REVIEW: "Primal Elements" at Hilltown Commons
- amymodesti5
- Oct 14
- 5 min read
Review by Amy Modesti
RENSSELAERVILLE - Last month, Albany County artists Natalie Boburka and Leslie Yolen exhibited their paintings and mixed media work together inside the Gugg Gallery, located at Hilltown Commons.
From Sept. 11 through Oct. 5, visitors viewed the artists’ works along the main hallway of the Guggenheim Pavillion and the Gugg Gallery. Wednesday, Sept. 17, several visitors took part in a community sound bath orchestrated by Boburka.
Before meeting Yolen, Boburka would see her art in local exhibitions, and the works always drew Boburka in.
“So, I’d see her pieces, and they would pull me in, and I’d look at another piece by Leslie.” Boburka said. “I love her work, and I was like, ‘I want to have a show with this woman.’ I don’t know her, but because of her pieces, I knew I could feel where she was coming from with them, and they just felt like they would work with my work.”
Yolen wanted to have an exhibit with Boburka since she viewed her silver lining series on social media. Several years later at another exhibit, Yolen met Boburka and told her that they should have an exhibit together. At that time, their schedules didn’t pan out for them until Yolen saw Boburka’s breathing room painting series. Boburka’s newer works connected with what Yolen was working on, her totem and shrine series.
March 2025, Yolen met with Doug Parvis, board member of Hilltown Commons, to view the Gugg Gallery. Upon seeing the gallery space and meeting with Boburka again at her art opening, Yolen asked Boburka if she was up for exhibiting with her in Rensselaerville.
In April, the artists began planning their exhibit. They went to each other’s artist studios to select their works and curate the exhibit. As the exhibit's opening came closer, it took them several sessions to install their exhibit, worked on labeling, creating inventory sheets, and promoted the exhibit.
Boburka said that the exhibit opening went really well and Yolen said that it was very busy and very well attended. Upon the exhibit’s success, the ladies want to exhibit their Primal Elements show at another Capital Region arts center or gallery again.
Primal Elements Review
Wednesday, Sept. 17 was my first appearance on the Hilltown Commons grounds and the Gugg Gallery. I was impressed with the largeness of the gallery space and how well it incorporated both Boburka and Yolen’s large and small creative works.
Boburka and Yolen gave me a tour through the Gugg Gallery and along the hallway to explain to me their works and creative process, which was very helpful and inciteful in looking at the works close-up. Reflecting on that experience now with the artists, I understand how both Boburka and Yolen’s artistic works and practices are similar and different from one another and why these creatives were meant to exhibit their art together.
Picture a Venn Diagram. The left circle represents Boburka, the right circle represents Yolen, and in the middle, their similarities.
The Similarities
Boburka and Yolen were art teachers, with Boburka working for Schenectady High School working in their IB program while Yolen worked at Niskayuna and Bethlehem High School, and later, the State Education Department. They both use natural objects in their creations.
In several small pieces, Boburka used plaster, acrylic paint, and seashells that she incorporated into her layered creations that represent a place where she traveled on vacation. Boburka used seashells from her trips to Kennebunkport, ME, Siesta Key Beach, FL, and Sarasota, FL for her smaller pieces. For her Breathing Room painting series, Boburka imprints a found object, whether it be a seashell, the bottom of a sneaker, or corrugated cardboard into her hand-made series.
Yolen, in her artistry, incorporates both man-made objects and natural objects into both her large and small assemblages. The large assemblages, the Totem series, she incorporates everything from cradleboard, parts from printing machines, leaves, flowers, and a bird's nest to create her unique, creative designs. As for her small, box-shaped assemblages, the Marking Time series, Yolen uses painting, small rocks, dried honeycomb, and dried flowers into her neat mini world creations.
The Differences
Although Boburka and Yolen are artists, they're also musicians who focus on musical creation in a different light. Inside the Gugg Gallery, Boburka displayed and sold several hand-drawn gourd music shakers that range in size. One shaker had dried gourd seeds in it to produce noise while the others incorporated other natural materials as a noise producer. Boburka, also a spoken word poet, does spoken word alongside her musician husband who backs her up with music at her readings.
Yolen is a musician who sometimes plays the flute. Her musical creations are focused on the makings of the turtle drum and the Udu drum, both created using clay and a man-made fire pit. The hand-painted turtle drum that Yolen created was inspired by her pet box turtle, Crocus, who broke a long fast after having pneumonia and giardia.
Although both ladies are painters, they use different mediums and pigments to create their works. For Boburka’s Breathing Room and Silver Lining painting series, she uses a combination of natural mediums; black walnut ink, red onion skins, and hibiscus water, as well as incorporating gold leaf, metallic inks, and paint, using her fingers, to create her compositions.
As far as Yolen’s creations are concerned, the paintings are made using encaustics. The paint consists of beeswax and natural resin, usually with pigment added. As far as its process, the paint is heated until it liquefies and is painted onto a wooden panel with brushes. Within its second heating, known as fusing, allows the paint to be applied in layers, dominant in her Totems series and Marking Time series. She also paints abstract paintings using oil paint.
The Round Up
Natalie Boburka and Leslie Yolen both create intricate, nature-made, and beautifully made thought-provoking works of art which complement each other in Primal Elements. After years of viewing each other’s work at local galleries to now collaborating on this joint exhibit, the ladies loved how the exhibit came out and realized after all this time, why they were meant to exhibit their work and why it belongs together in the Gugg Gallery; “It’s an amazing show.”
To learn more about Natalie Boburka and her work, go to Art And Music Workshop | Www.boburkastudios.com | Greenville. For Leslie Yolen’s artwork, go to www.leslieyolen.com.
