Two shows open Fri., Nov. 21, at Giampietro Gallery at Erector Square

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Elizabeth Gilfilen: Laid Ledge
Jeremy Chandler: Prone Positions
Nov. 21—Dec. 20, 2014.
Reception: Fri., Nov. 21, 6—8 p.m.

Press release from Giampietro Gallery

FRED.GIAMPIETRO Gallery is pleased to present Laid Ledge, an exhibition of new work by Elizabeth Gilfilen and Prone Positions, an exhibition of new work by Jeremy Chandler. This is Elizabeth's and Jeremy's first solo shows with the gallery.

Elizabeth Gilfilen writes:

The title of this exhibition, Laid Ledge alludes to the painting act, and to locating the physical and perceived edge of uncertainty. With paint, I move fluidly through the work, and I record each misstep. Accumulated marks grow and deviate; torquing forms emerge based on the decisions I make. A kinetic energy can overwhelm, yet I strive for a tension in the marks that is sprung almost as tight as the coils and tendons that create them. It is the alternating recognition of corporeal form and its immediate denial that causes me to revisit the work over many months. Over time, the scaffolding of marks can collapse into overlapping landscapes, defined by risk and just out of reach.

Artwork by Elizabeth Gilfilen

Elizabeth Gilfilen received her BFA from the University of Cincinnati and her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Awards include: Yaddo, The Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation Space Program, Gallery Aferro Studio Residency, The Bronx Museum's AIM Program, and the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop SIP Fellowship. Exhibitions include: Morgan Lehman Gallery, NY, Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, CT, and the Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, NJ. Her work will be published in New American Paintings; and has been reviewed in Two Coats of Paint, The Boston Globe, The Newark Star-Ledger and The New York Times.

In a recent statement, Jeremy Chandler describes his work:

My art practice has grown out of a desire to express my own personal history; experiences, relationships, and identity through a prolonged engagement with place and a process that emphasizes shared experiences with those I photograph. I create content through a variety of conceptual and formal approaches, such as straight photography, tableaus and documentary and narrative film projects. Throughout, futility, ritual, sublimity, land use and methods of concealment are all recurring themes in my work. My visual language is informed by my own memories, cultural mythology, and depictions of masculine identity through cinema, art history, and popular culture. I am interested in subverting ritualized expressions of masculinity to reveal a more nuanced idea of maleness and how culture and myth can often intertwine to create altered perceptions of space and place.

Jeremy Chandler: "Ghillie Suit (Pine Straw)"

In my most recent photographs, I construct images by repurposing methods utilized by hunting and military culture, turning otherwise weaponized techniques into benign aesthetic devices. I activate spaces that are typically already known to me, through the introduction of people, found and homemade props, and cinematic methods of storytelling.

Jeremy Chandler received his BFA from the University of Florida and his MFA from the University of South Florida. Jeremy's work has been exhibited in many prestigious galleries and museums both nationally and internationally. Chandlre's work will be published in Ellen Mueller's new publication titled, Elements and Principles of 4D Art and Design; and has been reviewed in Oxford American Magazine, The News Herald, and The Daily Loaf. Chandler's work can be found in The Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, CO, All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, FL and other public and private collections.

Ramon, Angelis shows open at Giampietro Gallery May 16

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Peter Ramon: Inherent Collisions
Michael Angelis: Collective Memories
May 16—June 11, 2014.
Reception: Fri., May 16, 6—8 p.m.

Press release from Giampietro Gallery

Fred Giampietro Gallery is pleased to present new works by Peter Ramon and Michael Angelis. Inherent Collisions is Ramon’s second solo show at the gallery and Collective Memories is Angelis’s first. These solo exhibitions run from May 16 through June 11, 2014.

Peter Ramon has always been captivated by the constant changing of the positive, negative, and colorful shapes casted in nature by sunlight. Each of Ramon’s compositions embodies the intention to document his responses to these brief moments, sideways glances, and fleeting thoughts. Those experiences are expressed through a beautiful and complex handling of layers, colors, textures, and shapes.

Peter Ramon: "Out Under the Sun"

Peter Ramon lives and works in Branford, CT. Ramon received his MFA from Indiana University and his BFA from the University of Hartford, Hartford Art School. His work has been included in numerous exhibits, including the Moody Art Gallery at the University of Alabama and The New Britain Museum of American Art. His work can be found in many private collections.

In a recent artist statement, Michael Angelis explains that his on-site paintings of the urban landscapes in and around New Haven have dominated the focus of his work over the past 5 years. The series began as a study of the street level experience underneath the overpasses of Route 91. Working directly in the environment influences the aesthetics in a much richer way than if the work were to be completed in the comfort of a studio setting, where it may simply imitate the photographs being used for reference. The paintings in the series often focus on environments in flux, whether they are actively changing or less obviously changing.

