Above photo: Jerry Gallo, co-owner of Art Up participating in the Wintry Mix exhibition
MARGARETVILLE — On Friday evening, as temperatures dropped to 10 degrees and snow still blanketed the ground from storms that began in December, a steady stream of visitors made their way to Art Up gallery in Binnekill Square. Despite the deep chill of a Catskills winter, the opening reception for Wintery Mix, a nine-artist group exhibition, was both lively and well attended, underscoring the community’s commitment to supporting local art even in the harshest season.
For the past two years, Art Up has closed its doors during January and February, mirroring the seasonal pause taken by many regional galleries. This winter, however, the gallery’s partners made a deliberate choice to stay open and embrace the challenges and creative possibilities of the season. The result is an exhibition that reflects not snowfall or freezing rain, but a dynamic blend of artistic voices, each responding in distinct ways to the rhythms, isolation, and atmospheric shifts of winter in the Catskills.
The exhibition features work by Elizabeth Dimon, Jerry Gallo, Christine Hughes, Patrice Lorenz, Gary Mayer, Michael Milton, John Phillips, Margaret Still, and Laura Taylor. Together, they form a richly layered conversation about light, perception, solitude, and transformation.
Elizabeth Dimon’s mixed media constructions and sculptural works draw viewers into intricate, three-dimensional worlds assembled from two-dimensional imagery, found objects, and architectural forms. Drawing on her background in film, photography, and visual storytelling, Dimon builds environments that feel both playful and psychologically charged. Her piece The Magic Mountain reflects her deep engagement with the Catskills landscape, particularly its winter extremes. Having hiked all of the Catskill 3500 peaks in winter, Dimon describes being simultaneously awed by the mountains’ beauty and terrified by their dangers. “One wrong step could send you plunging to your death,” she noted. That tension animates the work, where small toys and whimsical details contrast with darker elements, including a plunging figure. Inside the mountain, mirrored chambers suggest hidden realms of the subconscious, evoking ice caves and the layered complexities of inner experience.
Color emerges as both resistance and refuge in the abstract paintings and collages of Jerry Gallo, who joined Art Up this year as a co-owner. Known for his emotionally charged abstractions, Gallo views vibrancy as an accumulation of lived experience, social connection, and sensory memory. Even when winter renders the landscape monochromatic, he finds creative energy in the quiet. “Artists absorb the energy within and outside of ourselves,” he said, describing how a subdued environment can encourage focus and clarity. His paintings pulse with layered patterns and bold hues that push back against the grey of winter, offering warmth and visual vitality.
Christine Hughes, whose work is often rooted in organic processes and natural materials, finds winter to be a particularly fertile season. Working with enamel paints that require controlled lighting, she carefully balances northern daylight with overhead illumination. January, she explained, is her favorite month to paint, a time when subtle shifts in light signal the distant promise of spring. Her recent work moves toward a more lyrical language, relying on pale washes and linear structures rather than dense color. The resulting paintings feel airy and restrained, echoing the muted hush of a snowbound landscape.
Gary Mayer’s paintings embrace the fleeting drama of winter weather. One piece in the exhibition emerged after he observed a sudden snow squall outside his studio window. Painting sunflowers that had become twisted and distorted by the cold, he blurred the background to reflect airborne snow particles and allowed heavy flakes to interrupt the foreground. Another work captures a sunset viewed westward, with pale blue tones infusing the snow. For Mayer, winter isolation provides time to experiment, transforming stillness into creative momentum.
Patrice Lorenz, co-founder and co-owner of Art Up, also welcomes winter’s solitude. Working primarily at night, she values the extended darkness, using daylight hours to organize materials and reflect. The muted colors of the season, she said, are especially compelling, and her contributions to Wintery Mix were inspired by a vivid nocturnal vision that arrived like a waking dream. Lorenz also expressed deep appreciation for Gallo’s recent addition to the gallery’s leadership, noting that his energy, humor, and commitment to outreach have invigorated Art Up as it prepares for a full 2026 exhibition season.
Laura Taylor’s paintings explore perception, symbolism, and the fluidity of seeing. This winter, snow-covered skylights prompted her to install full-spectrum daylight bulbs in her studio. While the blue tones of winter afternoons do not directly dictate her palette, they sharpen her awareness of shifting perspective. “It makes you realize perception isn’t at all objective,” she said. Her work aims to create symbolic languages for trees, mountains, and light, expressing more than a single moment in time. Though the cold sometimes limits her ability to paint in her wood-heated studio, she continues to produce artist books and design projects indoors.
Michael Milton approaches painting with spontaneity and intuitive flow. For him, winter primarily affects the physical challenge of warming his studio, while his color choices remain largely subconscious. “All work is experimental,” he explained, emphasizing instinct and responsiveness over deliberate calculation. His paintings add a quiet emotional resonance to the exhibition, offering reflective counterpoints to more visually assertive works.
John Phillips contributes a striking optical presence with paintings that balance motion and stillness through layered ovals, shifting gradients, and carefully calibrated geometry. His compositions generate rhythmic movement across the canvas, producing subtle illusions of depth and spatial vibration. In one luminous blue painting, floating forms suggest cosmic motion, while a grayscale work fractures perception into overlapping planes. Phillips’ restrained palette and precise tonal shifts reward sustained viewing, revealing delicate transitions of light and form.
Together, the nine artists demonstrate that winter in the Catskills is not merely a season of retreat, but one of focused exploration and creative renewal. By remaining open through the coldest months, Art Up gallery affirms its role as a cultural anchor in Margaretville, drawing residents and visitors alike into a shared experience of art, conversation, and resilience.
Wintery Mix stands as a testament to the power of community and the enduring vitality of artistic practice, even when the world outside is frozen.
Art Up Gallery, 746 Main Street, Binnekill Square, Margaretville
Through March 8, 2026
See: artupmargaretville.com