Art exhibit features theme of wildest dreams BY ELAINE VAN DEVELDE Staff Writer EDISON — The Edison Arts Society cordially invites you to take a very intense mind trip. That’s how Arts Society executive director Nina Hand said invitations to the organization’s latest exhibit, entitled Phantasmagoric, should read. The juried show is slated to start on June 5 at the Sheraton Edison Hotel at 125 Raritan Center Parkway. The event will feature the work of 29 artists, crafted to a motif that conveys the “conjuring of magic, dreams and fantasies,” Hand said. “We have some stuff that’s really bizarre and way out there. This show will definitely take you on a wild mind journey. ” The exhibit is the largest that the Arts Society has ever had at the hotel’s art gallery, Hand said. “The work covers everything from double images, to faces with masks, to clouds that conjure up pictures of swans in the sky, to two people coming out of one body, to a phantom ship and even something called the March of the Killer Orchids by Paul Lenz from Colts Neck,” she said. “It’s really an interesting compilation of work.” The various mediums used in the pieces were: acrylic, watercolor and oil paints, pastels, photography and digitally altered images. One example of “bizarre” artwork, is a face which is comprised of mediums that include acrylics, a kitchen faucet, knobs, plunger and copper on wood board. “The nose is the kitchen faucet,” Hand said. “You can take it from there. It is quite wild, to say the least.” And choosing just the right work to adorn the exhibit’s walls in the right way was unique task in itself, she said. One juror, Phil Orenstein, a professor of Visual Art at the Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University, chose “just the right continuity in work, from piece to piece,” Hand said. “He had a real sense of what would flow in a theme to make a visually enticing display on the wall.” Orenstein judged more than 125 pieces that were submitted. He picked 31 works by 29 artists from all over the state . It was not a requirement to be an Arts Society member for this show. “A lot of the artists are from Edison,” she said. “But some are from as far away as Cherry Hill. Most contributed one piece and some have two.” Local artists who have work in “Phantasmagoric” include: Michael Bransfield and Sandy Mezinis of Metuchen; Sharon Sayegh Miller and Bill Giacalone of Highland Park; Jean Literate of Iselin; Nancy Dunn of East Brunswick; Frank Gubernat of Colonia; and Peter Arakawa, Harriet Charatan, Joseph Giacohmo, Laura Grozovsky, Rita Herzfeld, Mary Pazdan, Thelma Portnoff, Renate Shanahan, Christiane Silla, Ray Skibinski, and Carol Ann Yost all of Edison. The free exhibit will be on display five months through the end of October. It opens on June 5, from 3-5 p.m. and will feature jazz music by the John Asti Trio with refreshments provided by the hotel and a cash bar. For more information, call Nina Hand at the Edison Arts Society at (908) 753-ARTS or visit www.edisonarts.org.