What snow? All eyes on Art Show: Bedford

Cindy Bernier’s “Heart’s Labyrinth” took home Best Painting.

By JOYCE CORRIGAN

“Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life,” declared Pablo Picasso. Not just the dust, Pablo, the snow, too.

The opening weekend of the 53rd annual Art Show: Bedford at St. Matthew’s Church saw brisk business despite the weather.

“Everyone in town has clearly been out buying milk, paper towels — and art,” media liaison Meg LeComte said opening night, Friday, Jan. 23. “All the prize winners were sold on the spot.”

LeComte, along with co-chairs Tara Deeks and Jenny Convery, has been in art show overdrive since April. But even with the current show a success, resting on their laurels, they don’t dare.

“Last year we exceeded our goals,” LeComte noted, “and with one more weekend to go, we’re hopeful. As always, 100% of the proceeds go directly to our local nonprofits who depend on our donations.” 

The recipient beneficiaries for 2026 include A-Home, the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester, the Community Center of Northern Westchester, Endeavor Therapeutic Horsemanship, Hope’s Door, Hour Children, Midnight Run, Neighbors Link, New Dawn, Rehabilitation Through the Arts and The Pantry.

With northern Westchester deep in winter’s grip, St. Matthew’s unique attributes as a venue are particularly welcoming: the roaring fireplace in the Fellowship Room, for instance, and the pastoral sweep of surrounding woods and 19th century red brick church, evoking an iconic Currier and Ives.  Yet, local or global, art fairs thrive when they feel like reunions and revelations. Art Show: Bedford attracts a large number of return visitors — collectors, curators, advisors and judges — while continually raising expectations.

“Everyone — from the organizers to the artists — know they have to keep things fresh,” said Christopher Brescia, the show’s longtime consultant and owner of the virtual CB Art Gallery, who also curates the rotating collection in the Bedford Playhouse. 

“New and different work each year signals that an artist — or a fair — is evolving, not coasting,” he said. 

Brescia pointed to Bedford-based artist Audrey Zinman, as an example. After winning Best in Show in 2025 for her life-size decoupaged vintage mannequin, she returned this year with “After the Storm,” a large-scale assemblage of the artist’s signature beachcombed, decoupaged treasures which deservedly won Best 3-D dimensional Work.” 

Fresh critical eyes matter, too.

“This year we had two phenomenal judges,” Brescia added. Ellen Hawley, independent curator whose home space is the Flinn Gallery in Greenwich and Kimberly Henrikson, executive director of the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, proved a dynamic pairing. “They were an excellent team.” 

“Art is the only eye candy for me,” Hawley said, “I was truly honored to be invited to jury ASB; it’s a hallmark of the community. Supporting artists both established and emerging, is their passion and my passion.”

Hawley was already familiar with several exhibiting artists, including Bedford’s Carol Bouyoucos, whose work she featured in a Flinn Gallery group show last spring.

“The artists all move around,” she said. “I’ve been following Carol’s work for a long time and adore it.” 

Great art, of course, doesn’t ask politely to be noticed. It asserts itself — through scale, unexpected materials, or charged subject matter. One piece that stopped visitors in their tracks was Emily Neville Fisher’s “Goldie,” winner of Best Photography, which depicts a young girl calmly posed with an enormous yellow bearded dragon resting on her chest. While the reptile almost dwarfs the girl, her expression is cool and confident. 

“It was captivating and unexpected,” Hawley said. “The color harmonies: the girl’s golden hair, the golden lizard, her pink shirt against a pink house. Quietly powerful.” 

Color was also key to Cindy Bernier’s abstract canvas “Heart’s Labyrinth,” taking home Best Painting.

“So much to see in this vivid, abstract painting,” Hawley said. “There are drips of paint, brushstrokes in all directions, you can’t get tired looking at it.”

Hawley was glad to have done a close read of the artist’s statement. “I learned Bernier is a dancer,” she said. “That explains not only the large scale of it, but the genius sensation of movement.”

Best in Show went to Bobby Hill’s “Contemplation,” a black and white mixed media screenprint featuring figures against a cityscape.

“Kimberly and I were both immediately taken by this,” Hawley said. “The energy and movement around the silhouetted figures. It was stylized, authentic and original.”