ARTSPACE
ArtSpace is the official community space of Monmouth Arts. ArtSpace offers accessible, affordable, high-quality, engaging programming, exhibits, workshops, and networking opportunities to the Monmouth County community. It is located at 99 Monmouth Street in Red Bank (next to the Count Basie Center Administrative Offices).
Gallery visiting hours are Tuesday and Thursday, 12:00pm - 4:00pm; also available by appointment. ArtSpace is free and open to the public.
For more information, please contact Connie Isbell, Membership and Community Engagement Director, at connie@monmoutharts.org.
CURRENT EXHIBIT
Unbroken Gaze
By Jude Harzer
On View: September 29 - November 3
Opening: Friday, October 9, 5:30 - 8:00pm
Artist Talk: Sunday, October 25, 1:00 - 3:00pm
Jude Harzer’s work has evolved directly from her position as an observer. She is deeply interested in the psychological power of the human gaze, particularly as expressed through women and children. Their quiet, steady watching reveals an interior world—one shaped by attentiveness, emotional resilience, and a desire to understand or respond to the behavior of others. These figures function simultaneously as witnesses and participants, inviting viewers into a subtle but potent exchange. In these paintings, the act of looking becomes a form of communication: a way to model, learn, protect, or hold memory. The collection of work on display at ArtSpace represents her drive to create space for connection, contemplation, and the complex emotional gravity inherent in observation.
About the Artist
Jude Harzer is an award-winning artist whose figurative work explores childhood, memory, and the profound influence of thought on identity and resilience. Working primarily in oil paint, and more recently in mixed-media soft sculpture and digital media, she creates psychologically resonant narratives in which adolescents serve as witnesses, storytellers, and guardians of intergenerational mythologies. Her two grown children continue to be a lasting source of inspiration. The third of six children raised by a visually impaired single mother, Harzer’s early experiences inform both the emotional tenor and the compassionate gaze within her work.
Harzer earned her Bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College in 1987 and her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2013. A certified K–12 Visual Arts Educator, she has taught in the Brick Township Public Schools for more than two decades.
Harzer’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally, and appears in university publications as well as private and public collections. She has attended several domestic and international artist residencies—including Elsewhere, the Rensing Center, Arte Studio Ginestrelle, Estudio Nómada, and Casa Padula—where she continues to expand her visual language and techniques.
UPCOMING
Stamped Stories:
A Century of Moments, Moods, & Memories at The Basie Center
On View: Thursday, November 5th through Friday, November 13th
Reception & Auction: Friday, November 13th, 6-8pm
This inspiring collection of original artworks, commissioned as part of the Basie Center’s Centennial Celebration, commemorates 100 years of history and creativity, with each piece capturing a moment, mood, or memory from the last ten decades at 99 Monmouth Street.
FEATURED ARTISTS
PRESENT DAY: Michael White • Count Basie Center Façade
Brittney Mallon • Whispered Memories
2020s: Eva Marie Faith • A Bright Future at the Basie
2010s: Molly Gaston Johnson • Bouncing at the Basie
2000s: Robert + Elisabeth McKay • The Show from the Stage
1990s: Gail Kolflat • Count Basie Theatre: 2,217 Red Velvet Seats from Carnegie Hall
1980s: Mike Quon • Lights, Music, Memories - The Basie
1970s: Emily Walling • Monmouth Arts Center, 1975
1960s: Priscilla Gandel • Recital
1950s: George Severini • Carlton ‘51
1940s: Kristin Künc • Peace at The Basie
1930s: Michael White • Lights Coming Up, Carlton Theater, 1930s
1920s: Kathleen Beausoleil • Opening Night, 1926
Stamped Stories, a collaboration between the Count Basie Center for the Arts and Monmouth Arts, was launched in 2025 to commission designs for a postcard set celebrating the Basie Center by decade. The first piece, from Red Bank artist and muralist Michael White, depicts the present-day façade of the Basie Center’s historic marquee and main entrance. The final piece, by artist Kathleen Beausoleil, imagines the festive scene in 1926 for the opening night of The Quarterback, the first film shown at the Basie. Each of the 14 pieces draw inspiration from different time periods, personal memories, and iconic moments at the venue—such as a young Bruce Springsteen's first performance there in 1974.
The original artworks will be on view beginning November 5 and available for purchase online and at an auction and special reception on Friday, November 13, from 6–8 p.m. at ArtSpace.
PAST EXHIBITS
Interested in exhibiting at ArtSpace? Our applications for 2027 will open in late 2026.