Train of Thoughts

Train of Thoughts
Donna Payton, Kathleen Preziosi, Libby Ramage

February 11 – April 15, 2023
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 11 | 3-5pm

The exhibition will be a visual confluence of the minds and creative approaches of three artists, resulting in an undulating mosaic presentation of over 100 small works reflecting the title: Train of Thoughts.

Diversity in media and materials is integral to Donna Payton’s creative process. A native of St. Louis, MO, she began collecting discarded items and assembling them as a young child. In Los Angeles, where she received her MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in sculpture and painting, her mixed media work expanded to include constructions of building materials and salvaged architectural parts. Payton is currently creating high relief collages as well as installations combining recycled objects, natural materials and constructed sculptures. She also makes photographs using the human form as a sculptural base for parts of her disassembled sculptural constructs. Payton received the New Jersey Print and Paper Grant from the Brodsky Center at Rutgers University. She has exhibited in galleries and museums in California, Florida, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Washington, D.C. and New Zealand. Payton’s work is in private and corporate collections, including Southeastern Banks, Citibank of Florida, Cleveland Clinic in Florida, Novo Nordisk, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, AtlantiCare New Jersey, New Jersey State Museum, Jersey City Museum, Zimmerli Art Museum, New Jersey State Council on the Arts and Hunterdon Museum of Art.

Kathleen Preziosi is head of the Ceramics Studio at the Arts Council of Princeton where she teaches beginner and advanced ceramic classes. She received her BA in Liberal Arts, specializing in the Studio Arts, Art History and Arts Management from Sweet Briar College. Her work includes functional forms and explores the sculptural aspects of clay. Preziosi has been selected for exhibitions at the Brodsky Center at ETS, Princeton NJ; D&R Greenway, Princeton NJ; The Monmouth Museum, Lincroft NJ; Taplin Gallery at the Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, NJ; The Gallery at Mercer County College, NJ; Artworks, Trenton, NJ; Art All Night, Trenton, NJ; and Pannell Gallery, Amherst VA, among other exhibition spaces. As a ceramic artist, she is in a constant state of exploration, stretching the parameters of this medium, currently throwing classic shapes and distorting them with applied assemblage.

Libby Ramage was born in Youngstown, Ohio and attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston where she earned her diploma and fifth year certificate. She has lived in the New York/New Jersey area for many years. Libby has exhibited in many local galleries and exhibits as well as nationally. Most notable among these are the Mercer County Artists Exhibit – where she received honorable mention in 2017 and was a Cultural Commission purchase in 2015 and 2021 – the City of Trenton’s Ellarslie Museum where she received best in show for drawing in 2015, the President’s Award for runner-up in mixed media in 2019, and the Butler Institute of American Art national Midyear show in 2012, 2015, and 2021. Libby was the visual artist in a flamenco residency “Finding Light Through Fire” at the Arts Council of Princeton where she created projected art work for the choreographies as well as painted live on panels of Zen paper to musical performances. Libby has worked with the Arts Council of Princeton for many years as an exhibitor and an instructor of children’ classes, summer camps and after school programs. She created an award winning art program for the Princeton Nursery School as well as working on residency projects in the Princeton public elementary schools. She has also illustrated the children’s book One By One by Harlan Platt.