The Return of...

Arcanifacts have slithered their way back into the River Edge Library!

The exhibition lasts until Wednesday, November 28th - don't miss it!

River Edge Library
685 Elm Avenue,
River Edge, NJ 07661
(201) 261-1663
Hours: Mon, Tue, Thu, 10am - 9pm; Wed, Fri, Sat, 10am-5pm.

Read about the exhibition below:

ARCANIFACTS EXHIBIT RETURNS TO THE RIVER EDGE LIBRARY

BY MEGAN BURROW

Town News

MANAGING EDITOR

Just in time for Halloween, an exhibit of borough resident Scot Ryersson's unique works is returning to the River Edge Library.

The 20 new pieces will be on display in the library's three cases from early October through the last week in November.

The exhibit, subtitled "Something Nasty in the Nursery," includes works inspired by many beloved children's tales, such as Lewis Carroll's "Alice Through the Looking Glass," J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan," Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen," Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," as well as numerous Mother Goose nursery rhymes.

The pieces are part of "Arcanifacts," a project Ryersson began about five years ago. Each piece in the collection is an assemblage of found objects and pictures inspired by short stories, novels and folklore.

As a student, Ryersson trained at Chelsea School of Art and Design in London before beginning a career in motion picture advertising.

While living in Sydney, New York, Toronto and London, he designed multi-award-winning graphics for numerous major Hollywood and international films, including "The Silence of the Lambs," "Ghost," "The Hunt for Red October" and "Witness."

His work on "Evil under the Sun" and "Another Country" each garnered him an Art Directors of London Award.

In 1999, Ryersson co-authored a biography of Marchesa Casati, an eccentric Italian celebrity in the early 20th century, with Michael Orlando Yaccarino. The book, "Infinite Variety: The Life and Legend of the Marchesa Casati," has been adapted into a play and the fashion designers Karl Lagerfeld and John Galliano have each based collections on Casati.

An illustrated version of the biography was recently released by the art book publisher Abrams.

In 2010, Ryersson's book jacket design for "A Dangerous Man," a novel written by Anne Brooke, was nominated for both an Imperial Artisan and a Rainbow Award. He was commissioned specifically by director/producer John Borowski to create props for his documentary, "Carl Panzram," which is released this month.

Last July, Ryersson was interviewed for a segment on the local television program "Neighborhood Journal." In the spring he was invited to speak as a guest lecturer at River Dell High School. He said he showed the students a slide show and brought in several examples of his work.

"Some of them really got into it, especially the ones interested in film," he said.

His most valuable advice for a young artist beginning a career: "You have to create your own vision."

Ryersson created Arcanifacts, a term comprising the Latin words arcanus (secret) and factum (thing made) to describe an artifact containing both mystery and truth, to explore his "artistic obsessions with the arcane and phantasmagorical."

Asked which mixed media piece in the collection is his favorite, Ryersson said the question is akin to asking a parent to name their favorite child, but named one of his most recent pieces, a work inspired by the Ray Bradbury novel "Something Wicked This Way Comes," as a possible contender.

"Right now I'm still pretty proud of it," he said.

The centerpiece of the work is a death watch beetle – an actual "long deceased" beetle Ryersson purchased on EBay from a seller in France and installed clockwork under the insect's giant wings.

To learn more about Ryersson and his work, visit arcanifacts.blogspot.com.