Anna Held Audette retrospective opens this Friday at Reynolds Fine Art in New Haven

Reynolds Fine Art
96 Orange St., New Haven, (203) 498-2200
View of the Past: Anna Held Audette
Feb. 1—Apr. 3, 2013.
Artist Reception: Fri., Feb. 1, 5—8 p.m.

Press release from Reynolds Fine Art

Reynolds Fine Art is pleased to present Anna Held Audette in her first solo exhibition at the gallery. View of the Past will showcase a selection of Audette’s paintings, prints and drawings that came out of her illustrious career as an artist, writer, and teacher, spanning over fifty years.

Anna Held Audette: "Italian Forms"

Subjects such as abandoned factories, ships, bridges, and the dilapidated space launch site, Cape Canaveral, have been memorialized through Audette’s canvases. Stemming from her underlying interest in structure, Audette’s paintings are an exploration of the speed and effect of decay on modern industrial powers. These objects and locations, however, are not depicted as foreboding omens of the demise of industry, but rather, the artist has approached them with sympathy in feeling their neglect and emptiness. Audette’s paintings possess reverence for their subjects and act as symbols of hope for rebirth. These works are both realistic and abstract as her tendency is to focus on shapes, spaces, shadows and light. This technique has allowed the artist to capture the spirit of her subjects. Audette said of her work, “The relics remind us that, in our rapidly changing world, the triumphs of technology are just a moment away from obsolescence. Yet these remains of collapsed power have a strength, grace and sadness that is both eloquent and impenetrable. Transfigured by time and light, which render the ordinary extraordinary, they form a visual requiem of the industrial age.”

In addition to Audette’s paintings, Reynolds Fine Art will be showing a selection of works on paper by the artist. Where Audette’s canvases tend to convey auras of resilience and power, despite their subjects declining condition, her prints and drawings possess the softer quality of a delicate, personal narrative. These works create an intimacy with the artist and reveal more of her internal conflicts; lighthearted and simple thoughts are juxtaposed with images that elicit a darker, more contorted, emotional response.

In 2008 Anna Held Audette was diagnosed with Fronto-Temporal Degeneration, an extremely rare form of Alzheimer’s. Since her diagnosis, Audette’s cognitive functions have declined, but with the assistance of a former student she has carried on with painting and drawing.

Reynolds Fine Art, located at 96 Orange Street, is part of the 9th Square’s historic district in downtown New Haven, a new up and coming area to shop, dine, and experience art. The mission of Reynolds Fine Art is to contribute to the economic and cultural ecosystem through vibrant samples of artwork, not only in our home neighborhood, but also in the Lower Chapel district and in New Haven as a whole. Periodically shows, demonstrations, lectures and workshops are held to infuse New Haven with diverse aspects of the art world.

Friday night opening of drawing show at Reynolds Fine Art in New Haven

Reynolds Fine Art
96 Orange St., New Haven, (203) 498-2200
The Line
Nov. 2—Dec. 1, 2012.
Opening Reception: Fri., Nov. 2, 5—8 p.m.

Press release from Reynolds Fine Art

Reynolds Fine Art is pleased to present The Line, an exhibition that examines the purpose and life of drawing in relation to art making. This group exhibition will feature the work of twelve different national artists whose use of the medium in this context broadens the boundaries typically associated with its name.

Injoo Whang: "Yellow Infinity"

Ranging from studies to full completion, all pieces are works of art. From realist to abstract expressionist, these drawings are evidence of the flexibility and transformative nature of drawing. Whether it be through the use of graphite, ink, metal point, pastel, or even embroidered thread, each artist in this exhibition has offered their interpretation of The Line in their own way.

The artists featured in this exhibition are Dennis Angel, Anna Held Audette, Cathi Bosco, Jane Catlin, Beverly Gardner, Robert Reynolds, Geoff Silvis, Rick Stevens, Daphne Taylor, Sandra Vlock, Susan Weinreich, and Injoo Whang.

Picture book: Nathan Lewis reads the ruins

West Cove Studio Gallery
30 Elm St., West Haven, (203) 627-8030
Nathan Lewis: Reading the Ruins
Closed.

Collapsing. Falling apart. The great industrial engine of the American economy increasingly decaying into ruin. Or let that be "ruins," plural. And in that desolation, some artists find visual inspiration.

One example of this was in the Anna Held Audette retrospective at the John Slade Ely House this past May. Audette concentrated on industrial sites and machinery as formal objects. Commentary was implicit and the art historical reference traced its lineage back to 18th and 19th Century painters who depicted ruins of ancient Greek and Roman antiquity. For the most part, Audette's paintings were industrial landscapes without a figurative presence.

In Nathan Lewis' painting show, Reading the Ruins, which closed this past weekend at A-Space Gallery in West Haven, the human element is present. The show features five large paintings, two smaller ones and four rough studies. In Lewis' paintings, people seem almost tourists of desolation, wandering dazed through factory rubble ("Orpheus") or stooping to pick up a small hardcover book off a detritus-strewn floor ("Book Keeper"). In "Light is the Lion That Comes Down to Drink," a bespectacled middle-aged man—seen through rusted diagonals of collapsed metal beams—carries what might be a piece of wood, a souvenir, in his right hand.

