Courier Post: County Artist's Work on Exhibit at Airport Gallery

Carol Taylor-Kearney of Wenonah featured in ArtPort

ATLANTIC CITY -- A Gloucester County artist is among the three from South Jersey who are showcasing their work this month in a somewhat offbeat but high-traffic area.

The work of Carol Taylor-Kearney of Wenonah as well as that of Marlton artists Rachel Bomze and Steve Kuzma are part of a show at Atlantic City International Airport.

The gallery, called ArtPort, is beside the security-screening area for departures -- a 28-foot-long corridor with white walls and space enough for three waiting lines.

In all, 20 paintings by South Jersey artists are in the gallery, which is only accessible to people with boarding passes. About 40,000 pass through each month.

Taylor-Kearney specializes in found objects and uses discarded window frames as her canvas. She uses a technique called reverse painting where an image, such as a landscape, is represented backward on the backside of the pane, giving the 3-D effect of looking through a window.

What separates Taylor-Kearney from the other artists whose work is on display is that hers is more technical, said Michael Cagno, executive director of the Noyes Museum of Art in Oceanville and a member of the board of directors that oversees ArtPort.

She plays with objects, welds them, reconstructs them in the spirit of trompe l'oeil.

"Trompe is a French term. It means playing with reality, making a surface look ultrareal . . . like the painting of a doorknob that looks so real that you reach out to turn it," Cagno said.

Taylor-Kearney has a bachelor's degree from Rowan University and a master's degree in painting from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. She keeps a studio in Philadelphia.

"My art is not only about experiencing the world but are ideas about experiencing the world," said Taylor-Kearney, who said she admires the work of American artists Marcel Duchamp and Jasper Johns.

Each pane tells a narrative, such as her work titled Festival.

"I usually do that through color . . . (in a pane); I have one mountain area that is greenish, and in the next one, green comes up but it is connected to a tree," she said.

Bomze has oil paintings on exhibit.

"She has a very rich palate," said Cagno. "In her work, there is a positive energy across the canvas."

Cagno described Bomze's work as very "atmospheric" with a lot of color, texture and emotional content.

Bomze uses Styrofoam and sand to add texture to her canvases. She gauges her abstract paintings from calming to quiet to loud.

The work by Kuzma, also a painter, has "a more European feel . . . very loose . . . more Monet with the atmosphere," Cagno said.

A canoeist, Kuzma said he finds inspiration in depicting scenes related to the Jersey Shore. His painting Waves depicts the spray of a wave over a rock outcropping.

"In his paintings, you see subjects that you can relate to. You get the feeling of being in a particular place at a particular time," Cagno said. "A lot of energy takes place within his work and, at the same time, it has a very calming, relaxing feeling to it."

Reach Bryan Finlayson at (856) 486-2401 or cpmetro@courierpostonline.com/.

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