"Paper + Skin" Group Exhibition
Friday, June 26-Saturday, August 1, 2026
Headwaters Arts Center 66 Main Street Stamford, NY 12167
This group exhibition of artwork by Laura Bochet, James R. McIlroy, Susan Pittenger,
Erina Schultz, Savvy Simmons, Megan Stack, Jillian Steves, and Cierson Zambo explores the versatility and creativity of eight tattoo artists from New York State. In addition to creating permanent works of art for the skin, these artists are painters, printmakers, illustrators, graphic artists, curators and muralists, employing styles as unique as they are.
Featured Pieces by Susan Pittenger:
Artists:
Laura Bochet
Laura Bochet is a Hudson Valley based painter and tattoo artist. She received her BFA in painting from University at Buffalo in 2009 and was a full time painter in NYC and NJ before beginning her tattoo apprenticeship in 2013. She co-owned Secret Fire Tattoo Studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn from 2017-2023 and joined the team at Distortion Society as a resident tattoo artist in 2023. She has exhibited throughout the United States and has work in private collections in the US, Spain, Italy, and England. Bochet has devoted her life to creating art and using it as a means of connection and healing.
Artist Statement
In this series of ethereal, sensuous figurative paintings, I explore the place where the physical world and inner psyche converge, illuminated by the presence of the unknown and the magic of existence. The work is a glimpse into a realm where familiar shapes are suspended in time—a dance with radiating light and expansive darkness. I use the female form to portray her experience of the world through a female body, but also as a symbol for creation, nurturing love, and unparalleled strength. The figures are impeccably rendered, but the soft, invisible brushwork feels more organic than contrived. Awash in colorful gradients, orbs of light surround the women: a representation of life force and the power of individual and unified expression. Relaxed, joyous, confident, connected, the women are uninhibited by possessions and in their natural state. Despite their corporeal presence, these figures transcend the physical world and serve as a reminder of collective transformation.
James R. McIlroy
A professional tattoo and mural artist, McIlroy’s work is inspired by the diverse and vibrant beauty of the animal kingdom as well as his love for ornamental flourishes. Growing up in the Adirondacks had a significant influence on his artistic journey, particularly his exposure to local wildlife. He strives to evoke emotions and stimulate contemplation about our relationship with animals and the environment.
Graduating with a bachelor's in computer art from SUNY Oneonta, he has painted several mural projects for surrounding cities and colleges, most notably, a triptych installation at SUNY Oneonta, The Judith Day building at Hartwick College, and a tunnel of native animals in Confluence Park in Binghamton, NY. One of his murals can be viewed outside the Roxbury Library in Roxbury, NY.
Recently, James has been enamored with blue painted Chinese porcelain, a fascination that he has recently translated into the indigo color in his watercolor, tattoo, and mural work. It has a soothing and calming presence that holds in it a timeless quality.
Susan Pittenger
Susan Pittenger is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work inhabits the space between the permanent and the ephemeral. A self-taught, award-winning oil painter and celebrated tattoo artist, Pittenger’s practice is a constant dialogue between two worlds: the somber, classical tradition of vanitas still life and the vibrant fluidity of illustrative botanical design.
Their oil paintings often feature skull-themed compositions that allude to the Old Masters, and explore themes of mortality, knowledge, and time. This memento mori aesthetic seamlessly transitions into their tattoo work, in which Pittenger specializes in large-scale botanical designs inspired by the lush flora of the Hudson Valley and Adirondacks. Whether rendered in rich oils on canvas or intricate blackwork on skin, Pittenger’s artwork is a celebration of the natural world in all its stages, from the blooming flower to the weathered bone.
Drawing from their roots in Tucson, Arizona, and a decade-long career in Pittsburgh, Pittenger relocated to Albany, New York, in early 2025.
Erina Schultz
Erina Pearl’s work is deeply rooted in the natural world, both in imagery and material. Growing up along the shores of Florida, she developed an early connection to nature that continues to shape her artistic practice today in the Hudson Valley. Schultz integrates earth and lake pigments into all of her work, grounding her art in the very materials that inspire it. Her studio practice centers around cut-stencil printing and natural dyeing, drawing on traditional Japanese katazome techniques to inform her process. By incorporating natural materials directly into her work, she explores the interplay between environment and art, bringing elements of the outdoors into the studio.
Schultz earned her BFA with a concentration in printmaking from Appalachian State University, and continues to study art through workshops and her art community.
Artist Statement
The garden has always been more than just a plot of soil: it is a place of memory and meaning. Growing up, my obaachan’s (grandmother’s) garden was always an inspiration and a place of curiosity and play. I often called my obaachan perfect as I looked up to her fondly with how she cared and nurtured her home. She often spent her free time learning a craft. I later learned she had pursued a certification in ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement. However, she was never able to complete it; my ojiichan (grandfather), who was truly the opposite of my obaachan, dismissed it as frivolous, and a waste of time and money.
My work honors her dedication and the quiet joy she found in working with nature. I integrate natural materials not only in the subjects I depict but in the process itself. My practice often begins in the garden, where I grow plants both as inspiration and as raw materials. Some I use directly, while others I transform into pigments, crafting my own paint, an act that, like my obaachan’s pursuit, might be seen as unnecessary.
Through this practice, I reclaim the value of time spent in connection with nature and celebrate the often overlooked labor and creativity of women like my obaachan. My work is an act of homage, a continuation of her story, and a reminder that beauty grown slowly and intentionally is always worth the effort.
Megan Stack
Megan Stack is a tattoo artist and illustrator native to the Catskills of Upstate New York where she received traditional artistic training in life drawing and painting at Woodstock School of Art. She graduated from Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in Denver, Colorado, with a BA in Illustration as class of 2015 valedictorian.
Stack began tattooing professionally in 2017. She specializes in illustrative full color and black and grey and fine-line work, as she naturally gravitates towards detailed nature themes and figurative content.
Jillian Steves
Jillian Steves is a tattoo artist based in Fairport, NY, and co-owner of Elemental Arts tattoo studio. Having had a lifelong passion for creating art, Steves has been tattooing for 12 years. She specializes in illustrative blackwork tattoos, with a focus on strong contrast and textures. This is a style she also employs in her traditional artwork. She and her partner of 12 years live happily in Fairport and together raise the best cat in the world, Marty.
Cierson Zambo
Cierson Zambo is a multidisciplinary artist living in Brooklyn, NY. His creative work is at heart a devotional practice to the natural world and the divine. He is informed by divination, energy healing practices, and underworld trance journeys that allow him to explore the inner landscape of the personal and collective unconscious. Art is a ritual, a prayer, and his various creative skills and tools help him serve his role as a psychopomp, a guide between worlds, making his place within the threshold.
Our exhibition programs are generously supported by the Margaretville Telephone Company. All programs offered by the Roxbury Arts Group are supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the NYS Legislature, the A. Lindsay and Olive B. O’Connor Foundation, the Robinson Broadhurst Foundation, The Community Foundation for South Central New York, the Tianaderrah Foundation, an anonymous foundation, The Delaware National Bank of Delhi, and by the generosity of our business sponsors and individual supporters.
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