sculpture

Press Release:

The Rosalie "Roz" Steiner Art Gallery is kicking off 2025 with an exciting new sculptural exhibit! The Bennington Concrete Collective features artwork by Ed Hallborg and J. Brian Pfeiffer. Hallborg and Pfeiffer both use concrete/cement as the foundation of their pieces. 

Hallborg creates relief sculptures by spreading layers of cements onto wood, and then carving into it. Recently, he has been experimenting with color in his artwork by layering chalk pastels onto the dried cement for added dimension. Take note of the colorful strokes used in Collaboration Piece, which consists of many interlocking sculptures on display together for the first time. 

Pfeiffer creates stone blocks out of concrete and marble dust, which he then carves into to create his free-standing sculptures. In contrast to his smaller pieces on display, Pfeiffer also creates large scale sculptures, some of which you'll find permanently displayed around Western NY. This requires him to weld metal armatures to create a stable base, which he then covers in concrete. 

Pfeiffer says most of his sculptures are built for interaction, and he encourages viewers to get up close to his artwork. Feel free to take a seat on Sitting Man when you visit the Rosalie "Roz" Steiner Art Gallery. Texture and shadow take center stage in The Bennington Concrete Collective. There is a playful mix of abstract artwork on display next to figurative pieces, from both of these talented artists.

Ed Hallborg is a Western New York based studio artist, theatre designer, educator and musician. He first began working with wood forms and concrete while studying as a Carpenter's Apprentice in the Southwest United States. Graduating SUNY with a BS of Design in 2002, he currently serves as Professor of Practice and Resident Designer/Technical Director for the Theatre Department of Hobart and William Smith Colleges. 

In June 2024, he was selected as one of the four Roycroft Emerging Artists:Cohort 2024, sponsored by the Roycroft at Large Association, a Craftsman community in East Aurora, NY. In October of the same year, he was juried in as an exhibiting member of the Buffalo Society of Artists. Ed just finished up a delightfully collaborative NYSCA Independent Artist Grant working with elementary aged artists in the fall of 2024 which he'd be happy to tell you about. He has shown at gallerys throughout the Western and Central NY region.

J. Brian Pfeiffer is a self-taught sculptor, born in 1964. He has been creating sculptures using concrete or stone (alabaster) since 1984. Pfeiffer is the owner of A Sculptor's Soul Studio, which is located in the rolling hills of Bennington, a small town in Western New York. He has abstract and figurative sculptures of all sizes scattered around his property, as well as commissioned pieces in private collections and public installations peppered throughout Western New York. The largest being a 6-ton concrete sculpture, which is called UNITY, a 911 Memorial donated to the Fireman's Home/Museum in the Hudson Valley. He is a recipient of the New York State Council on the Arts Community Arts Grant in 2024, and has won numerous awards for his sculptures at the Allentown Arts Festival.

Two receptions will be held on January 30 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. and at 5 to 7 p.m. Meet our artists and enjoy some refreshments while viewing this exciting new sculptural exhibit.

The Rosalie "Roz" Steiner Art Gallery hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. and Wednesdays 5 - 7 p.m. The gallery is also open on Wednesdays from 9:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. Any changes to the gallery hours will be posted on the gallery social media pages.

For more information please contact: Jessica Skehan at the Rosalie "Roz" Steiner Art Gallery via email jeskehan@genesee.edu or gccgallery@genesee.edu or telephone 585-343-0055 ext. 6490.

Every morning, I spend a good hour or so perusing the local media sites, looking for the stories most relevant to the folks of Genesee County. Links to those articles are then included in our Regional Headlines section down here to the right.

Often, there's that one story that deserves more than a cursory mention. For a while now, I've wanted to pick out that one article or news clip that deserved a bit more attention and bring it to you in the full light of our central blog well.

Today is the day we start that service. We hope you enjoy it.

An article this morning in the Buffalo News tells the story of a young man from a small town on the northern shore of Lake Erie. Reporter Chairty Vogel writes the tale with a sure hand and finesse enough to make it come alive.

He burned with artistic fire. But he lived a tough life, and died at a heartbreakingly young age.

Asa Ames was, in many ways, the James Dean of American folk art.

And he lived his entire life — just 27 years — right here in Western New York, in the Town of Evans, where today his simple slab tombstone lies toppled over in a country graveyard, crumbling and neglected.

That was in 1851. Now, Ames will be honored in an exhibit at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.

Vogel truly does a tremendous job with this story, which she recognizes as much more than a tragic tale of a talented young man who died too soon. This is the story of undiscovered talent—small town talent—that Vogel so aptly describes as "hauntingly personal." Ames was working outside of the mainstream, away from the city centers in a medium—wood—that was for the most part unappreciated at the time. He is the quintessential outsider. Like Georg Büchner and Henry Darger, Ames was not understood by the insiders until long after his death. And as Vogel tells us near the end of her article, Ames remains something of enigma, even today.

The Batavian was fortunate enough to meet up with Rick Pratt last Friday at the scene of his latest project, here in Batavia. Rick is a chainsaw artist from Corfu. You may have seen one of his most prominent works here in the city right on Main Street — the wizard carved out of a tree trunk.  Well, last week, Rick was back on Main Street, a little further down, past the Gravel Pit, working on a sculpture of a bald eagle in flight. He still had yet to finish up the detailing of the piece, but that didn't stop us from getting some great footage of Rick in action with the "smaller" chainsaw.

For more about Rick or to see some photographs of his other work, please visit his Web site.