“Imagine-Observe" at Artists' Gallery: A Dual Vision of Abstraction & Observation in Lambertville, NJ

Step inside a quiet little gallery in Lambertville and suddenly you’re in the middle of a psychic staring contest between two architects-turned-artists.

One builds dreamscapes out of geometry. The other captures real-life alleys and shadows like he’s bottling memory on paper. The result is a head trip disguised as an art show. It’s called Imagine-Observe, and it runs through May 4 at the always-magical Artists’ Gallery.

(No literally like the entrance alone feels like you’re being transported to a new dimension).

Two artists. Two styles. One exhibit.

Larry Mitnick throws down abstract forms and color fields that feel like alien maps to emotional planets. Mark Oliver counters with watercolors and acrylics of street corners, shop windows, and London rowhomes that look like they’ve been quietly watching you your whole life.

Both of them are trained architects.

You can feel them measuring space, slicing perspective, and building emotional tension into every canvas like it’s got a load-bearing heart.

If you’ve ever wanted to watch abstraction and observation throw down in a visual duel? This is your chance.

Get weird with it. Linger. Zoom in. Pretend the gallery walls are breathing (we did).

Just make sure you see it before it’s gone.

How “Imagine-Observe” Was Built (Literally & Metaphorically)

This wasn’t just some “here’s my work, here’s yours, let’s hang it up and hope for the best” type exhibit. Imagine-Observe was built like a blueprint you can walk through - structured, layered, and humming with hidden logic.

Larry Mitnick started the conversation. He brought in his paintings first, all rhythm and precision, where color fields meet spatial suggestion. They pull you in like you’re being gently dragged into a geometry-based lucid dream.

Then came Mark Oliver, rolling in like the second voice in a duet. But instead of just slapping his work on the walls and calling it a day, Mark did something rare. He observed Larry’s pieces and then hand-picked his own work to respond - piece by piece. Line by line. Light by light.

You can feel it when you walk the space. There’s this back-and-forth rhythm. Larry’s bold, nonliteral forms followed by Mark’s city corners and architectural stillness. Together, the pairing becomes less of a “solo/solo” setup and more of a dialogue in paint. It’s like watching two jazz musicians riff off each other mid-solo, except instead of horns and piano, it’s watercolor washes and layered acrylics, trading perspective and tension.

Imagine - Observe is exactly what these two do.

Larry builds imagined, internal landscapes - bold, architectural abstractions you feel in your chest.

Mark captures real-world places - streetscapes, windows, everyday details - but seen through that aching kind of attention that only happens when you’ve stared long enough to fall in love.

They both started in architecture. They both know what it means to shape space. But in this exhibit, they’re shaping emotion. They’re asking:

🌀 How does your eye move through a city?

🌀 What does it mean to exist inside a structure?

🌀 Can a brushstroke feel like scaffolding? Can a window frame hold a memory?

Together, Larry and Mark create an experience that feels designed (because it is).

Built to make you feel like a participant in something quietly, intentionally, extraordinary.

Larry Mitnick - Geometry as Emotion, Space as Language

Some artists start with emotion. Others start with form.

Larry Mitnick? He starts with space - but not the kind filled with furniture. The kind that unfolds as you move through it like music in slow motion.

Mitnick makes environments.

Bold, abstract canvases that read like architectural dreams reinterpreted through rhythm, balance, and brushstroke. His work is crisp but never cold - geometric but deeply human. Step in close, and you’ll find moments of softness within all that structure. Organic fragments inside the formality. Color that feels like it’s remembering something.

And that’s no accident.

Larry’s been in conversation with architecture his whole life. A seasoned educator and practitioner, he’s taught at places like Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, Cooper Union, and the University of the Arts in Philly - where he ran programs, mentored generations, and stayed rooted in both design and visual art. He’s exhibited work across the U.S., Europe, and China. He's been published, awarded, and deeply respected.

But what makes his paintings so powerful isn’t the resume. It’s the feeling that they were made by someone who understands that space isn't neutral - it’s emotional architecture.

Space is more than an immense vacuum. It’s the medium through which we inhabit the world.

His paintings invite you in, draw your eye along imagined corridors, and then leave you staring at a shape you can’t quite name but know you’ve felt before.

The works on view in Imagine-Observe are some of Larry’s most compelling:

💠 Hard edges meeting cloud-like textures

💠 Voided centers that vibrate with absence

💠 Colors that shift from math to meditation

Each piece plays with contrast - opacity and transparency, movement and stillness, the built and the broken. There’s a push and pull that feels architectural, like something is always under construction just out of reach.

And while the compositions are beautifully formal, the energy is almost spiritual. There’s nothing decorative here. These paintings don’t want to be pretty, they want to change the temperature of the room.

When paired with Mark Oliver’s observational works, Larry’s paintings become the grounding rhythm. The inhale before the eye exhales into reality. The imagined before the observed.

