CAZENOVIA — The Cazenovia College Art Gallery in Reisman Hall at 6 Sullivan St., will start off the fall semester by presenting “Deep Roots & Many Moons,” an exhibition featuring the work of four internationally exhibiting female artists.

The featured artists are photographer Beth Bischoff (bethbischoff.com), ceramists Jo Buffalo and Margie Hughto (margiehughtostudio.com), and painter Sarah McCoubrey (sarahmccoubrey.net).

“I enjoy bringing in a variety of artists into group shows that display an array of creative outcomes about a similar theme,” said Art Gallery Director Jennifer Pepper, M.F.A. “Deep Roots & Many Moons speaks about time, as well as our relationship with nature, through a variety of media. . . It is rare that a solo exhibition takes place [in the gallery], only because I wish to bring as much artistic and design quality to our gallery program for the campus and community to see.”

According to Pepper, all four exhibitors are based in New York State.

Bischoff lives in New Paltz, Buffalo lives in Syracuse and is a Cazenovia College professor emerita, Hughto lives in Jamesville and is a professor in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University (SU), and McCoubrey lives in Syracuse and is also a professor in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at SU.

On display Sept. 8 through Oct. 6 and accompanied by a 60-page full-color catalogue, the exhibition will include digitized black and white film, porcelain and other clay bodies, and paint and graphite on canvas and found papers.

“As the exhibition’s title suggests, each artist makes extraordinary connections that travel across time and space and that speaks to the complexity of our existence and our humanity, cradled by the Earth itself,” Pepper wrote in the exhibition’s introductory text. “The explorations and excavations made by the artists illustrates a sense of curiosity of the past and their relevance to the present. . . The artists present a sense of exploration that is mindful and engaging, acutely orchestrating their narrations masterfully.”

In Bischoff’s artist statement, the photographer expressed that her images of humans fused with ancient trees suggest an intimate and powerful connection to the world.

“There is a majesty revealed in an image of these trees and a mystical union of tree roots and flowing earth contours,” she wrote.

Bischoff described her photographs as painterly in style and suggestive rather than literal, inspiring both romance and introspection.

She also recalled the time she spent in 2012 traveling around the ruins of Yucatán, Mexico.

“I couldn’t help but sense what it was like to have lived in the villages in those times,” she said. “They built temples and cities housing thousands of people until their downfall from overpopulation and soil depletion leading to the destruction of the ecology. I feel there is a comparison to what’s happening in our world now.”

In Buffalo’s statement, she said her artwork over the past 56 years has been fueled by her interest in stories and science, and that her pieces explore a narrative related to an event, myth, or phenomenon.

“Sometimes the work is about the forms of nature,” the ceramist wrote. “The structure of the work is somewhere between two dimensions and three dimensions. I love in-between the two. The form and the surface make the story.”

By approaching the subject in an unconventional way, Buffalo explained, her hope is to encourage viewers to undertake their own exploration.

“The work is consistent with life: imperfect, unexpected, sometimes funny, sometimes puzzling,” she wrote. “I always hope for beautiful.”

Hughto stated that her ceramic sculptures have always been inspired by layers in the earth, nature, and time, and noted that although some of her work is free-standing, most pieces are wall oriented.

Her most recent work, “Excavation Series” (2016-2021), draws inspiration from archaeological dig sites and landfills, which Hughto described as “bodies of evidence that mark human activity and the passing of time.”

The artist created the series featured in Deep Roots & Many Moons by press molding or slip casting household items, discarded technology, and items from nature and then arranging them into sculptural collages.

“In some ways, tension exists between the beauty and the serious subject of waste and remains,” Hughto said. “I try to make work which turns obsolescence and human debris into a provocative spectacle.”

McCoubrey’s artist statement reveals that she works in an intuitive manner that meanders and weaves together her interests in painting, drawing, landscape, history, and feminist inquiries.

Her recent work, she said, has included imagery from traditional (mostly Dutch) maritime paintings of the sea with merchant and warships under sail.

“These paintings are often about national power, commerce and war,” McCoubrey wrote. “My work also goes in another direction. The lace patterns made in the lowlands come to re-describe the Dutch sailing ships on the sea. My ships with sails of lace that can hold no wind, travel on waves of lace that can hold no water.”

Deep Roots & Many Moons will debut on Thursday, Sept. 8, from 4 to 6 p.m., with an Artists Lecture Series followed by an open reception.

Located at the corner of Sullivan and Seminary streets in Cazenovia, the Cazenovia College Art Gallery is open Monday through Friday, 2 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 2 to 6 p.m. All exhibitions and receptions at the gallery are free, open to the public, and handicapped accessible.

To learn more about the Art Gallery in Reisman Hall, visit cazenovia.edu/art-and-theatre/art-gallery-reisman-hall or contact Pepper at [email protected].