition, fireflies gleam in a starlit field and remind us that fireflies may not continue to glow on our planet, while a surfer catches the last evening wave the ocean offers, an Aurora Borealis dances in the night sky.

Laura Barr lives by the Thimble Islands in Branford, Connecticut. She earned her BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA and a BA in Fine Arts from Tufts University in Medford, MA and has studied at Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy.

From Ithaca, NY, Jordann McKenna paints and photographs the quiet beauty in everyday life in work that contemplates mundanity and the softly fleeting feeling within light and shadows around her. In lushly applied oil paint, flames flicker and shadows play across the scene. Jordann’s work in this exhibition reflects the peaceful, ephemeral moods of interiors and intimate still lifes, either staged or spontaneous. Jordann McKenna works from photographs and from memory to create images that serve to process rather than recreate, expressing not only what is seen but what is felt, and celebrating the beauty in the ordinary.

Jordann McKenna earned a BS in Visual Arts from State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, NY, and an MFA from Maine College of Art & Design in Portland, ME. She lives and works in Portland, ME.

Born in Strasbourg, France, and trained as an architect, Benoît Trimborn describes his work as “contemporary impressionism”. Viewing the world as an architect, Benoît’s large-scale oil paintings evoke what his artist statement calls the “morphology of the landscapes… like an architect, I see in it a breath, a light, a rhythm, which alone can constitute a principle of beauty. The elements represented compose atmospheres of which I try to faithfully convey the impression, as the musician faithfully follows the score. In this process, the contemplative attitude prevails, much more than the adventurous attitude. No message, no story should disturb the projection of the viewer...”

In Benoît’s meticulously painted large-scale landscapes, the absence of the figure instills a quietude in the story while light is the present form in all its magic. Reflections play like a musical score on the surface of the water and golden glimmers illuminate the forest and emanate from a sunset sky.

Benoît Trimborn’s work is in the permanent collection of Galerie Ariel Sibony in Paris, France, Absolute Art Gallery in Bruges, Belgium, and Galerie Bertrand Gillig in Strasbourg, France. He lives and works in Strasbourg, France.

Please contact Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquiries.

Shipping is available worldwide throughout the exhibition.  

Music and Rhyme for Children from Birth to 3s! A program for babies and their caretakers that incorporates music, rhythm, stories, and nursery rhymes to spur language development, body awareness, pre-reading skills, self-confidence, and cooperation. Gathering at 10:15, the program begins at 10:30.

Registration appreciated, drop-ins welcome!

Music and Rhyme for Children from Birth to 3s! A program for babies and their caretakers that incorporates music, rhythm, stories, and nursery rhymes to spur language development, body awareness, pre-reading skills, self-confidence, and cooperation. Gathering at 10:15 on the green behind the Visitor Center, the program begins at 10:30.

In case of inclement weather or other adverse conditions, this event will move inside to the Junior Room.

Registration appreciated, drop-ins welcome!

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is thrilled to announce our midsummer exhibition focused on three artists whose keen observation and connection to the natural world invites us to pause and appreciate.

Margot Glass focuses primarily on drawing, using various traditional methods and materials as a foundation for her work, including traditional silverpoint and 14k goldpoint, homemade organic inks and oil and acrylic painting with mixed mica using fine point crow quill pens in place of brushes.

Glass is inspired by the tradition of idealizing nature in art and design as ornament across cultures while seeking to observe and represent her subjects as accurately as possible in all their irregularity and imperfection.

Central to her work is the exploration of ephemeral, fragile subjects, focusing primarily on weeds or ‘waste plants’, and other plants generally considered to be undesirable, to recognize their beauty in all their imperfection and asymmetry. Her focus on these marginal plants is guided by the question of what we value, what we consider ‘belonging’ to mean, and to highlight the beauty of what is present in the disrupted landscape that we find ourselves in today.

Margot Glass grew up in New York City, and studied art at The Art Students' League, Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Fashion Institute of Technology. Glass’s work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally. She is a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council STARS Artist Residency; Lost and Found Lab Artist-in-Residence and an Oak Spring Garden Foundation Interdisciplinary Fellowship. Her work is in private and public collections including the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon, PA, Weatherspoon Art Museum, NC, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, VA, Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, MA, Hotel Del Coronado Collection, CA, Allentown Art Museum, PA, Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, IN, the Beth Rudin deWoody Collection, among others. She currently lives and works in Western Massachusetts.

Richard Klein has been copper plating organic objects for over three decades utilizing found objects that are intrinsically fragile and impermanent. The process allows Klein to encase natural objects in a thin coating of metallic copper, permanently preserving them. The alchemical transformation being both practical and poetic. 

In his most recent work, the artist juxtaposes electroplated natural findings with photo gravures of urban landscapes addressing our relationship with nature simultaneously reminding us that we are nature and that our detachment from nature is the source of much of the destruction to our planet. In particular, the artist’s interest in both fungi and copper hint at the convergence of natural and technological evolution: fungi, through their mycelium, connect virtually all terrestrial plant life, acting as natural communication networks; while copper is the material that the human-made electrical and digital networks depend on. 