Mark Oliver - Light, Place, and the Poetics of Observation

Mark Oliver paints stillness - the kind that exists in alleyways, storefront reflections, or a patch of brick catching the 4PM light just right. He’s a chronic observer. A sketcher. A quiet rebel with a watercolor set. And in Imagine-Observe, his work plays the perfect counterpoint to Mitnick’s abstraction. Where Larry imagines space, Mark records it.

But this isn’t realism for realism’s sake. This is observation with devotion.

He captures marginal places. Sidewalks. Housing blocks. The corner deli. Shadows cast by buildings that probably didn’t ask to be remembered - but he remembered them anyway. Because that’s Mark’s power: he sees what most people miss, and gives it back to us with reverence.

Sometimes I walk past the same building seven times…and then one day, the light hits it right - and that’s it. That’s the moment.

He grew up in England, lived in Brooklyn and Manhattan for over 40 years, and now calls Lambertville home. His paintings reflect that journey. Some of the works on view in Imagine-Observe were made in London. Others in Lambertville. Some are from years ago, others from last week. But they all carry the same thread: a kind of quiet architectural intimacy. A sense that every structure is full of ghosts.

There’s a particularly beautiful rhythm to how Mark curated his half of the show. After Larry hung his work, Mark responded - not with noise, but with echoes. He selected paintings that reflect, balance, or challenge the energy of Larry’s pieces. Sometimes it’s a similar color palette. Sometimes it’s a shared compositional tension. Sometimes it’s pure instinct.

And it works because Mark’s superpower isn’t just seeing - it’s knowing when to let the moment speak.

His medium of choice varies - acrylic, watercolor, pencil - but his mission doesn’t: to honor the way light moves, the way structures decay, the way quiet places can feel like sacred sites if you just look long enough.

Architecture was the real job…but painting - that was always the calling.

There’s something deeply human about Mark’s work. His buildings lean. His light bends. His shadows stretch long. You can almost hear the hum of fluorescent lights inside, or the buzz of a neon sign across the street. They feel remembered.

In Imagine-Observe, Mark reminds us that beauty isn’t always built from scratch. Sometimes it’s already there, waiting for someone like him to notice.

Artists’ Gallery - A Creative Ecosystem, Not Just a Venue

Some galleries make you feel like you walked into a vault. Artists’ Gallery? It feels like you just got invited into someone’s sketchbook.

Tucked into the artsy veins of Lambertville, NJ, this spot has been quietly championing local creatives since day one. It’s artist-run, community-driven, and refreshingly anti-pretentious. Which means: no red velvet rope, no weird silence, no pressure to pretend you "get it." Just good art. Honest conversation. And a layout that makes you want to slow down.

The gallery is a collective. A co-op. A bunch of wildly talented people who don’t just hang their work and bounce - they collaborate, co-curate, and hold space for each other’s ideas to breathe.

Each month, the gallery features a two-person show. Twice a year, they go full Voltron and hold a group exhibition that brings the whole collective together. It’s loud. It's vibrant. It's lovingly chaotic. But this current setup - Larry + Mark - is more like a chamber duet. A slow burn. A meditative match that shows just how intentional this space is about what it puts on its walls.

What sets Artists’ Gallery apart isn’t just the quality of the art (though yeah, it’s consistently fire).

It’s the care.

It’s in how Larry and Mark were given time and autonomy to build something layered.

It’s in how the gallery trusts its artists enough to let the work do the talking.

And in a world where so much art feels like a product, that kind of trust? It’s radical.

So if you’re tired of sterile galleries that feel more like real estate offices with track lighting - come here. Bring a friend. Bring your curiosity. Bring that part of your brain that hasn’t been fed in a while.

Artists’ Gallery will remind you why art matters.

And why it always will.

Don’t Just Scroll It - See It

Imagine-Observe isn’t one of those shows you can skim in ten minutes and call it a day.

It’s the kind you sit with. The kind you loop back through, catching new angles, new alignments, new moods. It’s a slow-burn mind bender disguised as a peaceful gallery visit.

And when it’s gone, it’s gone.

This is a rare moment of creative tension done right: two artists, two styles, two very different ways of seeing the world - meeting in a shared space and letting their work do the talking.

🔺 Geometry that breathes.

🔻 Windows into memory.

↔️ A visual conversation across time, cities, and disciplines.

Whether you’re a full-on art nerd, a casual observer, or someone who just wants to feel something new for an afternoon - this show is worth your time.

So here’s the breakdown. Mark it. Screenshot it. Tattoo it (okay maybe not that):

Imagine–Observe at Artists’ Gallery

🖼️ Featuring Larry Mitnick & Mark Oliver

📍 Artists’ Gallery – 18 Bridge Street, Lambertville, NJ

📆 On view now through May 4, 2025

🕒 Gallery Hours: Thursday–Sunday, 11am–6pm

🌐 artistsgallerynj.com

🎨 Learn more: www.larrymitnick.com | www.markoliverart.com

👀 TL;DR:

You’re not just looking at paintings.

You’re walking through a dialogue - between two artists, two minds, and maybe even you.

So go. Take a friend. Linger too long.

And if a particular shape or shadow follows you home?

Let it.

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