laughing dog studios

Our gallery showcases regional art and artisan crafts. We host monthly Art Show Openings, coinciding with Downtown Harrisonburg's monthly First Fridays events. Come check out Downtown Harrisonburg's thriving Arts Scene and stop in for a visit with our sweet shop dog, Sparky! Scroll down for info on our current and upcoming Gallery shows and opening receptions. A full list of Downtown Harrisonburg's First Fridays offerings can be found each month at valleyarts.org.

Laughing Dog Studios' "Gallery at Laughing Dog" presents "Ken Szmagaj: Recent Works on Canvas & Paper.

So excited and proud to showcase recent works in painting on canvas and mixed media on paper by Ken Szmagaj, who holds a lifelong career as an artist as well as a professor in James Madison University's School of Art. Full of color, these 6ft paintings and eclectic mixed media paper pieces are spectacular!

Artist Statement: In writing about abstract painting, the poet, Octavio Paz states, “Abstract painters waver between stammering and mystical illumination.” I find that an interesting state to be in, establishing a space and working for a moment when an unconscious gesture appears to have meaning, finding light in the feeling of recognition and discovery in a structure that is coming into being. It is the ritual of rumination, play and discovery itself that is significant. In works composed from studio detritus, found objects and pieces from disassembled works, I improvise, looking for ways to make connections between the incidental, unrelated and fragmentary. I work with them until they yield a glimpse of something that is beyond their materiality. Rhythm and gesture are a means to create opportunity, continuity and sense of place. It is a provisional arrangement that may exist, seemingly, for only a moment. Fragments of familiar, mundane objects are often included as vague traces of human presence. I am intrigued with duality and incongruity within pictorial space; the transient and infinite in opposition to a desire for the tangible, tactile and absolute. Disparate elements or sections are often placed in a side-by-side linear sequence, or one over the other to create a frictional energy between the degrees of harmony and dissonance they may evoke. ~Ken Szmagaj

Join us for the opening reception with light refreshments during Downtown Harrisonburg's April First Fridays on Friday, April 5th, 5-8pm.  And also for light refreshments during Downtown Harrisonburg's May First Fridays on Friday, May 3rd, 5-8pm. Love to see you there!  Show runs through May.

First Fridays events are sponsored by Arts Council of the Valley. For a full schedule of events for First Fridays, check www.valleyarts.org.