Paulette Rosen drawing show opens at City Gallery Saturday, May 4

City Gallery
994 State St., New Haven, (203) 782-2489
Paulette Rosen: Birds Watching
May 2—Jun. 2, 2013.
Opening Reception: Sat., May 4, 4—6 p.m.
Artist Talk and Demonstration: Sun., Jun. 2, 2 p.m.

Press release from City Gallery

City Gallery presents Birds Watching, May 2—Jun. 2. The Opening reception is on Sat., May 4, from 4—6 p.m. There will also be an artist's talk and demonstration on Sun., Jun. 2, at 2 p.m.

Paulette Rosen’s (Web) new multimedia drawings on archival pigment prints are an original technique beginning with digital scans of taxidermied birds. The images are an exploration of individual birds through large-scale portraiture.

Artwork by Paulette Rosen

Artists' reception Saturday, May 4, at Perspectives Gallery at Whitney Center in Hamden

Perspectives: The Gallery at Whitney Center
200 Leeder Hill Rd., Hamden, (203) 772-2788
On Nature
Through Jun. 30, 2013.
Artists' Reception: Sat., May 4, 3—5 p.m.

Press release from the Arts Council of Greater New Haven

The Arts Council of Greater New Haven is pleased to announce On Nature at Perspectives: The Gallery at Whitney Center at 200 Leeder Hill Drive, Hamden, Connecticut, south entrance. An artist reception will take place Sat., May 4, from 3—5 p.m.

On Nature was curated by Debbie Hesse and Steve Olsen. The show includes works by Aspasia Patti Anos, Anna Broell Bresnick, Laurie Flaherty, Michael Galvin, Susan McCaslin, Paulette Rosen, Kyle Skar and Balam Soto.

Artwork by Aspasia Patti Anos

According to Hesse, On Nature—a title taken from the myriad of writings by ancient philosophers from Heraclitus to Parmenides—looks at artists' individual relationships with the natural world.

"Employing a diverse range of styles and media, these eight artists, through observation, invention, interaction and interventions with nature, consider ideas about solitude, preservation, decay and renewal, and our shared responsibility for the environment," Hesse explains.

Artist's reception Friday, May 3, at Reynolds Fine Art in New Haven

Reynolds Fine Art
96 Orange St., New Haven, (203) 498-2200
Horizons: New Work by Robert Reynolds
May 3—Jun. 4, 2013.
Artist Reception: Fri., May 3, 5—8 p.m.

Press release from Reynolds Fine Art

Reynolds Fine Art is pleased to present Horizons, new work by gallery owner and namesake, Robert Reynolds. Stemming from numerous visits to the Netherlands, Reynolds’s new body of oil paintings and monoprints boasts vivid Dutch landscapes as its subject. Horizons will be on view from May 3 through Jun. 4; an artist's reception is scheduled for Fri., May 3, from 5—8 p.m.

Robert Reynolds: "Giethoorn, Netherlands"

The unique, tabletop flatness of this region sparked the artist’s curiosity when he noticed a recurring, and often over looked, feature that was unavoidable in each vista: the horizon. Thus, Reynolds was prompted to investigate the idea of the horizon in history and how we experience it everyday, whether we realize it or not. Questions such as if this line acts as a joiner or a divider between heaven and earth motivated the artist and come through each work to evoke feelings of longing and wonder in the viewer. These works challenge the mundane concept of a horizon line to become a desire to know the unknowable and mystery of the distance.

Two shows open Friday, May 3, at Giampietro Gallery

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Valerie Brennan: No Chance of Rain
Joseph Fucigna: Ebb and Flow
May 3—June 1, 2013.
Reception: Fri., May 3, 5—8 p.m.
Artist's Talk with Joseph Fucigna: Sat., May 18, 2 p.m.

Press release from Giampietro Gallery

Fred Giampietro Gallery is pleased to present new work by artists Valerie Brennan and Joseph Fucigna. The two shows will be on view from May 3 through Jun. 1, with an opening reception on Fri., May 3, from 5—8 p.m.

Valerie Brennan is an Irish artist based in Madrid and Cyprus. For Brennan every panel is an adventure in paint. The images are often the result of a struggle between the artist and her materials. Her work is rooted in the physical act of painting itself, exploring its natural process.