Richard Klein is the former exhibitions director of The Aldrich of Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT. His work has been shown widely in US and is in the public collections of Norton Family Collection, Santa Monica, CA, De Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA, Connecticut Artists Collection, Hartford, CT and has been featured in The New Criterion, Two Coats of Paint, Hyperallergic, Art Forum, The Brooklyn Rail and Art New England to name a few. The artist lives and works in CT.

Francis Sills’s work is grounded in the perceptual-based, realist tradition. The artist works directly from observation in nature. In dealing with the intricacies and challenges of working from observation and the sustained experience of intense, visual scrutiny, the artist comes to understand and know his world. The flora series is an ongoing group of paintings utilizing the flowers and plants from the artist’s home garden. Sills recently been adding various shaped mirrors to the set ups, which both multiply the forms and fracture the space. Sills’ paintings are dense and subtle, revealing specific nuances of color, light, and form. Often, the underlying geometry and architecture of the composition are apparent in the application of paint, the artist’s analytic thinking about structure and his methodology still evident in the finished work.

Sills’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States, has been featured in publications such as Wall Street International Magazine, American Art Collector, The New York Times, I Like Your Work Podcast, and can be found in The Fine Art Program and Collection at Montefiore Einstein, New York, NY. Francis Sills earned his MFA at Parsons School of Design, New York, NY and BFA at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. The artist lives and works in South Carolina.

Please contact Lani Holloway, Associate Director, Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquires or to arrange a preview of the exhibition.

Bring your lunch, listen to stories, and enjoy a fun craft! All are welcome, this program is intended for preschool-aged children. This event will be offered in person in the Junior Room of the Library.

Registration is appreciated but not required.

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is thrilled to announce our midsummer exhibition focused on three artists whose keen observation and connection to the natural world invites us to pause and appreciate.

Margot Glass focuses primarily on drawing, using various traditional methods and materials as a foundation for her work, including traditional silverpoint and 14k goldpoint, homemade organic inks and oil and acrylic painting with mixed mica using fine point crow quill pens in place of brushes.

Glass is inspired by the tradition of idealizing nature in art and design as ornament across cultures while seeking to observe and represent her subjects as accurately as possible in all their irregularity and imperfection.

Central to her work is the exploration of ephemeral, fragile subjects, focusing primarily on weeds or ‘waste plants’, and other plants generally considered to be undesirable, to recognize their beauty in all their imperfection and asymmetry. Her focus on these marginal plants is guided by the question of what we value, what we consider ‘belonging’ to mean, and to highlight the beauty of what is present in the disrupted landscape that we find ourselves in today.

Margot Glass grew up in New York City, and studied art at The Art Students' League, Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Fashion Institute of Technology. Glass’s work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally. She is a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council STARS Artist Residency; Lost and Found Lab Artist-in-Residence and an Oak Spring Garden Foundation Interdisciplinary Fellowship. Her work is in private and public collections including the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon, PA, Weatherspoon Art Museum, NC, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, VA, Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, MA, Hotel Del Coronado Collection, CA, Allentown Art Museum, PA, Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, IN, the Beth Rudin deWoody Collection, among others. She currently lives and works in Western Massachusetts.

Richard Klein has been copper plating organic objects for over three decades utilizing found objects that are intrinsically fragile and impermanent. The process allows Klein to encase natural objects in a thin coating of metallic copper, permanently preserving them. The alchemical transformation being both practical and poetic. 

In his most recent work, the artist juxtaposes electroplated natural findings with photo gravures of urban landscapes addressing our relationship with nature simultaneously reminding us that we are nature and that our detachment from nature is the source of much of the destruction to our planet. In particular, the artist’s interest in both fungi and copper hint at the convergence of natural and technological evolution: fungi, through their mycelium, connect virtually all terrestrial plant life, acting as natural communication networks; while copper is the material that the human-made electrical and digital networks depend on. 

Richard Klein is the former exhibitions director of The Aldrich of Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT. His work has been shown widely in US and is in the public collections of Norton Family Collection, Santa Monica, CA, De Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA, Connecticut Artists Collection, Hartford, CT and has been featured in The New Criterion, Two Coats of Paint, Hyperallergic, Art Forum, The Brooklyn Rail and Art New England to name a few. The artist lives and works in CT.

Francis Sills’s work is grounded in the perceptual-based, realist tradition. The artist works directly from observation in nature. In dealing with the intricacies and challenges of working from observation and the sustained experience of intense, visual scrutiny, the artist comes to understand and know his world. The flora series is an ongoing group of paintings utilizing the flowers and plants from the artist’s home garden. Sills recently been adding various shaped mirrors to the set ups, which both multiply the forms and fracture the space. Sills’ paintings are dense and subtle, revealing specific nuances of color, light, and form. Often, the underlying geometry and architecture of the composition are apparent in the application of paint, the artist’s analytic thinking about structure and his methodology still evident in the finished work.

Sills’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States, has been featured in publications such as Wall Street International Magazine, American Art Collector, The New York Times, I Like Your Work Podcast, and can be found in The Fine Art Program and Collection at Montefiore Einstein, New York, NY. Francis Sills earned his MFA at Parsons School of Design, New York, NY and BFA at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. The artist lives and works in South Carolina.

Please contact Lani Holloway, Associate Director, Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquires or to arrange a preview of the exhibition.