Michael Angelis: "Earth"

Michael Angelis lives and works in New Haven, CT. Angelis received an MEA from the Teachers College at Columbia and his BFA from SUNY Purchase. His work has been included many local exhibits.

Chuck Webster show opens at Giampietro Gallery at Erector Square Sat., Apr. 5, from 6—8 p.m.

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
91 Orange St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Chuck Webster: Shelter with works by Martín Ramírez, Thornton Dial, William Hawkins, and Marsden Hartley
Apr. 4—May 3, 2014.
Reception: Sat., Apr. 5, 6—8 p.m.

Press release from Giampietro Gallery

Fred Giampietro Gallery is pleased to announce the solo-exhibition of new works by artist Chuck Webster. The shows will be on view from Apr. 4—May 3, with an opening reception on Sat., Apr. 5, from 6—8 p.m.

From Ross Simonini, a writer, artist and musician based in New York and Interviews Editor for The Believer Magazine:

Chuck paints on wood. Sometimes he uses paper, which comes from wood, but mostly he works on thick, pale panels made of birch. Some of them are small enough to be handheld. Others are so large they could be mistaken for walls, and he heaves and slides these around his studio with chest-puffing exertion. He lays panels on the floor so he can pour liquids that accrete in a thin meniscus on their wooden surfaces. If he wants to paint outside the studio, he'll strap a panel to the roof of his Volvo station wagon, drive out to Rockaway Beach, and set himself up to work alfresco. The painted canvas is often described as a window; For Chuck, the wood panel is a roof, wall, and ceiling.

When he works, he puts the paint onto the wood with brush and hands. If he doesn't have gloves, he uses bare fingers and the pigment gets trapped under his nails for days. Even when he scrubs his hands feverishly with corn oil, the color stays put. Sometimes he'll make a painting in 2 hours, slathering on translucent textures that echo the whorling wood grain beneath the gesso, hues ranging from romantic, demonic maroon to thick, frosting-like applications of periwinkle.

Chuck Webster: "Perfect Home"

When he's finished, the images look like portraits and landscapes, a form of abstraction that remains connected to the physical world, governed by gravity. They often appear architectural, as houses upon undulating earth. Sometimes they're figures. He resists the term characters - preferring the more open-ended term "souls" - but embraces the possibility of narrative, and uses the words, "whip-tail" and doingle" to describe the ornamentations that flutter around his souls. Recently he's become compelled by a particular soul: a small octagonal shape with an ocular hole at its bellybutton that he stacks and bends, leans and constellates. It appears in almost every drawing and painting he makes.

The wood that surrounds Chuck is his home. He coats it with the full-armed technique of mural painting, something he was involved with for six years in the Barnstormers collective. He makes work near constantly - along the side of the highway, sitting the gallery during his exhibitions, or in a hotel room, where he recently got evicted and escorted from the premises for spilling paint on the desk and floor. When not creating, he is hungrily looking: at art in galleries or in the monographs stuffed into shelves of his studio at home. He curates often. Recently, he packed a gallery with small drawings by Picabia, Richard Tuttle, Mary Heilman and countless others. Soon, he will fill a space with devotional art by contemporary artists.

The works in this show by William Hawkins, Martin Ramirez, Marsden Hartley and Thornton Dial resonate with Chuck's sturdy, wooden, structural approach, and all of them have served as inspiration for his own paintings. He refers to these artists as "heroes," and he has spent considerable time poring over their works. They are his shelter. They are the foundation and building within which he constructs his own images. Under the roof of this gallery, his works and the work of his artistic architects can cohabitate.

Lindroth photography exhibit opens at Giampietro Gallery on Orange Street Fri., Mar. 21

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
91 Orange St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Linda Lindroth: Recent Disturbances
Mar. 21—Apr. 19, 2014.
Reception: Fri., Mar. 21, 6—8 p.m.
Artists' Talk: Sat., Apr. 5, 2 p.m.
Press release from Giampietro Gallery

Fred Giampietro Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Linda Lindroth. This exhibition will be Lindroth’s second solo exhibition with the Gallery and is entitled Recent Disturbances. The shows will be on view from Mar. 21—Apr. 19 at the Orange Street location, with an opening reception on Fri., Mar. 21, from 6—8 p.m. and an artists' talk on Sat., Mar. 15, at 2 p.m.

Lindroth’s large-scale work utilizes vintage packaging and ephemera as a source. The artist manually manipulates, digitizes and prints these objects over-sized, creating a situation where they are taken out of context. All work is printed on archival Epson Hot Press Natural and presented allowing the paper to float in the frames.

