Sunday opening of sculpture and photo show at Kehler Liddell

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Gar Waterman & Marjorie Gillette Wolfe: Coruscations and Cotyledons
Apr. 14—May 15, 2011
Opening Reception: Sun., Apr. 17, 3-6 p.m., Artists' talk: 3:30 p.m.

Press release

Kehler Liddell Gallery is very pleased to present Coruscations and Cotyledons, a two-person exhibition of sculpture by Gar Waterman and photographs by Marjorie Gillette Wolfe. The two visuals at play—coruscations, sudden flashes of light, and cotyledons,leaves of the embryo of a seed plant—engage in conversations about the discrete phenomena that shape our environment and inform our aesthetic experience.

Delicate, close observation on the part of both artists manifests in works that explore the relationship between architecture and science. Watermanʼs magnified cotyledon sculptures investigate the exquisite physicality and intricacies of plant forms and respond to their architectural components—balance, strength, geometry, perfection, pattern, mechanisms of defense and attraction. Wolfeʼs photographs document isolated shots of real places where natural light backlights, screens and mixes with architectural elements—buttresses, plastic siding and weathered glass, in series of environments that read like abstract paintings. Shared appreciations for the structure of nature unites the two distinct bodies of work, both characterized by natural palettes, and allow the viewer to move thoughtfully through moments of soft and hard texture and form.

Watermanʼs sculptures represent a fundamental dialogue between architecture and nature, which is his primary source of inspiration. In addition to wood, Waterman works in stone, bronze, glass and steel. His imagery ranges from plant life, marine forms and insects to imagined figures.

Waterman grew up in New Jersey and Maine, with a formative year in Tahiti at age 10, where his father, underwater filmmaker Stan Waterman, shot and produced a documentary for National Geographic. After graduating from Dartmouth College, Waterman moved to Pietrasanta Italy, where he studied for seven years to become a master stone carver. Waterman currently lives and works in New Haven, Connecticut and Sargentville, Maine.

Wolfeʼs photographs investigate the abstraction of real space and ephemeral elements. For this show she will focus on the way diptychs, triptychs and larger series of photographs inform one another. In addition to her abstract series, Wolfe will present traditional landscapes that confound perspective and facilitate the viewerʼs reconsideration of a well-worn subject.