The backlit figure in "In the Dark"—not easily identifiable as a woman or man—reaches into a hole in a riven, peeling wall, searching for who knows what. The floor is strewn with debris and the old brick walls, painted white, are tagged with red and black graffiti. Lewis zeroes in on a tight cluster of seven upturned faces in the smaller painting "War Bells." The group—which includes local painters Paul Panamarenko and Larry Morelli as well as Anne Somsel, wife of art critic and curator Stephen Vincent Kobasa, and their daughter Claire—looks up at something outside the frame.

Hanging over these works is a sense of impersonal forces at work with the people in these spaces contemplating what has happened to their world. In fact, the only painting in which there is a real sense of active agency is "I Burn Today." In this work, the foregrounded figure—seen from waist down in torn blue jeans and sneakers—holds a kerosene can in their left hand (which has black-painted fingernails). Impersonal economic forces may have set in motion the demise of this factory but one individual can put the final nail in the coffin.

Lewis, who came to the gallery while I was visiting, says he has always been intrigued by these kinds of industrial ruins. He created the series as a challenge to himself to figure out how to depict this type of urban landscape. The results are exceptional. There is a tactile sense of the forms, capturing the feel of brick, rust, metal, wood and clusters of pink insulation material.

And the light. In "Light is the Lion That Comes Down to Drink," Lewis apprehends the nature of the foreground light—both the direct light coming down through holes in the ceiling, splashing on debris, and the surrounding diffuse light on the floor. Lewis tells me that seeing light as he hasn't seen it before is exciting. Similarly, in "Gate Keeper" (the large version), Lewis renders the subtle light in an essentially dark space; it is a painting primarily of shadow detail.

This series captures both a historical moment in late industrial capitalism and our response to that moment. Like the figures inside the frame, we absorb a certain kind of catastrophic beauty in these paintings like deer in the headlamps. Something is bearing down on us and it isn't good. But these paintings are. Very.

Audette retrospective showcases painter's mastery of form

John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art
51 Trumbull Street, New Haven, (203) 624-8055
Anna Held Audette: A Retrospective
Through May 27, 2012.

We live in a strange world, a world we make and a world we destroy. Within that cycle of creation and destruction there can be found a lot of surprising beauty.

For at least two decades, painter Anna Held Audette has been crafting complex paintings inspired by the structures and machinery of the modern industrial age as it slides into obsolescence. The retrospective of her work at the John Slade Ely House, which closes this Sunday, is a master class in painterly skill, composition and conceptual rigor.

Throughout the two floors of the Ely House are a few dozen paintings—along with some older prints and drawings—mostly concerned with architectural and technological form.

Had Audette been painting in the 1930's or 1950's, her work might have been glorifying the majestic, burgeoning industrial might of the United States, sort of a "Capitalist Realism." But most of the works date from the 1980's on, a period in which the predominant trend has been deindustrialization.

Many of these works are landscapes of collapse and decay—scrapyards piled high with machine debris, rusting in the sun, and factory buildings, gutted and falling apart. Audette has dubbed the latter paintings "modern ruins." In their conceptual concern, they reference the Renaissance and post-Renaissance predilection for painting the ruins of antiquity (see "Hubert Robert in New Haven" [1993], below).


But this is a collapse run at fast-forward speed, and with conscious intent. Our ruins may be monumental in scale but there is something wasteful and small about them. That, however, is a socio-political judgment. As an aesthetic matter, there is an undeniable attraction to these scenes of piled-high junk (like "Scrap Metal V" [1990], below), gears and machinery and light streaming in through tall windows overlooking mournful, empty factory floors.


While these are representational works, Audette often painted cropped segments of scenes; she usually worked from photographs. The effect is to approach a kind of formal abstraction in which color, contour, light and shape juxtapositions are more important than depicting a specific object (see "Old New Haven Terminal" [2006], below).


A dozen or so of Audette's most recent works are shown in the final room on the second floor. Audette was diagnosed in 2009 with Fronto-Temporal Dementia (FTD), a rare form of Alzheimer's disease. While Audette's lifelong interest in making art declined initially, since 2010—with the assistance and encouragement of former student Carole Dubiell—she has completed 120 "new" paintings, including "Ship II" (2011), seen below.

Thursday night opening at Hulls One Whitney: CWOS Encore 2008

Hull's One Whitney
1 Whitney Ave., New Haven, (203) 907-0320
Open Studios Encore 2008
Nov. 13, 2008—Jan. 8, 2009
Opening reception: Thurs., Nov. 13, 5—8 p.m.

Press release

Thanks to you it has been an amazing first year at Hull's One Whitney Gallery. Due to your support, we are able to present our 2nd Annual Open Studios Encore. Four days and over 100 studio visits later, we are excited to bring you this year's selections from 23 of Connecticut's most promising artists.

The featured artists are: Anna Held Audette (Web), Riley Brewster, Susan Clinard (Web), Megan Craig, Geoffrey Detrani (Web), Steven DiGiovanni, (Web, see image on right), Silas Finch, Stephan Gunn, Brian Huff (Web), Daniel Huff, Jo Kremer, Ann Lindbeck, Evie Lindeman, Barbara Marks, Andrea Miller, Larry Morelli, Morel Morton (Web), Jason Noushin (Web), Liz Pagano (Web), Lyn Bell Rose, Kathryn Sodaitis, David Taylor, Jonathon Waters and Brian Wendler.

Please join us for the opening on Thurs., Nov. 13, from 5—8 p.m. Join us for refreshments and conversation with the artists.