Linda Lindroth: "Tower"

Lindroth’s artworks are included in many important public collections including the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the High Museum in Atlanta, the Princeton University Art Gallery, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. She has won numerous grants and prizes including ones from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, The National Endowment for the Arts, The New England Foundation for the Arts, and the Architecture League of New York. She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree from Rutgers University and is an adjunct professor at Quinnipiac University.

ArtSpot! happy hour networking event in New Haven to resume Thurs., Mar. 27

Arts Council of Greater New Haven
70 Audubon St., 2nd floor, New Haven, (203) 772-2788
ArtSpot
Mar. 27, 2014 at Fred Giampietro Gallery at Erector Square.

Press release from the Arts Council of Greater New Haven

The Arts Council of Greater New Haven is happy to announce the return of ArtSpot! The art inspired happy hour will kick off on Thurs., Mar. 27, from 5:30—7:30 p.m. at Fred Giampietro Gallery, 315 Peck Street in New Haven, CT. It is the first of a series of seasonal events. On view in the gallery will be artwork by Richard Lytle and Blinn Jacobs. Join us for a night of art, live jazz, drinks and mingling. Tickets are $10 for Arts Council members and $15 for non-members. Ticket includes two free drinks and refreshments.

For nearly 6 years ArtSpot! served as a regular monthly event for business professionals at various New Haven arts institutions before it ended in 2008. The events provided a wonderful way for the community to discover the arts, meet new friends and make a few lasting memories.

Our goal for the new ArtSpot! is to host the event once per season to help foster conversations about art, inspire professional and artistic collaborations and to provide a great and exciting event that the entire New Haven community can be part of. Check out our ArtSpot! article on the new #ARTNHV Blog.

Lytle, Jacobs exhibits open Fri., Feb. 28, at Giampietro Gallery

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Blinn Jacobs: New Work
Richard Lytle: No Still Life
Feb. 28—Mar. 29, 2014.
Reception: Fri., Feb. 28, 6—8 p.m.
Artists' Talk: Sat., Mar. 15, 2 p.m.
Press release from Giampietro Gallery

Fred Giampietro Gallery is pleased to announce the solo-exhibitions of new works by artists Richard Lytle and Blinn Jacobs. The shows will be on view from Feb. 28—Mar. 29 at the Erector Square location at 315 Peck St., with an opening reception on Fri., Feb. 28, from 6—8 p.m. and an artists' talk on Sat., Mar. 15, at 2 p.m.

No Still Life, is the first solo show by Richard Lytle at the gallery. Discovery is the first thing that comes to mind when experiencing one of Richard Lytle’s virtuosic oils on canvas. Imagine walking deep into the forest and stumbling on a utopian vista. A silent, solitary, awareness comes over you. This is for the moment, if you turn away, it could vanish. The extraordinary grounding power of this work evokes a sense of solitude, mystery and place.

Richard Lytle: "Quartet"

Richard Lytle has been exhibiting his work internationally since the 1950’s. He was a Teaching Assistant for Joseph Albers at Yale University School of Art. His work has been included in many solo and group exhibitions including; the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, CT, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Coral Gables, FL, American Embassies around the world, Harvard University, Boston, MA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, and the Worlds Fair in Seattle. Lytle has been awarded many prestigious awards including the Saint Gaudens Medal and the Citation for Professional Achievement from Cooper Union. His work is included in many public and private collections including Yale University, the Albrecht Gallery Museum of Arts, Columbia University, the DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN, the Museum of Modern Art, NY, The National Museum of Art, Washington, DC and the Rockefeller Collection in NY.

Blinn Jacobs describes her work in a recent statement as being, "a dialogue between polygonal shaped canvases and the use of 'painterliness' in regard to the interaction of color. Some of the works retain surface clarity; others become saturated by manipulation of graphic marks and various media. All involve a process-oriented manner that allows for discovery and a freedom to extemporize. I am interested in using a variety of materials. Sometimes a whimsical and playfulness undermines the geometric formality of the work. Whether it is delicate weavings of ribbon or intersecting planes of transparent color where the hard edges are cajoled into an animated rhythm, I hope to merge movement with stability, transparency with opacity, and labor with play."

Blinn Jacobs: "X"

Blinn Jacobs received her BFA from the Yale University School of Art and her MFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania. Blinn’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Jacobs has been awarded many prestigious awards, grants, and residences including the State of Connecticut General Assembly Citation, The Dr. Thomas Ayoub and Christine Dombrowski Awards, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency in Sweet Briar, VA, and the Oberpfalzer Kunstlerhaus Fellowship, International Residency in Schwandorf Germany.

Voisine exhibit opens Friday at Giampietro Gallery on Orange Street

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
91 Orange St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Don Voisine: New Work
Jan. 10—Mar. 1, 2014.
Reception: Fri., Jan. 10, 6—8 p.m.

