“BELL’S WOODLANDS”: This work by Jean Burdick is featured in “Art and Nature,” on view at the Trenton Free Public Library January 11 through March 8. An opening reception is on January 11 from 5 to 7 p.m.

The Trenton Artists Workshop Association (TAWA) and the Trenton Free Public Library will present the exhibition “Art and Nature” at the Trenton Free Public Library from January 11 through March 8. This a continuation of the art series that showcases the talent of area artists that is slated to continue as an ongoing series. An opening reception is set for Saturday, January 11, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Artists featured in the exhibition include Jena Burdick, Mary Allessio Leck, and Bonnie Christina Randall.

Burdick is a painter and printmaker and lives and maintains a studio in Bucks County, Pa. Her process involves successive layers of patterns, textures, shapes and colors, beginning with silkscreen printing and enhanced by drawing, painting, printing and experimental mark-making. Elements of the natural world are magnified, overlapped, and obscured, reflecting the continual  growth and change which is the touchstone of the natural world. The resulting images suggest  narratives of unfolding life cycles: birth, growth, death, and renewal.

Burdick received her MFA degree from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, and her BFA from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y., and has worked as a textile print designer and arts educator in the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District.

She is the recipient of awards and honors including a visual artist residency to the Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada; Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Visual Artist/Educator Fellowship Grant; and a National Endowment Grant as an artist in residence for the James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pa. She has exhibited nationally and is included in numerous corporate, public, and private collections.

Leck is the founder of Friends for the Abbott Marshlands in Hamilton Township and is a member of the organization’s advisory board. She has been studying nature in this area for more than 40 years. She is an emeritus professor of biology at Rider University.

As a professor, she started using photographic projects to illustrate lecture topics for her students. She used these basic scientific techniques of observation and experimentation to give her inspiration for her photographs. She has a bachelor’s degree in botany from the University of Massachusetts and a Ph.D.  from the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Leck has participated in many shows including Phillips Mill Photography Exhibit, Grounds For Sculpture, The Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie, and D&R Greenway Land Trust.

Randall received her MFA in Drawing at the University of Florida and her BFA in Art Education at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts). She is a past recipient of a grant given by the New Jersey Council on the Arts in Graphics and numerous awards. A few juried exhibits include The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Absolute Abstract; New Jersey Arts Annual at the Noyes Museum as well as the New Jersey State Museum; Lock Haven Art Center, Orlando, Fla., Drawing and Prints; Gulf Coast Art Center, Fla.; and Rutgers National ’81, Works on Paper. Randall travels internationally and gets inspiration from the various locations she has visited.

TAWA is a Greater Trenton nonprofit organization and has a 40-year history organizing exhibits in such venues as the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton City Museum, Artworks Trenton, Prince Street Gallery in New York City, and more.

The Trenton Free Public Library is located at 120 Academy Street in the Creek2Canal Trenton Arts District. Hours are Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Friday and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information on the library, call (609) 392-7188.

More information on the Trenton Artists Workshop Association can be found on the organization’s Facebook page.