Tales from the Penumbra: Memories of Shadow-and-Light
Melissa Dvozenja-Thomas, Executive Director, Arts Mid-Hudson
What can happen when an artist is given time and space to experiment? An idea that has been sitting quietly might finally be explored. A new material might lead somewhere unexpected. Conversations with other artists can challenge an old way of thinking. And sometimes, having permission to take a creative risk can change what comes next. At Ann Street Gallery in Newburgh, three Hudson Valley artists have spent the past several months doing just that.
Tales from the Penumbra: Memories of Shadow-and-Light, on view through November 22, showcases new work by Elena Kalkova, Duncan Richards, and Luis Mercedes Winter, the 2026 participants in Safe Harbors of the Hudson’s Emerging Artist Fellowship. Working across installation, print media, sculpture, assemblage, photography, and poetry, the three artists bring distinctly different experiences and approaches into conversation.
Now in its fifth year, the six-month fellowship supports early-career and under-recognized artists in Newburgh and the Hudson Valley, with particular attention to artists from historically marginalized communities. Fellows receive shared studio space, a $2,000 materials allowance, mentorship, professional development, studio visits, critiques, and opportunities to connect with other artists and arts professionals. The resulting exhibition offers three very different windows into contemporary artistic practice.
Elena Kalkova, an artistic researcher and educator who left Russia in 2016, draws upon the landscape and memories of her childhood in conceptual sculpture and installation. Her work considers state censorship, political violence, propaganda, resistance, care, and what happens when memory itself becomes contested.
Hudson Valley interdisciplinary artist Duncan Richards, working under the moniker WhereTheWaterFlows, brings together contemporary art and traditional folk magic. Through sculpture, multimedia, ritual, technology, body, and image, Richards explores connections among Trans and Queer resistance, folk magic, and esoteric traditions.
Luis Mercedes Winter, also known as Louiefromtheblock, combines photography and poetry to tell a story rooted in identity, spirituality, and place. His work offers a contemporary interpretation of the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, casting drag kings and a drag queen while making Hudson Valley landscapes not simply a backdrop, but a character within the story itself.
Together, the artists demonstrate why supporting emerging voices matters. An exhibition can show us finished work, but a fellowship invests in everything that happens before that moment: the questioning, experimentation, conversation, uncertainty, and discovery that allow an artist’s practice to grow. Visitors have an opportunity to hear directly about that process during artist talks with all three fellows on Saturday, October 10 at 2 p.m. Tales from the Penumbra is free and open to the public at Ann Street Gallery, 104 Ann Street in Newburgh, Saturdays and Sundays from 1–5 p.m. through November 22.
The exhibition offers more than a chance to see what three artists have made. It invites us into the space between an idea and what it might become and reminds us what can emerge when artists are given the support to find out.
If you go:
Tales from the Penumbra: Memories of Shadow-and-Light
Ann Street Gallery, 104 Ann Street, Newburgh
Through November 22, 2026
Saturday & Sunday
1:00 - 5:00 p.m. or by appointment
Artist Talk: Saturday, October 10, 2:00 pm
Contact: 845-562-6940
annstreetgallery.org