Press release from Giampietro Gallery

Fred Giampietro Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Don Voisine. The exhibition is Don Voisine's first solo show at the gallery. The show will be on view from Jan. 10—Mar. 1, with an opening reception on Fri., Jan. 10, from 6—8 p.m.

Don Voisine: "Flicker"

Voisine's hard-edged, overlapping, tilted-shaped abstractions, with interplays of matt and glossy surfaces, invite viewers to meditate on the relationship between form and texture. His powerful but often small-scaled work seems larger than life. Much like the work of sculptors such as Nonas, Andre and Serra, Voisine's paintings typically interact with and energize the spaces they occupy. His meticulous work expands on the hard-edged, purely abstract work of the modern masters and seems both fresh and timely.

Don Voisine has been exhibiting his work nationally and internationally since the 1970’s. His recent exhibitions include group shows at the National Academy Museum in New York, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, CA, the Hôtel de Sauroy in Paris, Galerie Lindner in Vienna, as well as solo exhibitions at Alejandra von Hartz Gallery in Miami and Gregory Lind Gallery in San Francisco. Voisine has been awarded many prestigious awards including the Hassam, Speicher Betts and Symonds Fund Purchase Award from American Academy of Arts and Letters in NY, The Portland Museum of Art Biennial Purchase Prize, the Henry Ward Ranger Fund Purcahse Award from the National Academy Museum in New York and an Honorary BFA from Maine College of Art.

The exhibition will take place at the Fred Giampietro Gallery’s new downtown location, 91 Orange St., in the historic 9th-Square district. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, from 11 AM to 6 PM.

Two shows open at Giampietro Gallery on Friday, Nov. 8

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Melissa Brown: Gertrude's Nose
Elisa Lendvay: Moon of the Moon
Nov. 8—Dec. 21, 2013.
Reception: Fri., Nov. 8, 5—8 p.m.

Press release from Giampietro Gallery

Fred Giampietro Gallery is pleased to present new work by artists Melissa Brown and Elisa Lendvay. The two shows will be on view from Nov. 8—Dec. 21, with an opening reception on Fri., Nov. 8, from 5—8 p.m.

Melissa Brown describes in a recent statement that the subject of her works are not to create a dutiful representation of the place being depicted. Brown is instead interested in exploring the formal possibilities of stencil, airbrushing, and graphic techniques to express moments of escape, fantasy and other worldly versions of reality with the hopes of making multiple views and multiple moments of time apparent. In this body of work, Melissa's imagery is in response to the Gertrude's Nose trail loop in Minnewaska State Park, NY.

Melissa Brown: "Facing West"

Melissa received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, and her MFA from Yale University. Her work has been shown throughout the Untied States and Canada.

Elisa Lendvay explains that her sculptures and paintings arrive out of a haptic sensibility. Through a combination of combined and often found objects she explores and creates forms that lyricize the internal dynamics of a given space, moment, or place. She seeks to elucidate movement and capture corporeal motion—forms on the verge of collapse or convergence within a specified space or landscape.

Elisa Lendvay: "Somniloquy"

Elisa received her BFA from The University of Texas at Austin and her M.F.A. from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College. Her work has been exhibited Nationally and Internationally.

Jukkala, Granwell shows opening Friday at Giampietro Gallery in New Haven

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Clint Jukkala: Off Course
Alexis Granwell: Ghost Stories
Oct. 11—Nov. 2, 2013.
Reception: Fri., Oct. 11, 5—8 p.m.

Press release from Giampietro Gallery

Fred Giampietro Gallery is pleased to present new work by artists Clint Jukkala and Alexis Granwell. The two shows will be on view from Oct. 11—Nov. 2, with an opening reception on Fri., Oct. 11, from 5—8 p.m.

Clint Jukkala’s paintings combine color, geometry, and textured surfaces to create images that hover on the edge of nameable things. Ostensibly abstract, his work evokes real world references, suggesting figures, architecture, and landscape elements. Eye-like openings and framing devices orient the viewer, making them question their own perceptions. A play between part and whole ensues as the paintings configure and reconfigure through the act of looking.

Clint Jukkala: "Oracle"

Jukkala received his BFA from the University of Washington in Seattle, and his MFA from Yale University. His work has been shown at Feature Inc., and Envoy Enterprises in New York, The deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA, Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Philadelphia, PA, VOLTA NY 2013, The Currier Museum, and Soil Gallery in Seattle. He lives and works in New Haven, CT.

Alexis Granwell will be presenting sculptures and monumental prints made during a summer residency at one of the only ten foot-presses in the country, at AS220 in Providence. The works in Ghost Stories depict metaphysical structures that have an ancient quality with imagery that convulsively expands, erases, and erupts.

