Jonsara Ruth and Lorella di Cintio, Kress Corner_2015 (left) and Giovianni del Biondo, Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine with Donor, 1379 (right)

MFA Interior Design Program Director Jonsara Ruth and her longtime collaborator Lorella Di Cintio, PhD are among the nine artists invited to study the Samuel H. Kress Collection at the Allentown Art Museum and to select one specific painting each from the Collection to engage with in a creative “conversation.” The artists formed seven teams and returned to their studios to begin imagining contemporary works that would respond to, build on, react against, etc. their Kress selections. The artists might use very different tools, techniques, and technologies than their counterpart Kress artists, but each identified a common interest that they shared with the artists of the past. In the seven installations that comprise the exhibition Past Present: Conversations across Time, on display in the Museum from February 22 through May 17, 2015, new media and Kress masterpieces foster conversations between the past and the present, among contemporary artists and Old Masters, and with Museum visitors. Although art always exists within its time and reflects the concerns and ideas of its day, Past Present demonstrates that there is much to be gained from a conversation with the past. (Source: Allentown Art Museum)

Transbridge Buslines provides daily service between New York City and Allentown. Driving directions to the Allentown Museum can be found here.