Opening reception Saturday at Kehler Liddell For Jacobs and Dubicki show

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Emilia Dubicki & Blinn Jacobs
Through Oct. 9, 2011.
Opening reception: Sat., Sept. 10, 5—7 p.m.

Press release

Kehler Liddell Gallery is pleased to present a two-person exhibition of new work by Emilia Dubicki and Blinn Jacobs.

Emilia Dubicki uses intuition and memory to determine composition, color movement and brushwork in her abstract paintings. While her imagery references water and landmass, she avoids true representation. For her second show at Kehler Liddell Gallery, Dubicki will present a series of paintings that investigate the idea of a collective memory.

Philosopher Maurice Halbwachs (Wikipedia entry)wrote extensively on collective memory in post WWI Europe, explaining it as “a current of continuous thought” governed by sociological qualities, irreducible to individual memories and physical existence. The Surrealists similarly took up these ideas. In this new series, Dubicki activates shared, subconscious landscapes, by expressing moods or feelings in visceral movements of paint that seek to resonate within her viewers.

Dubicki received a residency grant from the Wurlitzer Foundation, Taos, N.M. in 2000 and 2003, as well as a Vermont Studio Center residency grant in 2004. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, California, Utah, Korea and Japan. She has been published in the New Haven Advocate, New Haven Register, New Haven Independent, Big Red and Shiny, Connecticut Art Scene, and NY ARTS Magazine. Last April she was interviewed on WNPR and this summer her paintings will appear on the USA network TV show “Royal Pains.” Dubicki currently lives and works in New Haven, CT.

Blinn Jacobs explores the ways that color, line, shape and surface may inform movement, balance and weight in her minimalist works. For her fourth show at Kehler Liddell Gallery, Jacobs will present new work from the "Counterpoise Series," new work from the "Tie Rod Ribbon Series," new drawings and a never before exhibited corner installation.

Early on in her career, Blinn Jacobs became interested in the Suprematist master, Kazimir Malevich. Malevich used the black square as a protagonist and generator of other forms that dipped and spiraled about his picture plane. Jacobsʼ works similarly lack the horizons and gravity systems of the black square, and take issue with the space that art occupies. Her corner installation specifically addresses the relationship between the site of the work and the sight of the viewer.

Jacobs studied at the Yale School of Art as a special student for four years and received her MFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania in 1993. Her work as been in numerous one-person shows, including the University of Wyoming Art Museum in Laramie, WY, Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, VA, Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven, CT, and the Kunstlerhaus in Schwandorf, Germany. She has received awards from the CT Commission on the Arts, the Slivermine Arts Center, and fellowships from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and the Oberpfalzer Kunstlerhaus in Schwandorf, Germany. She was recently invited to exhibit in the 2011 Florence Biennale. Jacobs lives and works in Branford, CT.