Exhibition dates:  April 5-April 20, 2025 

Opening reception: April 5, 2-5 PM 

Resonance: def.  "The quality of having an intensity of emotion or richness of expression that evolves or reinforces a sympathetic response, especially in a work of art." 

Flushing Town Hall is proud to present Resonance x 4, an exhibition that gives voice to pressing concerns of our time. Curated by Janet Schneider, artist and former director of the Queens Museum, Resonance x 4 provides an in-depth view of the work of four contemporary artists: Emily Barnett, Irene Buszko, Manuel Macarrulla and Janet Schneider. 

Friends and colleagues for many years, all four artists explore deeply resonant personal themes. These themes: climate change, social justice and cultural identity have only gained in urgency in the current moment.  Buszko and Schneider address different aspects of threatened ecosystems, heightening awareness of what may soon be lost; Barnett’s work documents the struggle for social justice in America and the drama of physical confrontation and loss; Macarrulla interprets his blended cultural heritage in a merger of personal mythology and magic realism. His work combines references to Western art history with the cultural practices of his native Dominican Republic. 
 

Parking Information: Flushing Town Hall has a small parking lot at the rear of the building, which fills up quickly during events. Additional parking is available nearby at:

• PEC Parking – 35-15 Farrington St, Flushing, NY 11354
• The Farrington Parking – 33-66 Farrington St, Flushing, NY 11354
 

Themes of the Exhibition 

Woodlands 

Irene Buszko has a particular affinity for deep forest environments. She makes her paintings on-site in remote woodlands in the Catskill mountains. Working only from nature, she frequently encounters forest creatures, as can be seen in her triptych Bear Leaving. Buszko feels a part of her work is document these frequently disappearing scenes--more than a few of these landscapes have been lost to development. Her work is a testament to vanishing ecosystems. Accomplishing works of this scale on location is a tour de force rarely seen today. 

Waterworlds 

Janet Schneider studies threatened ecosystems.  An ardent environmentalist, she actively lobbies for the protection of wild lands and waterways. Her work focuses on bays and marshes-- key incubators for fish and shellfish. During the pandemic, she turned her attention to the drama of the transitional moments of the day, particularly sunset.  In these paintings color is transformational, and water and sky converge and transpose. In her examination of these waterworlds, Schneider also presents studies of the creatures of marshes and the ocean.  She is inspired by their elegance and self-sufficiency, despite the threats of pollution, overfishing and loss of habitat. 

Social Justice 

Emily Barnett is a painter and printmaker whose work explores figuration, storytelling, and socially conscious themes. Drawing inspiration from her own experiences, she felt compelled to respond artistically to the nationwide demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd and other Black individuals by police. This response culminated in the series In Pursuit of Justice, created between 2020 and 2024. Through this body of work, Barnett seeks to honor the lives lost and amplify the voices of those fighting for social and racial justice. 

Magic 

For Manuel Macarrulla, magic in art is not about illusion, but about revelation—the act of bringing something unseen into view. Drawing from movements like surrealism, fantasy, and magic realism, Macarrulla explores themes that transcend the physical world—such as mysticism, the afterlife, and existence itself. He embraces the irrational and the absurd, offering a space where the viewer can step outside of conventional perception and into a more mysterious, disordered reality. Ultimately, Macarrulla’s art seeks to evoke a sense of wonder, inviting the viewer to explore the deeper, unseen layers of our world and our minds. 
 

Resonance x 4 presents the work of four artists who have been life-long colleagues and friends: Emily Barnett, Irene Buszko, Manuel Macarrulla and Janet Schneider. Three of the four initially met during their student years at Queens College. They gravitated to each other out of a common interest in perceptual realism and the possibility of landscape and figural compositions in contemporary art. For each, drawing is a foundational practice. The four shared many of the same teacher/mentors including: Lois Dodd, Rackstraw Downes, Charles Cajori, Louis Finkelstein, Paul Georges, and Gabriel Laderman. They began their careers at a time when representational painting was struggling to gain acceptance in an art world dominated by the ideologies of non-objectivism. They continued to gather as active participants in the downtown Manhattan art scene, where they met frequently at the Figurative Art Alliance, and many artist-run galleries including, The Blue Mountain Gallery, The Bowery Gallery, AIR Gallery, the Prince Street Gallery and the Artist’s Choice Museum.  The exhibition will explore the artistic bonds that have sustained these artists throughout their careers and especially through the tragedies of recent years. Artist talks will discuss the relationship of recent work to the post Covid reality, climate change, cultural dislocation and civil unrest. 

