Openings this week

Charter Oak Cultural Center
21 Charter Oak Ave., Hartford, (860) 249-1207
Sam McKinniss: Portraits
Feb. 1—Apr. 27, 2007
Opening reception Thurs., Feb. 1, 5:30—8 p.m.

Press release

Portraits by painter Sam McKinniss is a new body of work to be presented at the Charter Oak Cultural Center, opening on Thurs., Feb. 1, and continuing through Apr. 27. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m— 4 p.m.

The oil and acrylic paintings in Portraits deal with celebrity teen queens, French aristocratic portraiture, and mix in electric flourishes of expressionistic brushwork to emphasize the fiction of each subject's stylized surface, accentuate the glamour of a painted pose, and literally highlight characters in history who McKinniss thinks are fabulous. There is, as always, a healthy measure of latent queer humor visible through a thin fashionable veil. In this manner, all of McKinniss' new paintings address artifice as an aesthetic/cultural construct. Included in this exhibition are portraits of Diana Ross, Beyonce´ Knowles and Dolly Parton, just to name a few.

Sam McKinniss is a senior painting major at the Hartford Art School, a resident of Hartford, and this is his second solo exhibition in Connecticut.

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City Gallery
994 State St., New Haven, (203) 782-2489
Some of Us
Feb. 3—25, 2007.
Opening reception Sun., Feb. 4, 2—5 p.m.

There will be an opening reception at City Gallery this Sunday for a members' show featuring Meg Bloom, Caroline Chandler, Jane Cukor, Nancy Eisenfeld, Jane Harris, Sheila Kaczmarek and Liz Pagano.

The most recent show at City Gallery was Jefri Ruchti's 495 Lines, reviewed here.