Valerie Brennan: "Animal;, Vegetable, Mineral III"

Brennan received her degrees from the Cyprus College of Art in Lemba, Paphos and the Limerick College of Art and Design in Ireland. She has exhibited widely internationally including solo exhibitions in Mexico City and with The Apocalypse Gallery in Nicosia, Cyprus. Most recently her work has been exhibited in Amsterdam and London. She is the author of Studio Critical blog. Valerie has been awarded with an Exhibition bursary for the 2009 Florence Biennale and was sponsored by the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture.

Through experimentation, play and innovation Joseph Fucigna creates sculptures and ink paintings that are known for their power to transform materials, inventiveness and odd but suggestive subject matter. He is a multi-media artist whose work is rooted in process, play and the innate qualities of the materials used. The work is not so much about the narrative as it is about the experience of the process, the materials used and how they express themselves.

Joseph Fucigna: "Plastic Mound"

Fucigna received his Masters of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in NY and his Bachelors of Fine Art from Alfred University. Fucigna’s work has been exhibited throughout Connecticut and NY. Joseph awarded many prestigious awards including the Molly and Albert Jacobson Award for Sculpture, the Amidar Award, and the Individual Artist Grant from the CT Commission on the Arts.

Reception for Boisvert and St. Mary show at Gallery 195 Tuesday evening

Gallery 195
195 Church St., 4th floor (First Niagara Bank), New Haven, (203) 772-2788
Ethan Boisvert and Mark K. St. Mary
Through Jun. 14, 2013.
Artists' Reception: Tues., Apr. 23, 5-7 p.m.

Press release from the Arts Council of Greater New Haven

The Arts Council of Greater New Haven presents an exhibition of paintings by Connecticut artists Ethan Boisvert and Mark K. St. Mary at Gallery 195 at First Niagara Bank, 195 Church St., 4th floor, New Haven. The exhibition will be on display during bank hours from Mar. 19 through Jun. 14, 2013. An artists’ reception is scheduled for Tues., Apr. 23, from 5—7 p.m. The public is invited to attend.

Ethan Boisvert and Mark K. St. Mary are both obsessed with colorful patterns and layered patinas rich with memories, yet each artist achieved this quality in their artwork through a different lens: St. Mary literally through the camera lens and Boisvert, through a heavily built up painted canvas. St Mary, using light, shadow and color, reframes recognizable places into abstract environments; seen together, these artists create abstractions that suggest both micro and macro universes.

Boisvert builds his canvas surface from densely layered, broad gestural marks- brushed and stamped- building a history of the artist's process in each painting. Borrowing from a rich tradition of abstraction, he reworks his canvases to reach what he considers "equilibrium."

Ethan Boisvert: "All Undone with Insipid Subsume"

"In my painting, I take a 21st century approach, an appropriation of styles created by the 20th century avant-garde. One could say that I sample or loosely appropriate purified styles and combine them into new works—a synthesizer if you will," Boisvert explains in his artist statement on his Web site.

Mark K. St. Mary is a photographer who also has formal training in horticultural design and holds a Masters in biology. In addition, he is a professional landscaper and carpenter whose other means of artistic expression are restoring period houses and designing and building custom furniture. An avid amateur photographer for 36 years, St. Mary began exhibiting work in 2007.

"My work is a visual representation of my emotional connection to elements of the environment. I strive to create a sense of presence, capturing a mood through the intersection of light, form and color… It has more to do with the value of light and shadow than with the actual subject—allowing the subject to acquire a grace unavailable in context so that the subject becomes irrelevant," St. Mary explains in an artist statement on his Web site.

Gallery talk and show openings Saturday at Gallery on the Green in Canton

Gallery on the Green
Corner of Dowd and Route 44, Canton, (860) 693-4102
Robert Cottingham: Viewing America—Lithographs, Woodcuts and Etchings
Six Generations of American Artists from the McKay Family Tree, 1883-2013
David Holzman: UMM Evolution
Apr. 26—May 26, 2013.
Robert Cottingham Gallery Talk: Sat., Apr. 27, 5—6 p.m.
Opening Reception: Sat., Apr. 27, 6—9 p.m.

Press release from Gallery on the Green

Join us for the Annual Maxwell Shepherd Memorial Invitational Exhibition at the Gallery on the Green, on display from April 26 through May 26. We are thrilled to have as our guest artist the internationally renowned painter and printmaker, Robert Cottingham. Works were selected from the artist’s personal collection by co-curators Walter Kendra, Professor Emeritus of Art at Central Connecticut State University and John Willis, Professor of Printmaking at the Hartford Art School, University of Hartford.

