Sunday, September 27, 2015
M Gallery debuts watercolors by John Guy Petruzzi
YOUNGSTOWN
John Johnson said watercolor painting is like ice skating, which makes it a challenge to master control.
“Watercolor is really one of the toughest mediums,” said the Boardman resident, while admiring such artwork at one of downtown’s newest galleries.
The M Gallery, at 112 W. Commerce St., had its grand-opening reception Saturday evening. The gallery sprawls through two large rooms in the restored Erie Terminal Place, which once was a railroad station and now is home to Rust Belt Brewing Tap House with apartments on the upper floors. The gallery is named in honor of downtown developer Dominic Marchionda, who owns and operates the building.
“We will be an exciting creative space for downtown,” said Johanna George, the gallery’s events manager and director.
George, a Youngstown native and an artist herself, worked at Cleveland Museum of Art and the
Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland for 10 years before returning to her hometown in June to manage the gallery.
“We want to collaborate with the community,” she said.
The M Gallery space had been used intermittently in the past year as a gallery and performance space, but will now be a full-time gallery with daily hours. The Little Youngstown Cinema, a monthly film series, already screens films in the basement below the gallery, and the gallery rooms are available to rent for parties and business gatherings.
George said they plan to have public events in October, hoping to tie the gallery’s purpose with the building’s history as a train station through the idea of connections.
Scores came out to see the gallery’s opening exhibition, titled “Synthetic Nature,” displaying Youngstown native John Guy Petruzzi’s watercolor paintings.
Petruzzi said it’s his first solo and the biggest exhibition he’s done.
“It’s nice to have the opportunity to show family and friends the actual pieces,” he said.
Petruzzi creates highly detailed images of flora and birds by applying watercolor pigment on synthetic paper. The artist graduated from Youngstown State University in 2008 and earned a master’s degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in partnership with Tufts University in Boston in 2011. After working in Manhattan for the summer, he came back to the Mahoning Valley in August and now teaches art at YSU.
He said the gallery has the same quality as others in larger cities such as New York, but more special.
“Here, there’s a real sense of history,” he said.
M Gallery will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, and 1 to 7 p.m. Thursday. For appointments and information, email George at Johanna@nyopg.com.