About the Artists

Emily Barnett 

Emily Barnett is a painter, printmaker, and collage artist whose work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the U.S.  She lives in Carle Place, Long Island, NY. Barnett began her career as a figurative artist focused on themes of family and her life as an artist within that context. More recently, she has explored complex figurative compositions based on the protest movement which arose in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Parallel to her lifelong interest in figuration, her subject matter has also explored natural forms and scientific concepts, often integrating the two in etchings, lithographs, and cyanotypes. Barnett has received numerous honors including First Prize in the Salmagundi Club’s National Print Exhibition, the Thomas B. Clarke Award from the National Academy of Design, the City of Seattle Print Purchase Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts Special Opportunity Stipend, the Millay Colony Artist Residence Grant, the Medal of Honor from the National Association of Women Artists and a First Prize in Contemporary Portraiture from Philip Pearlstein. Her work is in public and private collections, including the City of Seattle, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Adelphi University, the Fine Arts Museum of Long Island Collection at Siena College, West Publishing Company and Nassau Community College. Barnett received her BFA from Queens College, CUNY, and her MFA from Louisiana State University. She has taught art at the Parsons School of Design, The New School, Hofstra University, and Adelphi University.  

More information at: www.emilybarnettartwork.com 
 

Irene Buszko 

Irene Buszko is a painter working primarily in oil on canvas.  She received a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA in painting from Queens College. After graduating, she immediately began exhibiting in SOHO at the Prince Street Gallery with a circle of artists who were [and are] passionately committed to what was referred to as “New Figuration.” Buszko was later represented by the Tatistcheff Gallery for over twenty years, holding five one-person exhibitions. 

Buszko paints large-scale landscape paintings from direct observation of nature.  Her recent subjects include intense explorations of remote locations in the Catskill Mountains.  Trekking with her canvases to these wilderness sites, Buszko works en plein air, a tradition in American landscape painting dating back to the early Nineteenth Century.  Her work can be seen as an elegy to the fragility of natural systems. Buszko has also focused on disappearing suburban environments, including her native Richmond Hill, Queens and her home in Freeport, Long Island. 

Other solo shows include: The Queens Museum, The Overlook, and the Volker Orth Museum. She has been awarded a CAPS grant and residencies at Yaddo, The Millay Colony, The Virginia Center and others. Her work is in various private and corporate collections. 

Instagram: irenebuszko 

Manuel Macarrulla 

Manuel Macarrulla is a painter, printmaker, and mask maker whose work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in The United States and the Dominican Republic.  He studied painting under Rackstraw Downes, Neil Welliver, Yvonne Jaquette and others at The University of Pennsylvania, from which he received an MFA in 1979. He lives in Carle Place, NY. 

Macarrulla works with figures in settings relating to his native Dominican Republic, and also landscapes drawn from imagination and memory. He uses the Dominican Carnival as a frequent subject, through which he explores both its cultural significance and the intricacies of figural compositions.  He relishes the structure of nature and the clear forms of classical art. Through his nods to magic realism, he hopes to convey startling visions.        

Macarrulla has won various awards including: The Salmagundi President’s Award for wood cut, “SCNY Printmaking and Monotype Show, NY, 2019; finalist in “Percent for Art’s” Harry Van Arsdale’s mural competition; two Art Matters fellowships; two New Jersey State Council on the Arts fellowships: honoraria for mural designs from the Bronx Council on the Arts and Cityarts Workshop; and a Universal Folding Box mural commission. He formed part of the execution team for the Richard Haas mural at the New York Bar Association. He was also a recipient of an Artist-in-Residence grant at Altos de Chavón, DR. 

Macarrulla’s work is included in numerous private collections. Public collections include the Altos de Chavón Foundation, NY; El Museo de Arte Moderno, SD, DR; El Museo del Barrio, NY; The Museum of Modern Art (The Study Collection, under “We’re All in the Same Boat,” an artists’ collective); The Smithsonian Museum of American Art; and The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY. 

More information at: www.manuelalejandromacarrulla.com
 

Janet Schneider 


 

Curator Janet Schneider is an artist who lives in Flushing, Queens.  She works primarily in oil and watercolor. Her subjects explore transitional states in nature. In particular, her recent work has focused on the transformative effects of light on water.  

Schneider is a summa cum laude graduate of Queens College, with a major in Fine Arts. While at Queens College she studied painting with Louis Finklestein, Rosemary Beck and Harold Bruder among others. She completed special study in Fine Arts at Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute where she studied with Robert D’Arista. She also studied Chinese painting in New York City with C.C. Wang. 

Like Buszko, Schneider joined the Prince Street Gallery upon graduation.  She held three solo exhibitions there and one at Queens College. More recently, her work has been included in group shows at various venues in New York City and Long Island.  Schneider’s work as a curator has included numerous exhibitions for The Queens Museum, The Queens Public Library and Citibank. She was Executive Director of the Queens Museum from 1977-1989. She is currently a member of the New York Artists Circle and the Artists Alliance of East Hampton. 

More information at: www.janetschneider.art.

For further information contact: 

Janet Schneider 
janschneider@att.net 
(646) 872 0596