First National Bank Exhibition Hall in Sewickley is hosting exhibitions to raise money for arts programs for children in underserved communities.
Ron Donoughe captures Western Pennsylvania on a canvas. The Lawrenceville artist has painted images all over town, many done in an outdoor setting.
His work is being featured at the First National Bank Exhibition Hall in Sewickley as part of “A Showcase of Sweetwater’s 2026 Master Class Artists.” A second exhibition, “Ambiguous Boundaries,” is also being shown there.
Both debuted on April 3.
The main purpose of the First National Bank Exhibition Hall is to provide art and access for the youth program, said Mark Rengers, owner of Mark Rengers Gallery. Proceeds go to the Youth Arts Possibilities program, a program in collaboration with Sweetwater Center for the Arts. The exhibition is sponsored by First National Bank. A part of the proceeds from any art purchased will be donated to the youth program.
The shows were curated by Melanie Vera, gallery manager at Mark Rengers Gallery, and in collaboration with Sweetwater Center for the Arts.
A master class artist at Sweetwater, Donoughe has documented the region’s varied landscapes — from farmlands to factories – for 35 years.
On June 27-28, he will teach students how to translate the world into outdoor paintings through a focus on observation, design and technique, according to Sweetwater Center for the Arts.
Work by Kelsie McNair, a Brooklyn-based stained-glass artist and educator, will be joining the exhibition at a later date. McNair and Cristina Córdova will be teaching classes at Sweetwater April 25-26. Córdova is a Puerto Rican artist and sculpting instructor known for her contributions to contemporary figurative ceramics. McNair will be teaching Oct. 24-25.
“I just love this town and I love the village of Sewickley,” Donoughe said at the opening. “I am impressed with what (Mark Rengers Gallery owner) Mark (Rengers) and Melanie (Vera) and Sweetwater have done here. It’s phenomenal. Any time you combine the arts and inspiration with a non-profit gallery and community and bring it all together it is very impressive.”
Donoughe said the common denominator in his work is light. Being outdoors, he has painted in all conditions, from snow to blistering heat to in wind that has blown his canvas off the easel.
“Everything about the light and how it makes you feel; you respond differently in different light conditions,” Donoughe said. “It’s nice to have other people come out to see art and appreciate it.”
“Ambiguous Boundaries” is a collaboration exhibition between Christine Lorenz, a master photographer who has a studio in Squirrel Hill and Kristen Letts Kovak, an artist, Carnegie Mellon University professor and curator whose studio is in Point Breeze.
“We love these two artists together because we’ve got an abstract artist and we’ve got a photographer. Both views are a completely different perspective than what were used to,” Rengers said.
Through photographs of salt, plastics and light, Lorenz has published articles about her work and has self-published photobooks. She teaches art writing and the history of photography at Duquesne University and Point Park University.
Her photographs depict salt crystals illuminated with polarized light, which is filtered through layers of transparent, discarded plastics. She began using the tools of macro photography with plastics and salt in 2014.
“I’ve collected from a range of sources, including a mine in Utah, a historic works in West Virginia, recreational locations, and sources intended for laboratory use,” Lorenz said. “In the bigger picture, these materials are of use to human beings only briefly, before being cast back out again — whether to recombine with the elements of the world or degrade into pieces that will disperse far beyond where they can be brought back. The act of photographing them together is a human action, grasping at a moment in time.”
Lorenz said it is nice to have an educational environment where people are encouraged to follow their curiosity and look at things differently than before.
“Part of what is interesting to me about this as a material is that salt connects us to the earth and to the elements of the earth on an ongoing basis,” Lorenz said. “Its something we all have in common and it is a geological phenomenon.”
The exhibition creates a visual dialogue of abstraction between two artists’ mediums, Rengers said.
Kovak’s drawings bring together micro and macro, color and black and white, and photography and painting. Her works have been exhibited widely in museums and galleries. As a curator, Kovak examines common psychological, aesthetic and theoretical questions underlying seemingly diverse artistic practices.
“I’m interested in this space between knowing and not knowing, where you sort of look at something and you kind of have a sensation to recognize it, or some semblance, but in the end, it falls apart,” Kovak said. “I’m really interested in sort of ambiguity. I think it takes the viewer to a space where hopefully you can just sort of delight in the material and the experience and sort of let the meaning go. It was enjoyable to work with Christine, who lent me some of the salt crystals.”
“Ambiguous Boundaries” will be open until May 30 and “A Showcase of Sweetwater’s 2026 Master Class Artists” will be on display until Dec. 19.
The space is open during the hours that Mark Rengers Gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday.