Graffiti-esque oils
If you've ever appreciated the calligraphic beauty of graffiti out a train window, you're ready for Jordan Broadworth's paintings at the Simon Gallery in Morristown. Broadworth does highly abstract oils that look a little like graffiti on bricks, largely in monochromatic versions. Broadworth, who is based in Canada, has been showing fairly consistently since the early 1990s.
Part of the appeal of these paintings is their formal ambiguity. They are not really graffiti art because the words and letters are usually all but unrecognizable, but their antecedents are immediately understood. Set against the simplest, geometrical backdrops, their looping forms do suggest calligraphy, but they invoke a tradition of American Abstract Expressionism.
An artist's reception is 6 p.m.-9 p.m. Friday. The Simon Gallery is at 48 Bank St. Gallery hours are noon-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays; noon-5 p.m. Saturdays, and by appointment. Free. Call (973) 538-5456.
The war, in art
An outdoor exhibition that includes 1,100 pairs of combat boots, one for each American soldier to die in Iraq, opens 2 p.m. Dec. 5 at the Puffin Forum in Teaneck. Each pair of boots is tagged with the name and home state of a dead soldier. The Puffin is also hosting an installation honoring the estimated 10,000 to 16,000 Iraqi civilians who have died since the U.S. invasion nearly two years ago.
There are several other war-related exhibits, including video and still images of the war Americans never see, among them video portraits of individual Iraqis, a tribute to the traumatic aftermath of war and written analyses of the conflict.
The Puffin Cultural Forum is at 20 East Oakdene Ave. Gallery hours are 1-5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays. Free. Call (201) 836-8923.
Shore auction
The Shore Institute of the Contemporary Arts in Long Branch holds its third annual Art Auction 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday. It will be the first auction in the institute's new facility at 20 Third Ave., the former Lincoln Can Manufacturing building. A donation of $35 is requested.
Last year's auction featured over 60 original artworks, including many by artists who have exhibited nationally and internationally. This year the institute anticipates over 100 artworks and other items to be available. A reception will be held from 6:30-7:45 p.m., with the auction to follow.