About Vivo Artist Isaac Abrams

Abrams was born and raised in the New York area. He is a self-taught artist with an academic background in literature, history, science and psychology. He founded CODA, the world’s first psychedelic art gallery, in 1965. The next year he began showing his own art. He started working as a sculptor in the early 1970s and as an animation artist in 1981. He now resides in Saugerties, NY. His work has been shown internationally at the Whitney Museum in New York City, at the Tate Gallery in London, the Galerie Bischofberger in Zurich and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. For more about the artist see http://www.isaacabrams.com/.

About Vivo Artist Jill Allyn Stafford

Based in Sacramento, CA, Stafford works in collage and mixed media. Her art began as a way for her to fashion new stories from graphics she found in magazines and books. Moving images from one environment and throwing them into a new, sometimes harsher one, allows her to express stories of conflict, love, humor and loss. Currently the artist is working with photographs that she applies as reverse photocopy transfers. Stafford enjoys creating multiple textures in each piece—with materials such as tissue paper, newsprint, modeling paste extender, and pumice gel. She believes strongly that her art should be viewed and touched. Galvanized by the ordeal of her dear friend Jennifer Hoffmann, Stafford has become a dedicated fundraiser for breast cancer research. She is donating 10% of the proceeds from the sale of her series Inspired I, Inspired III, Predictable Patterns, and Leaving the Gilded Cage to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. For more about Stafford link to http://www.jillallynstafford.com/.

About Vivo Artist Erica Danielle Franz

Franz grew up in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY. In 2000 she graduated from Cornell with a BS, and shortly afterwards re-located to Maui. There in 2003 she launched The Painted Seahorse Studio. She works in ink, acrylic and watercolor, often integrating spray paint, computer graphics and collage in order to achieve a lush and vivid prose. Franz usually begins with an animal, figure or landscape and then departs from the subject to explore color, edge, shape and texture on a wide variety of surfaces: canvases, murals, furniture, boats and cars. Franz’s work is widely commissioned and may be found in the permanent collections of the following Hawaiian institutions: The Ritz-Carlton, Kaiser Permanente hospitals, The Westin Maui, Kaanapali Marriott, Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ambassadors of the Environment, and Starwood Resorts. For more about Franz link to http://www.paintedseahorse.com/.

Vivo Fine Art To Go Live in Woodstock on July 24

New Gallery Opens with the Art of Erica Danielle Franz, Jill Allyn Stafford and Isaac Abrams

On Saturday, July 24, 2010, Vivo Fine Art will officially open its doors with a reception from 4 to 6 P.M. Located at the gateway to town, 105-A Mill Hill Road (next to Cucina Restaurant), the new gallery is dedicated to championing the work of vibrant artists from around the country. “Woodstock is pulsating with positive, creative energy,” says gallery owner Marco Ferrero. “It’s the perfect place to showcase dynamic art.” Ferrero, together with his partner, curator Jennifer Glickman, are the primary forces behind Vivo, which literally means “I live.” The gallery is opening with a show of recent work by Erica Danielle Franz of Maui, HI, Jill Allyn Stafford of Sacramento, CA and Isaac Abrams of Saugerties, NY.

Vivo plans to host monthly gallery talks. The first such presentation will be incorporated into the opening on July 24. Erica Danielle Franz, a graduate of Cornell and a self-taught artist, will demonstrate how the raw energy of animal spirit inspires her brushwork. She has been in Woodstock for a number of weeks this summer, channeling Catskill Mountain and Hudson River Valley fauna and flora. The results are a sweeping set of gallery murals, and a stunning collection of vividly painted furniture. Franz’s work shares space in the gallery with a series of beautifully layered collages by Jill Allyn Stafford, a California-based artist who uses mixed media to create visual stories and exquisitely nuanced landscapes. Isaac Abrams, an internationally known psychedelic artist, is debuting several pieces of etched-glass sculpture at Vivo.

Gallerists Glickman and Ferrero are Woodstock residents whose backgrounds include high-profile assignments in the arts. Glickman is a Bard graduate who earned a Master’s Degree from Pratt in Arts and Cultural Management while working at the world-renowned Aperture Foundation—where she coordinated their newly founded educational lecture series. Says Glickman, “Contextualizing art and its process deepens the viewer’s experience and appreciation.” Owner Ferrero is a visual artist whose Optical Delusion company scores gigs at festivals throughout the world. In 2006 he designed a presentation to celebrate Dr. Albert Hofmann’s 100th birthday in Basel, Switzerland. The next year he created a film that was played at Elton John’s 60th birthday party and 60th performance at Madison Square Garden.

A portion of Vivo’s profits will be donated annually to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Jenn Glickman’s step sister, Jennifer Hoffmann, courageously and fully lived with breast cancer for nine years before losing her battle with the disease in April 2009 at the age of 37. The gallery’s name and spirited hummingbird logo are dedicated to her memory. Glickman and Ferrero plan to support art-as-healing therapy through the gallery’s artists, lectures and children’s workshops.