Summer Comes Early to a Floral JC Fridays
At six o’clock, dark clouds gathered in the west. The air was heavy and sticky. Thunder over Jersey City was audible. It looked as if the second JC Fridays event of 2025 was about to be doused. But the clouds never opened. It was, perhaps, still too early in the year for a proper summer storm.
The dry conditions may have come as a relief to the arts organizers who, according to JC Fridays custom and policy, opened the doors to the public for free. Nothing inhibits an art walk like a downpour. Yet it would have been appropriate to the subject matter. Though the Art House Productionsevent enlists many different participants from all over town, they seemed to speak with a curiously similar voice. In gallery after gallery, flowers — well, pictures of flowers — were blooming. Verdant fields were depicted and outdoor scenes were celebrated. Longing for a full immersion in summer’s cauldron was palpable. This show felt like a citywide rain dance.
Some of this pining for sunshowers was made explicit. “Color Me Summer,” a show curated by Mariana Morete at Crema (1 Duncan Ave.), gave us pictures of open fire hydrants, watermelons plump and begging for the slicer, and, in a wistful little painting by Elianny Yesenia, the reflections of low clouds on the still surface of a city pond. Even Josie Barreiro’s cool cat, impassive under a radiant north star on a circular canvas, carries the reflection of ocean waves in her sunglasses. In a world so aqueous, plants can’t help but bloom, and painter Stephen Mitchell’s rectangle-headed figure is practically seized at the wrists by a pair of giants flowers and flung into the season. Summer, this show seemed to suggest, has something to do with water, and something with the sky, and something to do with the way terrestrial forces interact with cosmic ones.
That radical softness is present in a winsome oil painting by Frank Hanavan at Project Greenville (128 Winfield Ave.) In his version of Hamilton Park, everything is blossoming, including the earth, the pathways, the gates, and even the cars parked on Pavonia Ave. He’s rendered it all in short, bright brushstrokes that make the entire scene feel awash in petals. Unlike Mitchell’s protagonist, whose rigid, angular body required enlistment into the more flexible duties of summertime living, Hanavan’s subject is already there, slight and gentle as a flower himself, and walking a dog who doesn’t require a leash. Curator Elizabeth Deegan calls her group show “Ya (Really, Truly) Gotta Have Park!,” and the artists she’s attracted do their best to ratify her exclamation point and her enthusiasm for greenspace. The entire exhibition is as excited about the outdoors and ready to touch the grass as a dog behind a screen door.
Click here for the full JC Times article by Tris McCall