The show is entitled Viewing America: Lithographs, Woodcuts and Etchings. The curators were struck by the variety of printmaking techniques employed by the artist, including the use of multiple techniques on a single print. Robert Cottingham is one of the pioneers of Photo-Realist art. His work explores themes and images of the urban, industrial American landscape, focusing on the two cities of Los Angeles and New York. Examples of his work can be found in major museums (Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art), galleries and private collections.

Robert Cottingham: "One Way"

The artist will give a gallery talk on Sat., Apr. 27, from 5—6 p.m. An opening reception for the show will follow from 6—9 p.m. Both events are free and the public is cordially invited.

In the upstairs galleries there will be two very different solo shows by members of the Canton Artists’ Guild.

David McKay and his co-curator and niece Sarah McKay present Six Generations of American Artists from the McKay Family Tree, 1883-2013. This fascinating exhibit explores the dramatic changes in American art and life over a period of one hundred and thirty years and the role of the artist through the continuum of one family. As is stated in the comprehensive show catalog, "Throughout history, art has been influenced by the social, political and technological world in which it was created."

The second upstairs exhibition is UMM Evolution, work by artist and art educator David Holzman. David’s relief carvings are based on his watercolor series, The Book of UMM. Both his watercolors and carvings will be on display. The basswood carvings are highly imaginative, brightly painted and inspired by the art of indigenous cultures, medieval wood-carving and the work of outsider artists.

Two shows open Thursday during Creative Cocktail Hour at Real Art Ways

Real Art Ways
56 Arbor St., Hartford, (860) 232-1006
Tadashi Moriyama: Planetalgia
William Villalongo: Fierce!
Apr. 18—Jul. 4, 2013.
Opening reception during Creative Cocktail Hour: Thurs., Apr. 18, 6—8 p.m. Admission is $10/$5 Real Art Ways members.

Press release from Real Art Ways

The galleries at Real Art Ways will hold entirely new art for the next Creative Cocktail Hour on Thurs., Apr. 18, from 6-10 p.m. Opening receptions for Planetalgia by StepUp 2012 selectee Tadashi Moriyama and Fierce! by William Villalongo are the same night from 6—8 p.m. Admission is $10/$5 for Real Art Ways members.

Moriyama's Planetalgia is an accumulation of paintings, sculptures, performance, and animation, inspired by concepts from the book Lunartix by Seigou Matsuoka. Matsuoka coins the term "Planetary Nostalgia" as a sweet and bitter sentiment. Loosely translated, he writes, "Since we cannot escape from the earth, we feel despair for our fate and leave our destination on the unreachable but intimate moon, and yearn for it endlessly." This notion shapes the visual and conceptual language of the exhibition.

Tadashi Moriyama: "Planetalgia"

Tadashi Moriyama was born and raised in Japan, moving to the United States in 2001 at the age of 21. He received his BA in 2003 from the Tyler School of Art and his MFA in 2006 from the University of Pennsylvania. Moriyama's work has exhibited internationally and across the United States. Recent solo and group shows include Johansson Projects, San Francisco; Jonathan Ferrara, NewOrleans; Artiscope, Belgium; Artprojx cinema Volta art fair, New York.

Moriyama lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, using a variety of media, miniature drawing, sculpture and animation to create a form of unique narrative. He draws extensively on his own experience as a metropolitan resident, a Tokyo-raised New Yorker.

The term "Fierce!" in American vernacular language has a double meaning, which speaks to feminine beauty as a representation of strength and authority. Beauty and power are fused together to express an attitude that is antithetical to the common notions of both ideas. This exhibition brings together a selection of Villalongo's recent works subverting themes found in Primitivism, a Western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples. Through Villalongo's velvety, looking-glass paintings and drawings, the artist questions an exotic gaze directed toward "otherness" by inverting the genre of Modern Abstract painting. A clan of lake dwelling maidens pull models of Western art radically out of context, reconsidering standards of Western beauty and the possible intersections of art and survival.

William Villalongo: "Fierce!"

