Cultural Connections: Eastern European Artists of Greater Trenton

Cultural Connections 2025

• Opening Reception Saturday, April 5, 2-4 pm; on view through June 8, 2025
• Artists Talk Saturday, April 26, 2-4 pm
• Developed and Curated by Liz and Dan Aubrey
• Shown: Dancing in Harmony, Adriana Groza
• Related program: Pysanka Ukrainian Egg Workshop

Trenton City Museum announces Cultural Connections: Eastern European Artists of Greater Trenton! Developed by Liz and Dan Aubrey to showcase the work of artists active in aesthetic traditions outside those of Western Europe and to build awareness and artistic dialogue, it is the first in a series that will highlight traditions and practices existing in the greater Trenton region. Liz Aubrey is an active state artist and exhibitions curator. Dan Aubrey is a journalist, playwright, and arts coordinator. Currently living in Bordentown, New Jersey, the two are known for their longtime involvement in creating art projects in New Jersey’s capital city and are members of the Trenton Museum Society Exhibition Committee.

Artists of Cultural Connections 2025:

ABOUT THE ARTISTS OF CULTURAL CONNECTIONS 2025

Marina Ahun is a Princeton-based artist known in part for her watercolors that explore the architecture of Princeton, Trenton, and New York City. She was born in Soviet Russia, studied at the Imperial Academy of fine Arts in St. Petersburg, and is the licensed and commissioned artist for Princeton University.

Irena Gobernik is a wood and mixed media sculptor in Princeton. She was born in Kazakhstan and studied mathematics in Novosibirsk State University in Siberian Russia during the Soviet era. The former co-owner of the Dalet Gallery in Philadelphia, she specializes in small wood sculptures reflective of her Jewish heritage and marionettes portraits. 

Olga Gobernik-Kon describes her expressive and colorful work as “painting in glass.” Born in Kazakhstan and a resident of Princeton and Israel, her art is in several private international collections, in the recent Smithsonian Craft Show (2024) and American Craft Made in Baltimore (2025), and in an exhibition with noted Philadelphia Magic Garden creator Isaiah Zagar at her mother’s Dalet Gallery in Philadelphia.

Adriana Groza is a painter known for vibrant, fluid, and organic works that capture natural rhythms. Based in Hamilton, the artist is a native of Transylvania, Romania. A participant in art festivals in the Middle Atlantic region, she has exhibited in group shows in Trenton and is a member of the Princeton Arts Collective.

Jadwiga (Heidi) Jedrzejczyk is the Polish-born member of a family of artists working in oil. The Trenton resident has exhibited at Mercer County College, Trenton City Museum, Adam Styka Annual Competition in Pennsylvania, and with the Trenton Artists Workshop Association in New York City. Her studies include classes at the former Druch Studios in Trenton.

Tatiana Oles is a Moldova-born artist living and working in Princeton. A member of the Princeton Makes artists collective, she began her career as a decorative and pictorial artist but now works in a variety of approaches and mediums, ranging from watercolors to fabric, wood, and glass. She studied at the Academic School of Fine Arts in Moldova’s capital city, Chisinau.

Asia Popinski, a native of Poland, is a painter, photographer, and trained psychotherapist now living in Pennington. In addition to being the subject of a solo exhibition at Trenton Social, she has also exhibited at the Philadelphia Sketch Club, Pennsylvania Center for Photography, the Arts Council of Princeton, and Trenton City Museum. She is the recipient of first place honors in competitions sponsored by Princeton Magazine and Mercer County.

Jacek (Jack) Szymula is Trenton and New York City photographer and painter from Gdansk, Poland.  A member of the Polish American Photographers Club, Szymula work has been on view at the Dominican Monastery in Gdansk, Polish Consulate in New York, Artists of Yardley Arts Center, Philadelphia Sketch Club, and the Trenton City Museum, and the New Hope Arts Center. He is married to artist Ewa Zeller.

Leonid (Leo) Vayn, a Princeton photographer and documentary filmmaker, spent his early life in the Soviet Union during World War II. After business successes in the United States, he has dedicated himself to photography and to the Tsal Kaplun Foundation, created to preserve Jewish Culture and Heritage in the former Soviet Union. He and his wife, Irena Gorbernik, actively present exhibitions and concerts featuring work by Eastern European artists in Princeton.

Ewa Zeller is a Polish-born painter living in Trenton. She has had solo exhibitions at the former Druch Studio Gallery in Trenton, PII Gallery in Philadelphia, and the Skulski-Polish Art Center in NJ. A student in both Warsaw and New York City, her work can be found in several public collections, including the Vatican’s Foundation of John Paul II and Trenton City Museum. In addition to being a painter, she is a guard at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC.