Garden State Art Weekend is a one-of-a-kind, state-wide celebration of art in New Jersey. Our mission is to create an inclusive, once-a-year art weekend for all to enjoy. We are inspired by Upstate Art Weekend in New York and are looking to create a similar experience for New Jersey visitors and residents.

Garden State Art Weekend is April 19-21, 2024 all across New Jersey!

Garden State Art Weekend was founded by artist, Christine Romanell. Romanell’s colorful wall paintings and installations explore non-repeating patterns informed by cosmology and physics, while rooted in applied design similar to Islamic patterning. Her use of rotational symmetry to generate dimensional forms allude to movement and create an event horizon, a space where the infinite tessellations of universal physics can intersect with sacred geometry, collapsing the divide between the theoretical and the real. Romanell lives and works in New Jersey where she’s on the steering committee of Manufacturers Village Artists space in East Orange. Her work has been featured on the Smithsonian Channel and discussed in Hyperallergic, Juxapoz, MIT Technology Review, Studio Visit Magazine, All She Makes, Art and Cake, ArtFuse, ArtSpiel and WoArt. She is a recipient of an NEA grant for her work through Chashama in NYC. Christine Romanell received a 2022 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Her work in held in the private collection of Pat Bell alongside Tom Nussbaum and Willie Cole and the collection of the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation. She has lectured at Pratt University and taught at the College of St Elizabeth and Bergen County Community College. Her BFA is from the School of Visual Arts (NYC) and her MFA is from Montclair State University (Montclair NJ.)Romanell lives and works in New Jersey where she’s on the board of Manufacturers Village Artists space in East Orange. Her work has been featured on the Smithsonian Channel and discussed in Hyperallergic, Juxapoz, MIT Technology Review, Studio Visit Magazine, All She Makes, Art and Cake, ArtFuse, ArtSpiel and WoArt. She is a recipient of an NEA grant for her work through Chashama in NYC. Christine Romanell received a 2022 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Her work in held in the private collection of Pat Bell alongside Tom Nussbaum and Willie Cole and the collection of the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation NYC. She has lectured at Pratt University and taught at the College of St Elizabeth and Bergen County Community College. Her BFA is from the School of Visual Arts (NYC) and her MFA is from Montclair State University (Montclair NJ.) Working with Christine to bring GSAW to life is Alison Pirie. Pirie (b. Long Beach, California, USA) is a multimedia artist and curator based in Montclair, NJ and New York City. Her artistic practice centers on the intersection of the body, gender, and language, with a particular fascination for the historical context of female hysteria and medical practices. Pirie humorously and absurdly portrays the body, embodying organs and visualizing bodily processes, crafting scenarios that challenge conventional narratives and invite alternative viewer engagement. Her work sheds light on the mistreatment and misunderstanding of women’s bodies throughout history and today, juxtaposing historical practices with contemporary language and imagery. Pirie earned her BFA in Studio Art from Chapman University in 2018. After which her thesis exhibition, The Pelvic Theatre Presents The History of Hysteria, went on to be exhibited in a solo show at The Situation Room, Los Angeles and group screenings at Collective Misnomer (Denver, CO), Cinema COBRA (NYC), Satellite Art Fair SXSW (Austin), Grace Exhibition Space (NYC), and The Living Gallery (Brooklyn, NY). Pirie has also exhibited in group shows at Cobra Flute Projects (Phoenix, AZ), Dog and Pony Gallery (Spokane, WA), La Mama Galleria (NYC), Straight Through The Wall NYC, Con Artist Collective (NYC), Brooklyn Art Cluster (Brooklyn), Exchange Gallery (Bloomsburg, PA), Chapman University (Orange, CA), The Situation Room, Los Angeles (2015) and Art Basel Miami Beach “Fair. Play” FVAF (Miami, FL). Her performance at Satellite Art Show, Brooklyn in 2019, The Strange Organ that Dwells Within Them, was featured on ANTE. Mag’s “Top 12 picks for Performance is Alive @ Satellite Art Show” and published in Emergency INDEX: An Annual Document of Performance Practice, Vol. 9 (2020). Pirie has attended residencies at Vermont Studio Center (2019) and New York Artists Equity Association Curatorial Residency (2021). As an extension of her artistic practice, Pirie has curated several one-night events and exhibitions in the New York City area. From 2019-2020, Pirie and her collaborator, Christina Dietz, curated three food-themed live performance and video events under the name Gxrl on Grill at various venues across Brooklyn. In February of 2023, Pirie solo curated a multimedia exhibition at Westbeth Gallery, Paroxysm, featuring 65 artists from the US and abroad.

You don't need to do anything special other than be open at a time of your choosing over the weekend. Of course, if you want to do something special, that's great too!

For this inaugural event, venue participation is free. Visitors please check with individual venues for admission fees. Museums and institutions have their own policies. Please check with each venue before visiting.

Garden State Art Weekend is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Garden State Art Weekend must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Ticketing and registration details vary by participating location.

Please join our mailing list and follow us @gardenstateartweekend. If you have any other questions or feedback, please reach out to us at gardenstateartweekend@gmail.com.