In the Mix

Mixed Media and Collage Exhibit: Block • Carroll • Cotter

February and March 2026 - Mixed Media and Collage Exhibit by

Kat Block, Virginia Carroll, and Alicia Cotter

The Friends of the New Providence Library are happy to announce our current art exhibit on the walls of the library and the Conti Family Community room for the months of February and March. We are featuring the works of three talented mixed media artists who use collage and combine different surfaces and materials to design their unique creations.

Come see the show and meet the artists at their reception on Sunday, Feb 1st, from 2-4pm in the Conti Family Community Room!

Kat Block graduated with a degree in English Literature/Creative Writing, and, while deciding upon graduate school, she attended the Visual Art Center of New Jersey. Within one year, she was selling her artwork and never looked back. Today, she teaches there and at her other alma mater, the duCret School of Art.

Kat is a published illustrator of a children's book, has designed posters for the Union County Jazzfests, and has taught workshops and has won numerous awards. Additionally, her work was featured in the 2010 release, "Remember Me", starring Pierce Brosnan and Robert Pattinson.

Kat Block

Kat's primary inspiration is nature. The ephemeral character of her subjects forces her to work with no time to waste. Kat's recent pieces are complex, mixed media collages that integrate various papers, watercolors, photography, and graphite. She unifies these disparate elements by painstakingly arranging them, often using small fragments of patterns to tie them together. They are mounted on canvas and varnished repeatedly with a UV protective varnish. Although rich in color, design and pattern, the finished collages remain luminous and serene. They manage to look completely effortless and unimaginably complex in the same viewing. Every time one studies them, there is something new to notice. Her excitement and intensity are evident in her work. She is constantly challenging herself to discover a new and unexpected way to communicate her vision.

Check out her website: https://www.katblock.com/

Virginia Carroll

Virginia Carroll's latest series is a wide variety of female characters. She presents the works as wordless stories, narrative evocations that stir a sense of recognition and identification.

"I wanted to make each of them strong, yet fragile; forces of nature, yet thoughtful," Carroll said. "My hope is that each piece allows the viewer to create a story in their mind about what these women represent to them."

She has exhibited in various venues in Somerset, Union, Hunterdon, and Middlesex counties. The following local art galleries have shown her work: Gallery U in Westfield, The Artist Framer in Cranford, and Swain Galleries in Plainfield.

Virginia Carroll earned her bachelor's degree in fine art education from Kean University, and spent the next four decades teaching art in the New Jersey public school system. She received the 2004 Teacher of the Year award at her school as part of the Governor's Teacher Recognition Program.

Virginia Carroll

The Storybook Women

All work is $550.00

Her Journey Begins

The Optimist

TheAristocrat

Seeking Answers

Conqueror

The Suffragist

Walking To Orchard Villa School

The Rice Worker

Madonna

Regal

The Farmer

The Geisha

The Faithkeeper

En la Cocina

Uncertain Future

Reading With Grammy NFS

Nature’s Loss

Alicia Cotter

Alicia Cotter is an artist, calligrapher, and an instructor at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey in Summit, where she teaches drawing and painting classes. She is a New Jersey native and calligrapher who specializes in mixed media paintings, combining printmaking and painting techniques. she creates unique mixed media paintings which are inspired by nature, with a focus on modernizing traditional subjects through style and composition.

Alicia paints and prints designs on book pages, scraps, copy paper, decorative paper and homemade paper. Layers of pattern are added using various textures such as bubble wrap, tiles, sponges, rubber stamps, stencils, and gel press prints. The papers are torn and applied to an acrylic painting using gel medium, resulting in a somewhat pixelated appearance.

Her official Website for her art is at brushandquilldesigns.com, and her work can also be viewed at the Evalyn Dunn Gallery in Westfield, NJ.