"Oil + Water" mix at Kehler Liddell, reception Fri., May 9

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
OIL + WATER
Apr. 24—May 25, 2014.
Artist's Reception: Fri., May 9, 6—9 p.m.
Art Yard Tag Sale, Children's Painting Event: Sat., May 10, starting at noon

Press release from Kehler Liddell Gallery

Kehler Liddell Gallery is pleased to present its spring group show, OIL + WATER, from Thurs., Apr. 24 through Sun., May 25, with an Opening Reception on Fri., May 9 from 6—9 p.m., and a number of events coordinated with Westville’s 17th annual ArtWalk on May 10.

The show will feature work by all 25 Kehler Liddell Gallery member artists: Corina S. Alvarezdelugo, Edith Borax-Morrison, Amy Browning, Frank Bruckmann, Susan Clinard, Penrhyn Cook, Rod Cook, Tom Edwards, Julie Fraenkel, Matthew Garrett, Sara Beth Goncarova, John Harris, Lisa Hess Hesselgrave, Keith Johnson, Sven Martson, Fethi Meghelli, Hank Paper, Jean Perkins, Joseph Saccio, Gerald Saladyga, Alan Shulik, Maureen Squires, Mark K. St. Mary, Gar Waterman, and Marjorie Wolfe.

This unique collaboration of the Gallery's painters, photographers, sculptors, and installation artists presents diverse interpretations of these icons of opposites—oil and water.

"Oil and water. They do not mix, never have, and never will," says Gar Waterman, one of the show’s artists. "Yet they exist together in a myriad of circumstances. In the hands of artists, that complex relationship becomes apt metaphor for the challenges we face in the world today—political, environmental, religious, cultural."

Frank Bruckmann: "Studio Still Life"

Charged with the task of addressing this relationship, KLG artists arrived at different conclusions. Some saw OIL + WATER as representative of that which does not belong, while others considered the idea of separation.

Many participating artists were quick to note that OIL + WATER has an obvious association with the very materials used in the creation of art. "Oil and water don’t mix but can make fascinating play on paper and canvas," says calligrapher Maureen Squires. "You're never quite in control on the surface, always moving, changing, affecting color and light."

OIL + WATER coincides with the 17th annual ArtWalk in the historic Westville Village, May 9 and 10. This community-based arts festival features live music, art exhibitions, demonstrations and studios, interactive art-making for kids and adults, theater & dance, walking tours, and an Artist & Artisan Market.

In addition to the group show, Kehler Liddell Gallery is hosting two special ArtWalk events on Saturday, May 10:

• Art Yard Tag Sale Sat., May 10, noon—4 p.m.:

A great opportunity to stock up on art supplies: canvases, frames, paper, pencils, pens, paints, old gear, art books, magazines, pencil sharpeners, rulers, old frames, old show cards, and odds and ends of all types! The Art Yard Sale will take place in a tent outside the Gallery from noon—4 p.m. Participating artists are donating 80% of the proceeds to support future KLG programming.

• Children’s Event: Oil and Water Painting, Sat., May 10, starting at noon:

Children of all ages are welcome to practice the art of art using oil and watercolor paints, with creative input from KLG member artists Marjorie Wolfe and Corina Alvarezdelugo. Starting at 12 noon.

Clinard and Cook shows open Sunday at Kehler Liddell in Westville

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Threads of Serendipity: Photography by Penrhyn Cook and Sculpturew by Susan Clinard
Feb. 13—Mar. 16, 2014.
Opening Reception: Sun., Feb. 16, 3—6 p.m.

Press release from Kehler Liddell Gallery

Susan Clinard returns to Kehler Liddell Gallery with an engaging new body of sculpture work. Clinard continues to explore new mediums and use of space with a fleet of breathtaking kinetic paper boats float through space, translucent and glowing with purpose and strength. Each boat carries a sculpted passenger that has been cast in layers of fine paper. They evoke an immediate sensory response as the metaphorical boat is steeped with rich cultural histories and symbolism.

Susan Clinard: "Main Boat"

The photographic work represented in Threads of Serendipity is a compilation of two portfolios: "Little People" and "Humanity." As an emerging photographer, Penrhyn Cook watched from afar, taking in the full palette of shapes and light but always with a conscious focus on human figures as part of the image. With experience came a strong desire for more intimacy with her subjects and as a result, her interactions became more meaningful. This shifted the focus to capture the wide breadth of human emotions; wonder, loneliness, or envy. Similar to the transition Cook experienced, the viewer is becomes an active participant rather than a passive observer.

Threads of Serendipity will be on display from Feb. 13 through Mar. 16. The opening reception is this Sunday from 3—6 p.m.

Reception for Cook, Saladyga shows at Kehler, Liddell Fri., Oct. 18

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Rod Cook: Masks
Gerald Saladyga: Dot Works 2000—2004
Oct. 10—Nov. 10, 2013.
Artist's Reception: Fri., Oct. 18, 6—9 p.m.

