Exploring A Century Of Change

WOODBURY — Beaux Arts Gallery will celebrate the beginning of the new century with a multi-dimensional artistic event. The gallery has assembled a star group of established artists, antiques dealers and designers to create an inventive and exciting exhibit which acts like a form of crossroads where the old and the new meet.

The 20th Century has been a time filled with diverse, exciting changes and shifts in the arts, style and fashion. The past few decades of the 20th Century have witnessed a democratization not only in fashion but in the arts as well. This freeing has resulted in a leveling of the high and the low and brings excitement, renewed interest and productivity. Today there is a multiplicity of styles and trends each following the other which creates an appetite for the new.

Parallel to this stream of activity is the continued appreciation of the antique, seen in a greater understanding and appreciation of previous standards of excellence, craftsmanship and design.

“2M: The Crossroads” will include such evocative artists as Danielle Mailer of Cornwall, who shows jazzy and dreamlike figures and interiors; Carey McDougal of Woodbury, who creates paper and wax dress-like forms which capture not only the light but display ideas pertaining to women’s issues and roles; and Paula Renee of Danbury, whose work prompts us to view familiar things differently through her use of canvas and textile weavings. New works by local artists Clare Chapman, Tom Adkins, Anda Styler and Nick Scalise will be included as well.

In contrast to the single pieces of art on view will be interior spaces designed by Country Loft Antiques and Eleish Van Breems Antiques, both of Woodbury. Country Loft Antiques specializes in 17th, 18th and 19th Century French and European antiques, while Eleish Van Breems Antiques specializes in Scandinavian and northern European furniture and decorative accessories.

Lindsay Ruppel, of Beaux Arts Gallery, will create a fashion vignette using creations by Akira, a couture designer of women’s fashion coupled with the artworks of Paula Renee and Carey McDougal.

“2M: The Crossroads” will be on view December 11 through January 31 at Beaux Arts Gallery, 16 Sherman Hill Road. An opening reception will be hosted by the gallery on December 11 from 4 to 6 pm. Call Beaux Arts, 263-3939, for additional specifics including hours.