Khalil Allaik, Wes Heiss, Jane Noel, and Angela Fraleigh.

A biennial exhibition presenting the works of established artists and art educators of the eastern Pennsylvania region.

Khalil Allaik

All the stories about the universe—the stars, the void, other dimensions, other worlds, black holes, galaxies—the distance of light.  I have searched for some way that I might see it all. How, in this short life, can I travel throughout this huge and limitless universe?  I close my eyes.  I dive within. I realize that the inner space is deep and infinite. There, inside, I travel.  My artwork presents views I have captured in my travels through cities that I have built in the cavities of my mind. For me, the Void is a very flexible creature. It allows us to move through it easily, without resistance.  My work is the dialogue between these two limitless universes, one within and one beyond. It is the dialogue between Matter and the Void.

Multidisciplinary artist Khalil Allaik is known for futuristic, hybrid forms that combine aspects of the organic, the  anthropomorphic and the abstract.  His process-driven work draws inspiration from his individual experience of cosmic forces such as the relationship of the earth to the universe, and the past to the future.  In his native Lebanon, Allaik worked as an art dealer for eight years.  He is a graduate of Lebanese University, Beirut.  Classically trained, he earned fine arts degrees in painting and drawing, as well as a degree in interior design.  His work has been shown internationally.  Allaik has lived and worked  in the Lehigh Valley for the past twelve years.

Wes Heiss

In my installations, sculptures, and interactive works inanimate objects are often used as metaphors for emotions, fears, and longing. By questioning our dependency on, and fascination with, “things” this work examines the deep vein of magical thinking and nostalgia that informs the American experience. Central to this experience is the stubbornly held feeling that the right machine, or combination of machines, has the potential to make life secure, happy, and, most of all, meaningful.  Things for Making Things pulls together a collection of sketches, computer generated renderings, Polaroid photographs and other materials that were produced in the development of 3 dimensional works. These modes of production are the common thread between my studio artwork, public art practice, and role as a professor of product design. The drawings are often a way to assemble ideas in my head whereas taking photographs helps me engage with the world in ways I would otherwise miss. They  exist as artifacts of a creative process. Whether the genesis of an idea or the notation of something already completely formed it’s interesting to adjust my eyes to seeing them as something to share.

Wes Heiss is an Assistant Professor at Lehigh University where he heads the Product Design concentration. He has exhibited internationally at DiverseWorks and the Menil Collection in Houston, Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, and Kulturmöllan in Lövestad, Sweden. Heiss received a Master of Architecture from Rice University. He lives in Allentown PA with his wife, artist Angela Fraleigh and daughter Tuesday.

Jane Noel

Using a variety of materials, I primarily investigate the concepts of identity, gender, and contemporary issues. My medium of choice is photography but I am familiar with a variety of tools and will use whatever the project requires to complete the work. My images primarily arise from observed daily experience.  My training was in the more traditional realms of photography and a beautiful black and white photograph still entices me. However, my MFA studies at Vermont College were a welcome expansion to my work. In my installation and community work, I try to create a context for interaction.  What guides me as an artist is the witness within – the detached observer that lives and grows within us from the time our first memories are formed. In a world full of chatter, we must be still to hear the voice. The works being shown here are relatively new (Summer 2014). They haven’t settled yet. Over the summer I also turned 60, and I think it is a reflection on the changes we all encounter over a lifetime. Someone related to me said that when they saw the burning dress they thought of a phoenix. I liked that image.

Jane S. Noel is an artist who works predominantly in the medium of photography but also includes installation and community related projects in her repertoire. She has exhibited extensively and is included in private and institutional collections. She is a former Lecturer in Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State Lehigh Valley, where she was employed for twenty three years. As an undergraduate, she studied with Judith Joy Ross at Moravian College and holds a BA in Art. She also has an MA in Educational Technology Leadership from George Washington University, and an MFA in Visual Art from Vermont College.

Angela Fraleigh

Ghosts in the Sunlight, borrows figures from a variety of painted mythological interpretations by old masters—Diana after the Hunt, The Rape of Europa, The Allegory of Fertility among others. The paintings fuse diverse histories— Baroque, Rococo, textile design, gilding and playful laymen’s techniques like tie-dye and sun printing.   In these works old master’s subjects are lifted, isolated and reshuffled in the service of re-visioning a familiar narrative. Rascals are removed, never to consummate their stories’ intention; characters wander from painting to painting gathering in the moonlight or providing solace.  One-time attendants, bathers or symbols of fertility now inhabit abstract fields of color. Free of context, of narrative constraints, of salacious bulls and leering satyrs, they are less iconic and more human. Tattered gold leaf licks at the figures while they gingerly tell tales and share information. Clandestine in some cases, jovial in others; these characters’ hushed interchanges take on a confidential manner no longer accessible to the viewer.  Subtle gestures are magnified; moments of being are highlighted. These paintings are an act of distillation, boiling off the extravagance and iconography of their sources in pursuit of more delicate, less definite, but perhaps truer relationships.

Angela Fraleigh earned her MFA from Yale University and her BFA from Boston University. She has exhibited at numerous venues including P.P.O.W Gallery, James Harris Gallery, Seattle, WA, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TX. She is represented by Inman Gallery in Houston, TX and currently lives and works in New York, NY and Allentown, PA where she teaches at Moravian College.