November 7 – December 20, 2025
Artist Talks & Opening Reception: Saturday, November 15, 6-8 PM (Pre-register here)
Join us for an evening of artist talks, music, and refreshments on Saturday, November 15, 6-8 PM. Registration is required.
Main Line Art Center is proud to present Transmutation, the 22nd Annual Betsy Meyer Memorial Exhibition, featuring Marina Chistyakova, Zhiheng Gong, and Natalia Petkov. The exhibition, juried by Maida Milone, is on view November 7 – December 20, 2025.
Transmutation happens naturally whenever an artist transforms basic materials into a work of art. However, the three artists featured in this year’s Betsy Meyer Memorial Exhibition are consciously focused on transmutation in some of its most interesting incarnations: the processes of erosion and sedimentation; the reimagining of traditional techniques within contemporary art practices, and an exploration of the effects of the interconnectedness of humans and the environment. Their choices of materials and the ways in which they use them are nothing short of alchemy!
This exhibition is made possible through the generous support of the Meyer family.
The Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art, presented by Main Line Art Center in conjunction with the Betsy Meyer Memorial Exhibition, honors chosen artists with an exhibition in the Center’s gallery and an award of $1,000. This award and associated exhibition program is an effort to support talented contemporary artists, to honor deserving artists in the field, and to encourage excellence and experimentation in artistic practice, presentation, and community involvement.
Marina Chisty is a Russian-born, New York–based artist whose abstract paintings explore transformation, impermanence, and the hidden structures beneath perception. Her work is shaped by a lifetime of movement—across geographies, disciplines, and states of being—and is rooted in a deep engagement with materials. Working with pigment, water, and charcoal, she creates large-scale gestural paintings and modular series that embody processes of erosion, sedimentation, and flow, situating painting as both an event and a record of time. Chisty began her artistic training in Russia, attending a classical art school for children where she studied drawing and painting. She later earned a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts with a focus on philosophy, literature, and the humanities—an intellectual foundation that continues to guide her approach to abstraction. After relocating to New York, she pursued an MA in Economics at Fordham University, which sharpened her understanding of systems and change. These years of academic and professional inquiry ultimately led her to return to art, and she recently completed her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Zhiheng Gong is a multimedia artist and designer based in New York City whose practice bridges contemporary sculptural design and traditional Chinese lacquer craftsmanship (daqi). Trained in 3D Design at the University of Iowa (BFA) and Interaction Design at Cranbrook Academy of Art (MFA), Gong merges advanced digital fabrication methods—such as CNC carving, parametric wood bending, and resin casting—with ancient lacquer techniques including mother-of-pearl inlay and gold carving. His work explores how cultural heritage can be re-activated through contemporary forms, often producing installations and objects that occupy a space between functional design, fine art, and ritual. Gong is the founder of Moon Halo Lacquer and LacArt Collective LLC, initiatives dedicated to expanding the global presence of lacquer art and supporting emerging artists from underrepresented regions.
Natalia Petkov is a multimedia artist whose practice integrates nontraditional methods of image-making and direct interaction with the natural world to explore the interconnectedness between humans and the environment. Petkov earned her MFA from Pratt Institute in 2021 and her BFA from Guilford College in 2016. She was an Artist in Residence at the Burren College of Art in County Clare, Ireland (2024), where she hiked and photographed the western coast’s dramatic landscapes. In 2026, she will participate in The Arctic Circle Art and Science Expedition, an artist residency bringing together artists and researchers to live and work within the Arctic environment creating art and engaging with the pressing realities of planetary change.
Maida R. Milone was born in Pittsburgh, PA. She attended Chatham College (now Chatham University) and the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her B.A. degree in Philosophy and her J.D. She served as Senior Counsel for several companies and eventually became General Counsel for the Dupont Merck Pharmaceutical Company. With her son growing up and Merck exiting the joint venture with DuPont, Maida decided to use her accumulated experience and skills to pursue her passion for the arts. This led her to The Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA), formerly Creative Artist Network, where she served as President and CEO. On her watch, CFEVA’s longstanding and most public program, Philadelphia Open Studio Tours™ (POST™), expanded into what is now an integral part of the city’s arts calendar each year. With her inspiration, CFEVA’s custom exhibition program brought new curated works into Philadelphia’s corporate and healthcare environments for the first time.
Following her time at CFEVA, she served as President and CEO of Philadelphia’s Art Alliance where she participated in the curation of several craft exhibitions. More recently, Maida’s lifelong interest in “all things creative” led her to Moore College of Art & Design, where she completed the Interior Design Studies program. She then founded My Personal Curator LLC, curating collections for individuals and exhibitions for art spaces throughout the region. Recently, Milone curated The Portrait of the Artist…and Other Things at Gross McCleaf Gallery and CFEVA at 40: Four Decades of Supporting Contemporary Art at the James A. Michener Museum of Art; wrote a catalogue essay for Diverse Perspectives in Photography: Four Black Guggenheim Fellows in the Philadelphia Region: Don Camp, Ron Tarver, William E. Williams, Wendel White at Stockton University, and will soon present The Unburden Thread, Tim Portlock at A Man Full of Trouble Museum for the upcoming Semiquincentennial. In 2021, Maida’s contributions to the region’s arts community were recognized with the Arts + Business Council’s Leadership Award.
