Join us on February 8 at 6:30pm to learn about the artistic journeys, inspiration, lessons learned and beyond from 4 KMAA Artists whose work is featured in FACETS: Allyson Montana, Kelly Duffield, Rita Maas and Randy Matusow.

All are welcome. Please RSVP.

About the Artists

Allyson Montana is a painter and mixed media artist working in the New York City area. Allyson’s work explores unwritten stories from the archaeological past. The content of Allyson’s art plays with the metaphor of interpretation, narrative, and authorship. Allyson’s background in art history, ancient history, and East Asian languages greatly informs her work. She has participated in Fulbright fellowships to study art history in Japan, India, and Sri Lanka, as well as fellowships in Korea, Taiwan, and China. Allyson teaches drawing and painting at Teachers College, Columbia University where she is a doctoral candidate and fellow.

Kelly Duffield‘s practice is centered on examining complexities and vulnerabilities within identity and self. Kelly’s work meditates on the interplay of parent, child, children, spouse, pets, possessions, work and home, finding a narrative that is often strange, surreal and sufficiently ambiguous to evoke the viewer’s imagined or projected meanings. In her more recent work, reminiscent of the historical movements of minimalism and abstract expressionism, she explores color, repetition and the grid. She can’t help but add secret messages with torn pages of a poetry book or intricately cut collage pieces, contrasting the controlled geometry and calling into question the meanings of these pieces.

Kelly holds a BFA and a BA in art history from Oklahoma State University. She went on to practice corporate law and lived in Colorado for more than 20 years. Kelly started painting again in 2017 after a nearly 25 year hiatus. By 2018, she had her first solo show and has now participated in numerous one-person and group exhibitions in Colorado, California and New York. Her most recent solo exhibition was with and she is represented by Themes + Projects, Minnesota Street Project (San Francisco, CA). Duffield now lives and works full-time as an artist in New York.

Rita Maas is a visual artist working with photography, drawing and printmaking to playfully construct conceptual based imagery. Working within predetermined systems she embraces elements of chance and disorder. How information is received, filtered and retained are persistent themes of her practice.

Born in New York, Rita received her BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts. She later
earned her MFA in Visual Arts at Lesley University College of Art and Design. Rita Maas is a 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Printmaking/ Drawing / Book Arts. She recently served as the 2022 Frances Niederer Artist-in-Residence at Hollins University in Roanoke, VA that coincided with a solo exhibition at the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum. Maas was named a Finalist in The Print Center’s 95th Annual in 2020 and was included in the exhibit “Fit to Print” there. Her work was Finalist in the Rhonda Wilson Award and shown in the Annual FRESH 2019 exhibition at KlompChing Gallery, Brooklyn, NY.

Her work has been included in numerous exhibits throughout the area included those held at the Katonah Museum of Art, KinoSaito Art Center in Verplank, NY, the Hammond Museum and Japanese Garden in North Salem, MAPSpace in Port Chester, NY and Five Points Arts in Torrington, CT. Maas currently lives and works in the Somers, NY.

Randy Matusow, a New York based photographer, focuses her eye on human interactions. From her street photography to her recent diptychs of landscapes paired with family photos, Randy unwraps the complexities of relationships.

Randy is widely exhibited. Her photographs are in the permanent collection at The Brooklyn Museum, and numerous private collections. She was a Fulbright finalist and is the recipient of the Women’s Research and Development Fund Grant from The City University of New York. Her photographs have been published in Aperture Magazine, The Family of Women, and Amherst Review.

Matusow, an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Photography at the City College of New York for over twenty years, holds an MFA from Brooklyn College and a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design.