TREADWELL - Visitors entering Bright Hill Press & Literary Center on Saturday, July 18, quickly discovered that the newest exhibition wasn’t asking them simply to look at art.
It was asking them to read it.
The exhibition, “ “ (Quotations), curated by Sidney Center artist Jim Napierala, invited artists from around the country to respond to American literature and the American vernacular, creating works that blur the line between written and visual storytelling.
For a literary center whose mission has long celebrated poetry and prose, the concept felt like a natural conversation.
“I thought, given that Bright Hill is a literary space,” Napierala said, “it would be nice to have some interaction between visual arts and literature because it’s really the expression of an idea.”
Rather than requiring artists to incorporate text directly into their work, Napierala issued a broader challenge.
“What I said to the artists was, reference American literature or the American vernacular,” he explained.
The prompt produced an exhibition that ranges from playful to contemplative, with paintings, photography, collage and mixed media offering visual interpretations of novels, poetry, folklore and cultural touchstones.
“I knew all of the artists, and I asked them to participate. I think they did a wonderful job interpreting that suggestion,” Napierala said.
Some artists adapted existing works. Others created new pieces specifically for the exhibition.
The roster includes nationally recognized artists, among them Pat Oleszko, currently represented in the Whitney Biennial, along with artists whose work has appeared internationally and in publications including The New Yorker.
Art in conversation with literature
For Napierala, “ “ (Quotations) continues an exploration he began earlier this year with another Bright Hill exhibition inspired by the Surrealist game “Exquisite Corpse,” itself rooted in literary collaboration.
His first exhibition featured nearly 50 artists whose work was assembled entirely through the mail.
Again, literature served as the starting point.
“The exquisite corpse started as a literary thing,” Napierala said. “The Surrealists kind of co-opted it and made it a visual thing.”
The latest exhibition expands that dialogue, asking viewers to consider how images can quote literature without illustrating it directly.
A meditation on memory
Among the participating artists is Lindsay Packer, whose haunting ink works transform pages from books about Colonial Williamsburg into ghostlike interiors.
Furniture and windows emerge through layers of black ink while human figures disappear, leaving rooms suspended somewhere between memory and history.
For the exhibition, Packer drew inspiration from Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.”
Each piece references Morrison’s meditation on loneliness.
“There is a loneliness that can be rocked,” begins the passage that inspired the work.
Packer said the quotation reflects the emotional landscape she hoped to evoke.
“I applied black ink so they become very dark,” she explained. “I allowed the windows, the light from the windows, and the furniture to remain.”
The resulting images feel simultaneously familiar and distant.
“They’re a little smudgy, like memory,” she said.
Packer views visual art as a kind of time machine.
“We can enter into it visually and be both where we are and where we’re not.”
The melancholy of abandoned rooms, she said, becomes a way of reflecting on both personal memory and American history.
Windows into possibility
Nearby hangs work by Ariel Bullion-Ecklund, whose photographic collage, “Safe Travels,” references Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.”
The mirrored composition centers on luminous windows that the artist sees as both physical spaces and emotional thresholds.
“I love to travel,” Bullion-Ecklund said. “Driving is very relaxing. I get to do a lot of self-reflection.”
For her, the windows in her piece become portals.
“They can be viewed as entryways emotionally, psychologically, into other worlds.”
Kerouac’s novel left a lasting impression when she first read it in high school.
“I wanted travel to be part of my life,” she said.
Although viewers may discover their own meanings, she hopes they recognize the sincerity behind the work.
“I just hope someone can take away the amount of emotional sincerity I hope to work with.”
Humor as self-portrait
Not every quotation in the exhibition comes from literature.
Walton/Brooklyn artist Jim Torok turned inward, choosing to quote himself.
When Napierala explained the exhibition’s concept, Torok recalled asking, “Can I quote myself?”
The answer was yes.
His contribution features an internal conversation rendered as text - a humorous acknowledgment of the persistent self-critic many artists know well.
“It’s me talking to me,” Torok said. “I thought it was funny.”
A second piece grew out of frustration after he believed he had ruined a cloud painting.
Instead of discarding it, he painted directly across the surface: “It’s okay. Not every painting is great.”
Ironically, the addition transformed the work into one of his favorites.
“This is the real thing that happens with artists,” he said.
Beyond the marketplace
Napierala, who (mostly) lives in Sidney Center, acknowledged that today’s art world presents challenges, particularly for smaller galleries operating outside the commercial art market.
But he suggested that exhibitions like “ “ (Quotations) are driven by something other than sales.
“Sales are nice,” he said, “but that’s not the point.”
“The point is to speak with a vision and voice.”
That philosophy also shapes Bright Hill’s growing partnerships with artists and institutions beyond Delaware County.
Napierala said the center’s next exhibition, “Exchange,” will be organized in collaboration with the Kentler International Drawing Space in Brooklyn, bringing visual artists to Treadwell while Bright Hill poets travel to New York City.
“We’re very excited about that,” he said.
For more information about participating artists and their work in the exhibit which runs through Aug. 16, visit brighthillpress.org