Granwell received her BFA from Boston University, College of Fine Arts and her M.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States including the State Museum of Pennsylvania, the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, FSU Museum of Fine Arts, Art Basel, and the University of Richmond Museum. Granwell has also received many prestigious awards and honors including the Joan Mitchell Grant Nominee, the Woodmere Art Museum Maurice Freed Memorial Prize, the University of Pennsylvania Neil Welliver Award, University of the Arts Professional Development Grant, Ragdale Artist Residency, AS220 Artist in Residence, and the Europos Parkas Artist Residency.

Keeting and Grill shows to open at Giampietro Gallery Friday, Sept. 6

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Zachary Keeting: Recent Work
Clare Grill: Steeped
Sept. 6—Oct. 5, 2013.
Reception: Fri., Sept. 6, 5—8 p.m.

Press release from Giampietro Gallery

Fred Giampietro Gallery is pleased to present new work by artists Zachary Keeting and Clare Grill. The two shows will be on view from Sept. 6—Oct. 5, with an opening reception on Fri., Sept. 6, from 5—8 p.m.

Zachary Keeting's abstract paintings are visually compelling and technically unique. His surfaces are constantly in flux: calligraphic gestures, crackled pours, blotted geometries, all whirling around in dynamic organic imbalance. They exhibit a great understanding of color, movement, texture, and composition.

Zachary Keeting: "April (2)"

Keeting received his M.F.A from Boston University and his B.F.A. from Alfred University. Zachary’s work has exhibited extensively throughout New England and New York. Keeting has been awarded many residency and fellowship opportunities including an Artist-in-Residence at VCCA in Amherst, VA, Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY, Petrified National Forests in Arizona, Byrdcliffe in Woodstock, NY, Montana Artist Refuge in Basin, Montana, Santa Fe Art Institute, Pouch Cove in Newfoundland, Canada, Millay colony in Austerlitz, NY, and the Woodstock School of Art in NY.

Clare Grill writes, "My paintings come from a reverence for and curiosity about what's past—mine and everyone’s . . . I make paintings about things fading away. My paintings have an available but perhaps not an obvious logic, like when an image dictates something about the mark, but the mark isn't at the total will of the image. I come to each piece differently, sometimes by looking at my things, or out the window, or at pictures of familiar places, or old drawings, or other times by reading a string of words I’ve copied down somewhere. I mess with the images these thoughts cook up, layering and wearing them away. I've become less concerned with image really, and more with just painting. The image surfaces according to the way the paint looks like it feels to touch."

Grill received her M.F.A. from the Pratt Institute and her B.A. from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. In 2011 Clare attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Grill's work has exhibited throughout New England and NY. Clare has accepted many prestigious awards including the Pratt Alumni Award from Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and Best in Show for the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts curated by Carter Foster. Grill has also participated in AIM 28 Bronx Museum and Aljira, Emerge 9 as well as a residency fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center.

Two shows open Friday, Jun. 7, at Giampietro Gallery in New Haven

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Riley Brewster: Works
The Self-Portraits of Samuel Rothbort
Jun. 7—29, 2013.
Reception: Fri., Jun. 7, 5—8 p.m.

Press release from Giampietro Gallery

Fred Giampietro Gallery is pleased to present work by artists Riley Brewster and Samuel Rothbort (1882—1971). The two shows will be on view from Jun. 7—29, with an opening reception on Fri., Jun. 7, from 5—8 p.m.

In an artist’s statement from 2005, Riley Brewster writes, "My paintings most often employ an initiating form which operates spatially, metaphorically and structurally as a threshold space. It is a form that measures the painting space in terms of scale, point-of-view, and metaphoric, symbolic identity. It is this form that keeps the paradigm of the reading of the painting hermetic: the viewer is kept on one side of this initiating form; the rest of the paintings spatial relationships occur within the painting space on the far side of this form. This form operates as the hinge between these worlds—the viewers and the paintings. I have become interested in the thought, the possibility of the whole painting operating, functioning as this hinge. This is among my present concerns."

Riley Brewster: Untitled

Brewster received his M.F.A in Painting from the Yale University School of Art and his B.A. in Studio Art from Bowdoin College. Brewster's work has been exhibited throughout the United States as well as Alaska. Brewster has accepted many of prestigious awards including the Louis Comfort Tiffany award, the Maine State Commission on the Arts Biannual Award in Painting, the Bowdoin Faculty Research Award, and Highest award for excellence in painting from Yale University. Brewster has also been awarded many residency and fellowship opportunities including the Visiting Artist Residency from Vermont Studio Center, Painting Fellowship from the Ingram Merrill Foundation, Painting Fellowship from the Pollock/Krasner Foundation, and a Painting Fellowship from the Esther and Adolf Gottlieb Foundation. Brewster's work can be found in both private and public collections including the Davis Museum of Art, the Museum of Art (Portland, Maine) Vermont Studio Center, and the Yale University Museum of Art.

