Silvermine exhibits opening on Sunday

Silvermine Guild Art Center
1037 Silvermine Rd., New Canaan, (203) 966-9700
February/March Exhibits at Silvermine
Through Mar. 13, 2008
Opening reception: Sun., Feb. 22, 2—4 p.m.

Press release

Three new and exciting exhibits will be opening at the Silvermine Guild Arts Center, located in New Canaan, on Feb. 13, with each artist presenting their own particular perspective on the elements of nature and the environment. A collaborative exhibition will showcase the photographic works by Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison demonstrating the relationship between humans, technology and nature; Director's Choice, Ann Conrad's new collection of works will take a closer look at a fundamental landscape, water; and a juried Guild Group Show reflects upon contemporary issues of aging, war and the environment. All are welcome to the opening reception to be held at the Silvermine Galleries on Sun., Feb. 22 from 2 p.m to 4 p.m. The exhibits run through March 13.

The ParkeHarrisons have been collaborating for years in creating artistic photographs. Their work has been displayed in 18 solo exhibitions and over 30 group shows presented worldwide in places such as Japan, Canada, and Italy as well as throughout the United States. They also lecture extensively on art and human influences on the environment. Robert and Shana most recently had their New York City premier exhibit at the Jack Shainman Gallery, and now making their Connecticut debut with their exhibit at the Silvermine Guild Arts Center.

Rich colors and surrealistic imagery merge to reveal the poetic roots of the photographic works on display in this collaborative exhibition of selected works. By means of these images, the ParkeHarrisons remind us of our effect on nature, whether it is marks we leave on the earth or the destruction of entire landscapes for materialistic purposes. As in their earlier works, they continue to pursue, with the same absorbing psychological and sensory effect, the unpromising relationship linking humans, technology and nature. Their works reference a world we recognize and we think we know, but exist outside time and place. Strange scenes of combining forces and overabundance portray Nature unleashed by technology and the human hand.

For New Canaan artist Ann Conrad, the work in Layers+ Meaning/ Order + Space begins with an up close look at a basic landscape, water. Water provides visual power, symbolic power (offering the possibility of renewal, reflection, metamorphoses and serenity) and the contradictory power to both give and destroy life. While digital "seeing" is the starting point for all the pieces in this exhibit, the prints and paintings are as much about artistic process and decision making as they are about likeness in landscape. While solidly grounded in the world of visual reality, the work wrestles with the formal concerns of abstract image making. According to Conrad, "Digital seeing...(and hence the abstraction) occurs before the painting has begun. After that moment I am free to wrestle with compulsive mark-making, the contrast between light and dark, the interplay of lines and mass, the building and destroying of forms, the definition (or lack of) of boundaries and the contradictory moments of energy and stasis. I hope that the viewer can contemplate the art-making process and be drawn in by the multiple layers and labor-intensive painterly surfaces which underscore that the journey is of equal or greater importance to the destination." The cross-pollination of photography, printmaking and painting, allows the artist to see, think and call attention to technology's ability to alter and enhance our visual reality and to contemplate its meaning in this age of digital technology.

The Juried Guild Group Show, Elsewhere presents diverse ideas and works in all mediums by Silvermine Guild Artists as they reflect upon a world we think we recognize, but exits outside time and place as we know it, various states of being, points of reference, journeys and visions of those places. Juried by the visionary photography team of Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, whose own photographs tell stories of loss, human struggle, and personal exploration within landscapes scarred by technology and over-use.