Longyear Gallery solo shows: Irina Grinevitsky & Alan Powell. July 3 – August 2, 2026

Two Distinct Artistic Voices Fill Longyear Gallery with Wonder

by Robert Brune

The Longyear Gallery opening reception for Irina Grinevitsky and Alan Powell solo
shows was a welcomed, delightful experience that offered visitors the chance to soak in the
marvels created by two accomplished members of this artist collective while escaping the
summer heat. The Fourth of July weekend exhibition celebrated two artists whose work could
not be more different in appearance, yet both shared a thoughtful appreciation for observation,
storytelling, and the world around them.
Grinevitsky's exhibition, Playground, immediately welcomes viewers with paintings that
celebrate the beauty often overlooked in ordinary life. Her colorful mixed media works invite
visitors to slow down and notice the subtle elegance found in familiar places, whether in city
streets, quiet corners, or natural settings. "In my art, I like to capture beauty in objects and
places. My inspiration comes from nature," said Grinevitsky.
Originally from Russia and now based in New York City with a summer studio in the
Catskills, Grinevitsky brings a unique perspective shaped by an earlier career in science. Art and
craftsmanship, however, have remained lifelong passions. Over the years she has explored
ceramics, gardening, drawing, textile design, painting, collage, jewelry making, and
woodworking. Those varied experiences are evident throughout her paintings, where careful
composition, expressive color, and confident drawing work together to tell quiet stories from
everyday life.
Her continued artistic education through Moscow's Elena Tarutina Art School, combined
with years of painting outdoors alongside the East Branch Delaware River Plein Air Painters, has
helped refine an already distinctive voice. This marks her second solo exhibition at Longyear
Gallery, and visitors attending the upcoming AMR Open Studios Tour from July 24 through July
26 will also have another opportunity to visit her studio and learn more about her creative
process.
While Grinevitsky's work celebrates moments of quiet beauty, Alan Powell's exhibition,
Kiki and the Termites, invites viewers into a fascinating world where sculpture, installation,
printmaking, philosophy, ecology, and storytelling merge into one imaginative experience.
Powell's diverse artistic career spans filmmaking, photography, sculpture, painting, and
multimedia installations. Every piece in the exhibition encourages visitors to pause, ask
questions, and discover unexpected connections between nature and humanity. "The source of
this story is, I work with a video collective called the Termite Video Collective, and we make art
that eats its way through culture. The way termites eat wood, we eat culture," Powell explained
while discussing the inspiration behind the exhibition's title.
The central narrative follows a young girl named Kiki, inspired by the daughter of fellow
artist Mike Kutemeyer, who rescues her father's pet termites from a devastating flood. In
Powell's fictional world, the termites later repay the kindness by protecting an entire community

from destructive developers, quietly consuming blueprints and wooden structures that threaten
the surrounding landscape.
The story may sound whimsical, but Powell uses it to introduce audiences to the
remarkable ecological importance of termites. "We all look at termites as this incredible
problem," Powell said. "But the composters are the underground irrigation system for the entire
forest." Learning that termites cultivate mushrooms, recycle enormous amounts of dead wood,
reduce wildfire fuel, and help sustain entire ecosystems completely changes the audience's
perception of an insect that is usually viewed only as a nuisance.
Several installations continue Powell's exploration of memory and regional history. One
particularly moving work, Love Letters in a Flood, reflects upon the devastating floods that
struck the Catskills in 2011. Powell imagined a young woman trapped inside her home as
floodwaters surrounded her. Believing she might not survive, she spends six hours writing a love
letter to her boyfriend while waiting to be rescued. "So these are the letters, and those are the
actual letters," Powell said while describing the installation, which combines handwritten pages
with sculptural elements to create an emotional reflection on fear, hope, and survival.
Throughout the gallery space, Powell presents monoprints created from locally harvested
wood, sculptural works assembled from reclaimed barn materials, and humorous conceptual
pieces that balance playful wit with thoughtful social commentary. His ability to shift
comfortably between media demonstrates an artist continually exploring new ways of
communicating ideas.
Visitors familiar with Powell's work know that his creative interests extend well beyond
Longyear Gallery. He is simultaneously exhibiting work at Green Kill Gallery in Kingston while
also collaborating with dancer and choreographer Gloria McLean this weekend through
projected visual imagery during a performance at the Koenig Gallery in Andes.
Together, these two solo exhibitions create an engaging conversation between
observation and imagination. Grinevitsky reminds viewers to appreciate the beauty already
surrounding them, while Powell encourages audiences to reconsider familiar assumptions
through inventive storytelling and ecological awareness.
Longyear Gallery continues to serve as one of the region's most welcoming artistic
communities. New members of all skill levels are encouraged to participate, making the gallery
far more than simply another exhibition space. Membership offers artists valuable opportunities
to exhibit their work, exchange ideas, receive constructive feedback, and build lasting
friendships with experienced artists. Those relationships and shared learning experiences become
invaluable parts of an artist's development, providing rewards that simply cannot be measured in
monetary terms.