Samuel Rothbort (1882-1971) maintained an intensely personal vision during his long career as an artist. His body of work is best known for his wood and stone sculpture and his painted scenes of Long Island and New York. Fred Giampietro is pleased to present a rarely seen glimpse into Rothbort's eccentric life through his self-portraits.

Samuel Rothbort: "Profile in Shadow"

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 Friday evening for Cunningham show at Giampietro Gallery

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Jan Cunningham: Recent Paintings and Photographs
Apr. 5—27, 2013.
Reception: Fri., Apr. 5, 5—8 p.m.
Artists' Talk: Sat., Apr. 13, 2 p.m.

Press release from Giampietro Gallery

Fred Giampietro Gallery is pleased to present new work by artist Jan Cunningham. This show will be on view from Apr. 5—27 with an opening reception Fri., Apr. 27, from 5—8 p.m. and an artist's talk on Sat., Apr. 13, at 2 p.m.

Jan Cunningham, in a recent statement, describes how her work in the studio moves through cycles of expansion and compression. At present, the paintings are in a period of compression. For the past year, Cunningham has come back to making very simple paintings—using as few elements as possible, and letting each element play its role fully. In the course of making the painting, Cunningham seeks to generate as much light and depth, using demarcations, densely layered color, and a few lines. The lines, or slots, depending on the painting, serve as a kind of aperture in the work—an opening that light passes through, and through which one can see the history of the making of the painting; they can be a way into the painting, or posts to mark the landscape. Cunningham thinks of these paintings as emptied-out—scraped clean of any non-essential distraction, ready to serve as a chamber in which the simple elements can resonate.

Jan Cunningham: "Fence XII"

In 2010, Cunningham integrated photography into her practice in a formal way. She feels that as a matter of interest, the practice of photography has entered into a dialogue with the work in the studio, to the benefit of both. Her eye has led her to the things that she captures with the camera, and those things in turn affect the work in painting in the studio. Bringing photography into her practice has liberated the paintings from having to be “everything”—and therefore freed them to be more.

Jan Cunningham received her Masters of Fine Arts degree from Yale University and her Bachelors of Fine Art from the Rhode Island School of Design. Cunningham’s work has been exhibited internationally and throughout the East Coast. Jan has been awarded many residency opportunities including the Yale University Art Gallery Lewitt/Doran Residency and Yaddo. She completed a fellowship in Photography through the Connecticut Artist Fellowship and was invited to the American Academy in Rome as a Visiting Artist.

Two shows open Friday at Giampietro Gallery

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Beck Yazdan: Recent Work
Christopher Joy: Recent Work
Mar. 1 —29, 2013.
Reception: Fri., Mar. 1, 5—8 p.m.
Artists' Talk: Sat., Mar. 23, 2—4 p.m.

Press release from Giampietro Gallery

Fred Giampietro Gallery is pleased to present new work by artists Becky Yazdan and Christopher Joy.

Becky Yazdan lives and works in NYC. She received her MFA from the NY Studio School, studying with Bill Jensen and Graham Nickson, and her Bachelors of Fine Art from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her work is in response to industrial grit, juxtaposing elements of nature, as it attempts to reclaim its territory. Yazdan’s work has been exhibited throughout the East Coast and New York. Becky has received many prestigious awards including the Emma Strain Award, Top 100 Artists by GLAAD, and the Hohenberg Travel Award.

Becky Yazdan: "Ticker Tape"

Sculptor Chris Joy lives and works in New Haven, CT. Joy explores the juxtaposition of raw, off-the-shelf and discarded objects.

Christopher Joy: "Easy As 1-2-3"

Joy received his Masters of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York and his Bachelors of Fine Art from the University of Connecticut. His work has been exhibited throughout New England.

Linda Lindroth talk at Kehler Liddell Gallery tomorrow during Photo Arts Collective meeting

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Talk by photographer Linda Lindroth at monthly meeting of Photo Arts Collective: Thurs., Feb. 7, 7 p.m.

Press release from Giampietro Gallery

Linda Lindroth will talk about her recent photographs, Trickster in Flatland at the monthly meeting of the Photo Arts Collective at the Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Avenue in New Haven, on Thurs., Feb. 7, at 7 p.m. The talk is free and open to the public.

