Fantastical Realities: Sandra Caplan, Maya Ciarrocchi, and Ray Ciarrocchi

Derfner Judaica Museum + The Art Collection at Hebrew Home at Riverdale is pleased to announce our upcoming exhibition, Fantastical Realities: Sandra Caplan, Maya Ciarrocchi, and Ray Ciarrocchi, which will be on view from September 7, 2025 through January 11, 2026. A reception and talk with the artists will take place on Sunday, September 14, at 1:30 p.m. As part of Open House New York, a special exhibition tour will take place on Sunday, October 19, at 1:30 p.m. R.S.V.P. 718.581.1596 or art@riverspring.org. Admission to the Museum is always free. Photo I.D. required for entry.

This exhibition will be the first time two generations of the Ciarrocchi-Caplan family will exhibit together. Sandra Caplan (b. Winnipeg, Canada, 1936) focuses on still life, Ray Ciarrocchi (b. Chicago, Illinois, 1933) on landscape, and Maya Ciarrocchi (b. Winnipeg, Canada, 1967) works across disciplines. The worlds they create and the realities they express are intimately connected to the times and places in which they work.

Sandra Caplan works almost exclusively in still life, using vivid colors and staged tableaux that she carefully assembles and paints directly from observation. What results, however, is fantastical. Flowers, fruits, fabric, mirrors, and personal objects are painted in bold, saturated colors and at large scale. Among the objects Caplan includes are “photos associated with people and places from the past,” including “reproductions of paintings that hold an emotional connection,” Caplan has explained. In Downtown View, September (1989), for example, she juxtaposes the subjective, internal world,  symbolized by the still life, with the objective reality represented by the New York City skyline beyond the studio window.

Two tapestries, three needlepoints, and a sixteen-panel cyanotype installation by Ciarrocchi’s and Caplan’s daughter, Maya Ciarrocchi, will be on view. They are related to LoopCurrent, a research-based performance installation that envisions humanity’s impact on the planet and the irrevocably altered future. “LoopCurrent examines our relationship with the future by imagining the relics of that time. In in a world rocked by a climate crisis, war, and political upheaval, what new, fantastical spaces can we build from the residue of destruction and loss?” Ciarrocchi has stated.

A response to the present-day climate catastrophe, the works shown imagine remnants discovered by future archaeologists with collapsing cities, maps of water, migration pathways, and artifacts from industries such as mining and oil drilling. For example, City of Sighs—both the small needlepoint from 2023 and a large Jacquard tapestry of the same title from 2025—feature angular, geometric shapes that collapse into each other or intersect, referencing architectural forms and pathways. The works include imagery resembling topographical maps that reflect Ciarrocchi’s interest in migration, shifting realities, and displacement.

Ray Ciarrocchi has a strong formalist practice related to the physical aspects of landscape. His vibrant compositions begin with observation and become fantastical places all their own with the dramatic color and shadow that appear within his works. Describing his process, Ciarrocchi states, “the canvas . . . becomes more ‘real’ than the subject which initially inspired it.”

Ciarrocchi uses light as a way to explore the potential of color, transforming observed reality into something dreamlike. For example, the rhythmic stylization of natural forms and saturated pinks, greens, blues, and purples of Field by a River (1989) present a view of the Susquehanna River—the longest river on the East Coast and a subject that Ciarrocchi has returned to many times over the years—as a transcendent, surrealistic landscape, at once recognizable and strange.

The works on view reflect the distinctive social and artistic concerns of two generations of artists, yet each one engages with their own fantastical realities. While Maya Ciarrocchi uses abstraction in her textiles and cyanotypes to imagine a sprawling, ruinous future caused by the contemporary climate crisis, Sandra Caplan and Ray Ciarrocchi experiment with formalist elements to transform traditional still life and landscape painting from what they observe into what they envision.

About the artists

Sandra Caplan (b. Winnipeg, Canada, 1936) received a BFA from University of Manitoba in 1957, an MFA from Boston University in 1959, and an MFA from Yale University in 1960. Most recently, her work has been the subject of solo presentations at such New York City venues as Harper’s; Kinescope Gallery; Westbeth Gallery; New York Public Library; Thacher Proffitt & Wood; Brooklyn Botanic Garden; and La Fortezza, Civitella del Tronto, Italy. Caplan has participated in recent group exhibitions at Colm Rowan Fine Arts, East Hampton, New York; Westbeth Gallery; First Street Gallery, New York, New York; and University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. Her work is included in numerous public collections including Boston Mutual Life Insurance, Boston, Massachusetts; Connor Clark Ltd, Toronto, Canada; Investors Group, Winnipeg, Canada; and Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Canada. Caplan lives and works in New York City.

Maya Ciarrocchi (b. Winnipeg, Canada, 1967) received a BFA from Purchase College and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts. Her work has been exhibited in New York City, as well as nationally and internationally at galleries, museums, and performing arts venues in New York City including Abrons Arts Center; Bronx Museum of the Arts; Collar Works; Equity Gallery; Field Projects; Gibney Dance; JACK; Main Window Dumbo; Smack Mellon; Wave Hill; as well as the Center for New Music, San Francisco, California. She has received residencies from Baryshnikov Arts and Bronx Museum of the Arts, both in New York City; MacDowell, Peterborough, New Hampshire; Ucross, Claremont, Wyoming; and others, as well as grants from the Franklin Furnace Fund, Jerome Foundation, Map Fund, Canada Council for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Her work is held in Brookfield Properties collection. Ciarrocchi lives and works in the Bronx, New York.

Ray Ciarrocchi (b. Chicago, Illinois, 1933) received a BFA from Washington University in 1959 and an MFA from Boston University in 1961. His work has been the subject of solo presentations at such New York City venues as Harper’s; Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery; Fischbach Gallery; and Tibor de Nagy Gallery; as well as University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia and La Fortezza, Civitella del Tronto, Italy. Ciarrocchi’s work has been included in group exhibitions at University of Richmond; Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery; Gallery 53, Cooperstown, New York; Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Loretto, Pennsylvania; Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York; and Headley-Whitney Museum of Art, Lexington, Kentucky. His work is held in the collections of numerous institutions including Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York; Ciba-Geigy AG, Basel, Switzerland; and Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio. Ciarrocchi lives and works in New York City.

Museum Hours

Museum hours: Sunday–Thursday, 10:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Photo ID is required for all visitors to the Hebrew Home campus. Call 718.581.1596 or email art@riverspring.org to schedule in-person or virtual group tours or for holiday hours. For further information, visit our website at www.derfner.org.

About Hebrew Home at Riverdale

As a member of the American Alliance of Museums, the Hebrew Home at Riverdale by RiverSpring Living is committed to publicly exhibiting its art collection throughout its 32-acre campus, including the Derfner Judaica Museum and a sculpture garden overlooking the Hudson River and Palisades. Derfner Judaica Museum + The Art Collection provides educational and cultural programming for residents of the Hebrew Home, their families, and the general public from throughout New York City, its surrounding suburbs, and visitors from elsewhere. RiverSpring Living is a nonprofit, non-sectarian geriatric organization serving more than 18,000 older adults in greater New York through its resources and community service programs.

Event image, left to right: Maya Ciarrocchi, Ephemeral Lake, detail, 2023. Tapestry thread on needlepoint canvas, 18 x 20 in.; Sandra Caplan, Downtown View, September, detail, 1989. Oil on linen, 50 x 42 in.; Ray Ciarrocchi, Field by a River, detail, 1989. Oil on linen, 40 x 70 in. Courtesy the artists.

This exhibition is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.