July 2026 Solo Show

PLAYGROUND

Irina Grinevitsky

Artist Statement

In my art, I seek to capture the beauty found in everyday objects and places. Inspiration hides around every corner of the city – a vast playground filled with unexpected joy in color and shape, movement and stillness. My work is figurative, and through it I hope to tell stories from the real world.

About the Artist

Irina Grinevitsky is a visual artist based in New York City, with her summer studio in the Catskills. She works in mixed media on canvas and hardboards in a variety of sizes.

Although Irina’s background is in science, art and crafts have always been central to her life. She has explored ceramics and gardening, drawing and textile design, painting and collage as both creative practice and meditation. While living in Illinois, she studied with distinguished ceramics artists at the Evanston, Highland Park, and Lake Forest Art Centers, and participated in annual exhibitions. She has also designed jewelry and functional objects using wood, ceramics, and leather. Irina continues her art education online through the  Moscow Tarutina Art School.

Recently, Irina has been painting with the plein air group EBDRPAP and participated in Longyear Gallery and the AMR Open Studio Tours from 2019. Since 2015, she has published an annual calendar featuring her artwork. Her illustrations have appeared in printed publications including The Catskiller, Kovcheg, and Almanach.  Grinevitsky’s works are held in private collections in Boston, Chicago, New York City, Juneau, and internationally. This is her second solo show at Longyear Gallery in Margaretville, NY.

Alan Powell

Artist Statement 2026

 I have found inspiration in the Catskill community’s rich cultural and artistic heritage, cultivated by the diverse mix of people who live here; the distinct voices of visual artists, musicians, and writers—now friends and frequent collaborators.

Moving to the Catskills in 2013, I rediscovered the profound connection I had with the forest and nature early in life. My work regularly incorporates material from the surrounding terrains, from lithographs of dried leaves or mushrooms and installations caked in mud and residue to provide a faithfully tactile component.

I think it is important that as an artist, I develop work about nature that goes beyond its physical beauty, and shows a deep attentiveness to the balance between human presence and the natural world. I have also started to use the technologies of 3-D imaging and modeling as a way of documenting the forest or a wetland. Electronic technology has allowed me ways of defining a natural space using time, sound, and motion.

My videotapes no longer function as experimental narratives but as electronic paintings that change over time. The work is now exhibited in galleries on looping media players on flat screens or projectors. It has branched off into a series, inspired by the tradition of the iconic San Francisco “Painted Ladies” houses, where I exhibit my videos on the exterior of my house. The white siding is a blank canvas, a video  projector offering life-sized scale, and the street address serves as a site for community-based art.

Today my work is mostly retrospective, simply looking, using image and sound processing to enhance and personalize a documented experience, and the camera lens as a window to the world around us. I want to communicate with the viewer, to recreate an experience and show them the way I am seeing something. My body of work is distinguished by collaboration and creative partnerships, some spanning thirty plus years, because experiences that I cannot personally have, I can come to understand through their writing or composing, and can translate it visually. It allows me to exceed the boundaries of my own perspective and awareness.

My process is playful, organic; almost a calligrapher’s zen flow state—putting my vision on the end of a brush, the paper and ink become pieces of technology, and the result is the residue of that moment of creation. I have allowed the last 13 years to be an open-ended exploration and conversation with my materials and emerging technology.