Linda Lindroth is an artist, photographer, writer and Adjunct Professor at Quinnipiac University where she has taught courses about visual culture in departments including Women’s Studies, Interactive Digital Design, Fine Art and the University Writing Seminars for the past 15 years. She has a BA and MFA in Art from Rutgers University and her work is represented in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA. She has exhibited internationally and has received Grants and prizes from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, the NJ State Council on the Arts, the Architecture League of New York, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New England Foundation for the Arts. She is the co-author of Virtual Vintage (Random House 2002) Her recent photographs entitled, Trickster in Flatland were exhibited at the Giampietro Gallery in September, 2012. (See the Connecticut Art Scene review here.) Linda Lindroth is represented by FRED.GIAMPIETRO Gallery in New Haven, CT.

Opening reception Friday at Giampietro Gallery

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Karen Dow: Alone Together
Jonathan Waters: Quarry Works
Works by Danny Huff
Feb. 1 —27, 2013.
Reception: Fri., Feb. 1, 5—8 p.m.
Artists' Talk: Sat., Feb. 16, 1:30—4 p.m.

Press release from Giampietro Gallery

Giampietro Gallery is pleased to present new work by artists Karen Dow and Jonathan Waters.

Alone Together

For Karen Dow, painting is a process experience. She sets parameters, beginning with a basic grid, and then goes along for the ride, making intuitive edits–which coalesce and weave into patterns, shapes, and color relationships– in search of a surprise ending. In each painting, visible remnants of older decisions add historical depth. As Karen Dow states, “Sometimes a painting is easy, like a conversation with an old friend. Other times it becomes a struggle or a conundrum. In the end I want the work to be an ongoing dialog that takes me somewhere I never knew I was headed."

Karen Dow: "Hook"

Karen Dow received her Masters of Fine Arts degree from the Yale University School of Art, her Post-Baccalaureate Degree from Brandeis University, and her Bachelors of Art from Marlboro College. Dow’s work has been exhibited throughout New England and New York and has been awarded many awards including the Joan Mitchell Career Enhancement Grant/Fellowship.

Quarry Works

Jonathan Waters’ new floor and wall sculptures express shifting volumes that expand and contract according to one’s vantage point. His application of paint to traditional steel bar and carved wood solidifies, rather than dematerializes, these media. His move away from traditional display pedestals activates the negative spaces viewers occupy.

Jonathan Waters

Jonathan Waters received his Masters of Fine Arts degree from the Yale University School of Art and his Bachelors of Fine Art from Windham College. His work has been exhibited throughout New England and New York.

Gourlay, Carr shows open Friday at Giampietro Gallery at Erector Square

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Gallery 1: Elizabeth Gourlay: A Year Long Song
Gallery 2: Susan Carr: Recent Work
Oct. 12—Nov. 10, 2012.
Reception: Fri., Oct. 12, 5—8 p.m.

Press release from Giampietro Gallery

The Giampietro Gallery will be exhibiting new work by Elizabeth Gourlay and Susan Carr. The exhibition opens on Fri., Oct. 12, with a reception from 5 until 8 p.m. and continues through Nov. 10, 2012.

Elizabeth Gourlay’s work is a meditation on color and form. The drawings and paintings emerge from a gradual yet progressive layering that leads to a complex network of shifting shapes and colors. The shapes and lines create a new vocabulary of abstract forms. They are resonances with inner emotional states, elements of feeling or sub- conscious thought combined with conscious thought about architecture and geometric structure. Gourlay often begins with a background layer of washes and then works with elements of line and form. The color may become muted and minimal, admixing into greys and neutrals or it may become vibrant and intense. There are parallels in musical composition, as looking at the work is a dynamic interaction and the eye moves around the piece element to element, as musical note to musical note. The result is a play of tones, chords, dissonances and harmonies.

Elizabeth received her Masters of Fine Arts degree in painting from the Yale University School of Art and her Bachelors of Art from Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. She had been exhibited throughout New England and New York and has been awarded many prestigious awards including two artist in residence at the studio of Sol LeWitt in Italy (2011 & 2012).

Susan Carr explores the depths of her medium through a unique process of mixing, dripping, molding, and layering. When complete, the work demonstrates her intimately deep understanding of color, texture, and surface.

Susan Carr received her Masters of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston/ Tufts University. Carr’s work has been exhibited in Chicago, Los Angeles, and throughout the North East including The Museum of Fine Art Boston Torf Gallery. Carr was also the 97th recipient of The James William’s Page Fund Award.

Refusing to be boxed in

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Linda Lindroth: Trickster in Flatland
Closed.

Surface and not surface. Depth and depthlessness. Reality and illusion. Historicity and timelessness. Representation and abstraction.

Photographer Linda Lindroth is engaged in serious play in her show Trickster in Flatland, which just closed at the Giampietro Gallery in New Haven. Exhibiting 17 large images, all but a half dozen of which were made in the last two years, Lindroth disassembles a material reality to reassemble her own aesthetic vision.

