Cham Hendon show opens Friday at Giampietro Gallery in New Haven

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Cham Hendon: Recent Work
June 1—30, 2012.
Opening Reception: Fri., June 1, 5—8 p.m.

Press Release

Fred Giampietro Gallery is pleased to present Cham Hendon: Recent Work, an exhibition of exhibition the artist’s latest work opening Fri., June 1, and on view through June 30.

Through a unique process of mixing acrylic paint and Rhoplex, artist Cham Hendon combines his mastery of color and composition with a unique mixing and pouring process to create exquisitely complex paintings on canvas. At first glance, Hendon’s work appears deceivingly simple but upon a closer examination one experiences a variety of subtle and abrupt shifts in shape, color, texture and tone.

Hendon’s career gained national notoriety in 1978 when his work was selected by curator Marcia Tucker to be included in the groundbreaking Bad Painting exhibition at The New Museum of Contemporary Art.

Hendon’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Mexico, and Europe. He has received many prestigious grants including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Hendon’s work can be found in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of the City of New York, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Birmingham Museum of Art as well as many private collections.

Questions of scale

A-Space Gallery at West Cove Studios
30 Elm St., West Haven, (203) 966-9700
Scale Factor
Through May 15, 2011.

I didn't spend much time taking notes at Saturday's Scale Factor opening at A-Space Gallery, located in West Cove Studios in West Haven. So this post's textual element will be fragmentary. The show features primarily paintings, the loose theme concerned with elements of scale.

On facing walls are both a series of miniature paintings by Emilia Dubicki and a large-scale work, "You Remember the Sky." Dubicki's paintings often reference real landscapes. "You Remember the Sky," according to Dubicki, is a work of the imagination untethered to any particular real world locale; the title comes from a poetic fragment inscribed in the bottom left of the work. Still, the sense of landscape is embedded within its gestural sweep of bold colors: elemental, fragrant with wind and sea brine. Dubicki's paintings on the facing wall, probably little more than 5" by 5", are more intimate, as if she is concentrating on just one element in a larger gestalt.



Dubicki's miniatures invite, almost demand, that the viewer inspect them closely. Cham Hendon's "Equal Justice Under Law," hung to their right, is a massive acrylic painting that paradoxically thrusts a viewer back to take it all in while pulling you in to absorb the painterly details. The "big picture" is of the imposing facade of an official court building. But by fusing his colors with a gel medium, Hendon creates swirls of colored abstraction within the overall representational aesthetic, as can be seen in the images below.



Jonathan Waters' (Web) works strike me as engaging more with perspective factor than scale factor. Although many of them are quite large—primarily painted panels inhabiting both the realms of painting and sculpture—they pique the interest particularly by considering them from different angles. One large work, when viewed directly, appears to be a series of several wood panels painted black and abutted against each other. But the edges of some of the panels are painted white. Viewed from the side, the white edges are visible and merge with the white wall on which the work is hung, creating the illusion that there are three separate black panels hung in close proximity.



Other works in the show:

Two Gerald Saladyga (Web) works from 1997, "Monoliths (Installation)" and "Monolith (Blue)":



Larry Morelli's (Web) "The Ghost in the Machine":


Chris Joy's (Web) Untitled (acrylic on wood):

Saturday opening at A-Space Gallery in West Haven

A-Space Gallery at West Cove Studios
30 Elm St., West Haven, (203) 966-9700
Scale Factor
Through May 15, 2011.
Opening Reception: Sat., Apr. 9, 4—8 p.m.

Press release

Scale Factor, a group exhibition, is now on view at A-Space Gallery at west Cove Studios. There will be an artists' reception for the show this Saturday, from 4—8 p.m. According to artist Jonathan Waters, "We all deal with scale in our work intuitively—proportions within a work, overall size, smaller elements making up a larger piece, heroic small pieces. I had hoped to create some dialogue around the subject, sort of a stepping-off point…and deliberately kept it loose." The notion of "scale" is the common thread. Waters says the show includes some works from the nineties and more recent works made for the show.


The exhibiting artists are Cat Balco (Web), Sharon Butler (Web), Ethan Boisvert (Web), Emilia Dubicki (Web), Cham Hendon (Web), Chris Joy (Web), Larry Morelli (Web), Jerry Saladyga (Web), Jean Scott, Brian Gill Wendler (Web) and Jonathan Waters.

Open Tues.—Sun., 1—4 p.m., or by appointment: (203) 627-8030.

Friday night art opening and Christmas party at A-Space, West Cove Gallery

West Cove Studio & Gallery
30 Elm St., West Haven, (203) 966-9700
sameness-difference-variance
Emilia Dubicki: Cold Suite
Bridges, Inc.
Dec. 6, 2010—Jan. 2, 2011
Opening Reception: Fri., Dec. 10, 6—10 p.m.

Press release

sameness-difference-variance is a group exhibition at West Cove Studio & Gallery running Dec. 6, 2010—Jan. 2, 2011. Organized by Eric Litke, the exhibition brings together work by eight Connecticut artists who share an interest in serial approaches to presenting their imagery, and creates a dialogue between the traditional poles of "painting" and "photography".

Included are works by: John Bent (Web), Cham Hendon (Web), Keith Johnson (Web), Eric Litke, Jeff Ostergren (Web), Jessica Schwind (Web), Mark Williams (Web), and Robert Zott (Web). The opening reception is Fri., Dec. 10 from 6—10 p.m. Open Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m.—4 p.m. and weekdays by chance or appointment: (860) 878-5589.

Also on view will be Cold Suite, an installation of drawings by Emilia Dubicki (Web); Bridges, Inc., a photograph show curated by Harold Shapiro (Web) and other works by studio artists throughout the building.