Montclair Art Exhibit: ‘Things We Carry: A Contemporary Asian Experience’

MONTCLAIR, NJ — The following news release comes courtesy of Studio Montclair. Find out how to post announcements or events to your local Patch site.

Studio Montclair (SMI) welcomes “Things We Carry: A Contemporary Asian Experience,” an exhibit reflecting the sense of belonging and place of Asian/Asian American immigrants as they navigate between past and present cultures and the objects that evoke that experience. Curated by Adriana Proser of the Walters Art Museum, the exhibition will be held at Studio Montclair’s Leach Gallery, 641 Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair, from Sept. 19 through Oct. 24. An opening reception will take place on Friday, Sept. 19, from 6 to 8 p.m.

The diverse works of 48 artists evince the varied lives and cultures of Asians and Pacific Islanders from a range of perspectives. The installation includes painting, photography, sculpture, and video that comprise a range of styles associated with Western and Asian painting traditions as well as international contemporary art practices. According to the curator, “Sej Saraiya captures the expressive beauty of Indian dance in this image of the dancers with the US Capitol in the background in ‘Rhythms of Heritage: Kuchipudi at the National Monument’. Representations of both the literal and emotional burdens that people carry are adeptly conveyed in Miriam Stern’s painting of bundles of baggage floating through the sky in ‘7 Deadly Pekelakh Plus’”. Similarly poignant are “the pulling of a boat across the water to land in the distance as seen in Jade Nguyen’s ‘Memory of Ly Son Island’, and Shabnam Miri’s untitled portrait of two people seated close to one another yet distanced by their own heavy thoughts.”

Viewers will be rewarded by these profound and expressive works that evince the beauty of deeply entrenched heritages that can also be a source of conflict as generations old and new experience the continuum of space and time.

About the Juror

Adriana Proser is Mr. and Mrs. John Quincy Scott Curator of Asian Art and Chief Curator at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD. At the Walters, she oversaw the creation of “Across Asia and the Islamic World,” galleries that opened to the public in 2023. Previously Dr. Proser was Assistant Curator of East Asian at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and for 17 years prior to joining the Walters she was John H. Foster Senior Curator at Asia Society Museum. She has organized and co-organized more than 45 exhibitions for Asia Society, New York, as well as Asia Society Hong, Kong Center, Asia Society Texas Center, Boston College’s McMullen Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, featuring diverse works from all over Asia. Proser is author of Buddha and Shiva, Lotus and Dragon: Masterworks from the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection at Asia Society (Hirmer, 2020) and served as an editor and contributing author for numerous books, including Across Asia and the Islamic World: Movement and Mobility in East Asian South and Southeast Asian and Islamic Cultures (The Walters Art Museum and Giles, 2023), Comparative Hell: Arts of Asian Underworlds (Asia Society and Officina Libraria, 2022), and the Golden Visions of Densatil: A Tibetan Buddhist Monastery (Asia Society, 2014).

Participating Artists

Mesma Belsare, Subhra Bhattacharya, Nancy Blankenhorn, Richard Buntzen, Susan Buzzi, Phil Cantor, Hwa Young Caruso, Behnaz Chahkandi, Sumi Chatterjee, Julie Chen, Julia Chiang, Elaine Chu, D Nina Cruz, Daniel Epstein, Ghazal Ghazi, Nasim Golkar, Beth Heit, Megan Hills, Manman Huang, Christine Huhn, Kea Kamiya, Gayatri Kapur, Caren King Choi, Lua Kobayashi, Ray Koh, Maria Lan, Wenli Liu, Yujia Ma, Joanna Madloch, Bibiana Huang Matheis, Janie Mendosa, Shabnam Miri, Jade Nguyen, Brenda Noiseux, The -O, Mollie Ong, Andy Pham, Millian Giang Pham, Sej Saraiya, Abhijeet Shrivastava, Miriam Stern, Hui Tian, Peter Tilgner, Barbara Wallace, Voyo Woo, Antoinette Wysocki, TAITAI xTina, Gwen Yip

Listing Information for the Exhibition

• Exhibition Dates: September 19 – October 24, 2025
• Galleries: SMI Leach Gallery, 641 Bloomfield Avenue, Montclair, NJ
• Gallery Hours: Please Check the Website for Hours
• Opening Reception: September 19, from 6:00-8:00pm
• Studio Montclair Contact Info: smi@studiomontclair.org, 862-500-1447

About Studio Montclair

Studio Montclair is a nonprofit organization of exhibiting professional artists and others interested in the visual arts. Its mission is to promote culture and education in the visual arts and encourage emerging artists. Founded in 1997, the organization includes over 450 members including artists from around the United States, as well as Europe and Asia. For more information, contact smi@studiomontclair.org, or call 862-500-1447.

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