William Villalongo lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He was born in 1975 in Hollywood, FL and raised in the town of Bridgeton, NJ. Villalongo is the recipient of the prestigious Louis Comfort Tiffany Award and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptor's Grant. His work is included in several notable collections including the Studio Museum in Harlem, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Princeton University Art Museum. His work has been reviewed in Art In America, The New Yorker and The New York Times. Villalongo is currently represented by the Susan Inglett Gallery in New York, and PEVETO Fine Art in Houston.

Reception for Peterson photo show Saturday at City Gallery

City Gallery
994 State St., New Haven, (203) 782-2489
Tom Peterson: Uptown
Apr. 4—28, 2013.
Opening Reception: Sat., Apr. 13, 2—5 p.m.
Artist Talk: Sun., Apr. 28, 2—3 p.m.

Press release from City Gallery

City Gallery presents Uptown, April 4—28. The Opening reception is on Sat., Apr. 13, from 2—5 p.m. There is also a "meet the Artist" on Sun., April 28, between 2 and 3 pm and the artist will be at the gallery to talk about his work.

Tom Peterson: "Styling"

Uptown is a photographic exhibition of new work by Tom Peterson. Peterson’s latest portfolio focuses on New York’s upscale store displays. They present the viewer with today’s use of unique mannequin figures to market store apparel. The use of architectural reflections and angles provide an uptown vantage perspective. The juxtaposed images are open to evoke viewer emotions and interpretation.

Balkun show reception at 100 Pearl Street Gallery in Hartford Thursday

100 Pearl Street Gallery
100 Pearl St., Hartford, (860) 525-8629
Anita Gangi Balkun: Sanctuary
Through June 1, 2013.
Opening reception: Thurs., Apr. 11, 5—7 p.m.

Press release the Greater Hartford Arts Council

Sanctuary, a mixed-media installation exhibit by local artist Anita Gangi Balkun, premieres at the 100 Pearl Street Gallery managed by the Greater Hartford Arts Council. Balkun pairs memorable photographs with collages of personal artifacts to illuminate the beauty of everyday life, examining how these tokens combat the loss of memory and impermanence of identity as we grow into old age.

Anita Gangi Balkun: "Sanctuary"

A free public opening reception will be held on Thurs., Apr. 11, from 5—7 p.m. in the gallery space. Wine and light hors d’oeuvres will be served.

Anita Gangi Balkun received her MFA in Painting at the University of Hartford in 2009 under the mentorship of Stephen Brown. Since then, she has completed a studio residency at the Farmington Valley Arts Center and was commissioned to create an installation for the 2012 City Wide Open Studios sponsored by Artspace New Haven. Currently a West Hartford resident, Balkun teaches at the Greater Hartford Academy of Art and creates art in her studio in Avon.

Closing reception for Lisak photography show at Mercy Center Friday, Apr. 12

Mercy Center at Madison Mary C. Daly, RSM Art Gallery
167 Neck Rd., Madison, (203) 245-0401
Robert Lisak: The Flowering Cross—Holy Week in an Andean Village
Through Apr. 13, 2013.
Closing Reception: Fri., Apr. 12, 6:30—8 p.m.

Press release from the Mercy Center at Madison

In 2008, noted New Haven art photographer Robert Lisak traveled to Peru during Holy Week to document a cultural treasure in a remote Andean village. The resulting exhibition of Mr. Lisak’s photographs will be on display at the Mary C. Daly, RSM Art Gallery, Mercy Center at Madison, 167 Neck Road, Madison, CT from Mar. 15—Apr. 13 (open everyday 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m.). The exhibition focuses on the colonial Inca town of Andahuaylillas, near Cuzco.

The extraordinary 17th century church at the center of the town houses remarkable murals, oil paintings, gilded sculptures and two colonial pipe organs. In Andahuaylillas, Holy Week is celebrated with rituals that combine Quechua hymnody with late medieval and Baroque liturgical practices in a pure form rarely seen in the last fifty or more years. The photographer had unprecedented access to events and to parts of the building not open to the public, and the exhibition offers a unique glimpse into early evangelical conversion practices and their continued vitality in the context of the rich bilingual contemporary Andean culture.

Robert Lisak: "Holy Week in an Andean Village"

There will be a closing reception on Fri., Apr. 12, at the Mercy Center, from 6:30—8 p.m. Both the exhibition and the reception are free and open to the public. All pieces are for sale with a portion of the proceeds benefitting Mercy Center.