In the literal sense, most of these photographs are of old cardboard boxes used to hold commercial products. Mundane, no? The corners of the boxes have either come part on their own—as is wont to happen with these types of objects over time—or been torn open by Lindroth herself. Stripped of their three-dimensionality, they are splayed open like mounted butterflies, a geometricity of flat processed color, torn edges, striking diagonals, worn surfaces, yellowed tape and brittle glue.

So the answer to the question "Mundane, no?" is "No." Somehow, these images are compelling rather than mundane. They are compelling because Lindroth sees in these objects all sorts of allusions—mostly but not only of an art historical nature—and has the photographic chops to convey her excitement about them and interpretation of them.

I noted before that they are "stripped of their three-dimensionality." That's true in the sense that the boxes have been deconstructed to lie flat. And, by the nature of being a photographic print, that flatness is—in a physical sense—absolute. But Lindroth's photography captures the not-flatness of that flatness—the layering of the different planes of folded cardboard, the sense of the material's thickness, the flare of shadows around the edges where the mounted object curls up from its white background.

This illusion of tactile presence particularly invited the touch—but don't touch!—in "Howard 2," which depicts the inside of a shallow square box with aquamarine flaps. There is a wealth of visual information to process in this deceptively simple image. The ink is peeling off the flaps like bark on a birch tree. The inner square is smeared with a thick framing of dried, cracked mucilage glue, the color of which morphs from a pale mustard yellow to a dark caramel. It is one of the few images that hints at actual human touch rather than mechanical creation. The swirl of glue is a gestural brush mark communicating the brisk movement of a human hand.

There is sly humor in "Automatic Drawing," which pairs the inside top and bottom pieces of an old box of pastels. The long-term jostling of the colored sticks created two complementary abstract "drawings"—the one on the left spare and subtle, the one on the right a profusion of layered marks. What is noticeable in do many of the images are the details—the mottled discoloration of the cardboard, the scruffy grit of time, the frayed fibers around the tears, the kinked edges. There are some interesting found color juxtapositions—a bold vertical of blue amid surroundings of beige, yellow and washed-out orange in "Le Contact"; the industrial gray hidden beneath the neon pink in "Elsa (Pink Schiaparelli Box)."

As Lindroth notes in some of her statements on the show, she sees in many of these images evocations of the work of prominent Modernist painters—Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Motherwell, among others. (Some of these allusions are suggested by their titles; "Howard 2," for example, refers to the British painter Howard Hodgkin.)

For my part, I see not just allusion but also meta-commentary—that the boundaries between abstraction and representation, between the throwaway object and the objet d'art, between surface and depth, between the past and the present are not fixed. The boxes into which we pack our preconceptions can be broken open and that is what Lindroth has done.

Friday evening reception at Giampietro Gallery for show of Castiglione Holocaust drawings

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Jerusalem Burning: The Holocaust Drawings of Edward Castiglione
July 13—Aug. 3, 2012.
Opening Reception: Fri., July 13, 5—8 p.m.

Press Release by Stephen Vincent Kobasa from Giampietro Gallery

Edward Castiglione (1948-2010):

"Three Studies for Geruseleme" is a way of explaining the incomprehensible and unbearable. It is not to be interpreted or approached with moral significance. In point of fact it should be as outside of reason, as a suspension of judgment, for to attach significance would be to place value and dimension to a horror which is beyond measure.

Many years afterward a Jesuit priest recalled a night in Hungary, late in the Second World War:

It was summertime, it was one of those very quiet nights… I woke up to a sound… I didn't know what it was at first… and then I realized this is the sound of people crying…children, women, men… that kind of chorus, wailing… The next morning… it was a gardener who told me that those were the Jewish people crying because at our station the Hungarian gendarmerie handed them over to SS troops to be deported… I didn't know about the death camps at that time, and I didn't know about the ovens, the burning… But I personally, at that moment, I felt a persuasion coming upon me that these people will all be killed… today, maybe, I would be ready to then run in front of the train and lay down…[but] at that time… it was just… running away, simply running away…it was beyond my experience… I was utterly unprepared.

Born three years after the war, when the memory of the death camps was already being suppressed, Edward Castiglione struggled to imagine as an artist that place beyond experience that the priest ran from. These Geruseleme drawings were the largest single sustained series of works which he undertook in his lifetime. In them, he was a bystander after the fact, with his own conscience put to the test by the images he fashioned. The Isaac who carries the wood for these burnt offerings is not spared. A promise of fire is in every picture, the bodies turned to fuel and then ash and then, as the poet Nelly Sachs envisioned them, "refugees of smoke." Given their subject, there is no way to avoid saying that these pictures are one desperate failure after another; but it is in that procession of failures that the horror becomes finally clear.

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.