Press release from Kehler Liddell Gallery

Exhibits by Rod Cook (Masks) and Gerald Saladyga (Dot Works: 2000—2004) will be on view at Kehler Liddell Gallery in Westville from Oct. 10 through Nov. 10, 2013. There will be an artist's reception on Fri., Oct. 18, from 6—9 p.m.

Masks explores how the private condition is veiled by a façade or mask when presented to the public. Cook dove into the idea that how people outwardly represent themselves speaks more to how they wish to be received, rather than as an actual translation of what they consist of inside. He removes the external interferences and instead gives his models a literal mask to create an alternative expression, for Cook, a more genuine image of whom that person is or who they wish to be. The images capture the unique and fleeting moment when wearing a mask and little else, the true self can and will expose what is underneath. From behind the shrouded security of this alternate mask, the fashioned and orchestrated façade melts away and one’s hopes, fears, and fantasies are revealed.

Photograph by Rod Cook

Dot Works 2000—2004, artist Jerry Saladyga conjures the early American Luminist painters’ depictions of light the American landscape and seascape. Taking their initial representations and isolating the concept within a contemporary minimalist framework, his technique is to layer closely positioned dots of latex house paint with an eye dropper onto canvas, paper or wood and then to sand down to an equal depth. This creates a unique effect, evoking the simulation of particles of bright light, hazy light, gray light and night light. Saladyga developed this technique over four years and in the process realized the dots could be used to represent other images of the cosmos. The paintings evolved into fractured and symbolic depictions of land, sky, water and space. Aligned with the American Luminist painters who illustrated a new landscape for the first time, the process behind and the finished product of Dot Works is reminiscent of the beauty and joy of first sight and interpretation.

Painting by Gerald Saladyga

Upcoming receptions, other events, for "Nudes and Nudibranchs" at Kehler Liddell

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Nudes and Nudibranchs: An Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture
Through Mar. 10, 2013.
Artist Reception with Frank Bruckmann and Gar Waterman: Sat., Feb. 16, 2—4 p.m. followed by "Poetry and Chocolates" (see below) from 4—6 p.m.
Artist Reception with Frank Bruckmann and Gar Waterman: Sun., Feb. 24, 2—4 p.m.
"Conspicuous Cocktails" (see below): Sat., Mar. 2, 2—4 p.m.

Press release from Kehler Liddell Gallery

Award-winning painter Frank Bruckmann and sculptor Gar Waterman will exhibit their most recent work at the Kehler Liddell Gallery: Nudes and Nudibranchs, from Feb. 7—Mar. 10, 2013. Because of the disruptions caused by Blizzard Nemo, there will be make-up artists' receptions on Sat., Feb. 16, from 2—4 p.m. (followed by "Poetry and Chocolates" from 4—6 p.m.) and Sun., Feb. 24, from 2—4 p.m.

Frank Bruckmann: "Home Library"

Frank Bruckmann and Gar Waterman are both traditionalists who use direct observation of nature and carefully applied technique to craft their work. Bruckmann's brushstrokes caress oil paint with an expert and familiar hand into the eternally complex landscape of the female figure, while Waterman's sculpture bends the liquid sheen of polished stone into impressions of rhythm and grace from the marine environment. Their work is beautiful, but its beauty is not confined to the surface. Instead, it wells up through the underlying layers of paint and stone, brush and chisel strokes revealing the more complex alchemy of their creative process.

Gar Waterman: "Humboldt Squid"

Meet artists, art patrons, neighbors and friends at Kehler Liddell Gallery, one of Connecticut's premiere retail arts venues, located in the heart of historic Westville Village. Cultural and culinary happenings during Bruckmann and Waterman's exhibit will include:

· Sat., Feb. 16, 4—6 p.m."Poetry and Chocolates." Samples of exquisite chocolates, generously provided by Chocopolgie, will accompany poetry recitations by SCSU faculty and MFA candidates.

· Sat., Mar. 2, 2—4 p.m. "Conspicuous Cocktails." An exotic drink-tasting event with restaurant 116 Crown's John Gianetti, CT's hottest mixologist.

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.

Sunday artists' reception at Kehler Liddell Gallery

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Blue Matters: John Harris & Kristina Kuester-Witt
Jan. 10—Feb. 3, 2013.
Opening Reception: Sun., Jan. 13, 3—6 p.m.

Press release from Kehler Liddell Gallery

Blue Matters: John Harris and Kristina Kuester-Witt share the subjects of blue and matter, in two distinct exhibitions. The works are on view Jan. 10 through Feb. 3, 2013 with an Opening Reception on Sun., Jan. 13 from 3—6 p.m.

Harris frequently focuses his attention and ours on natural and organic abstractions. In this exhibition he explores water’s physical properties including reflection, turbidity, rhythm, and pattern by isolating a moment in time in a subject that knows nothing of constancy. The large-scale paintings expose various environmental complexities revealing the disguises of water. A repetitive process of applying paint and glazes results in a visual dramatization conceptually harmonious with water.

John Harris: "Gyro 2"

Kristina Kuester-Witt, a painter and a printmaker, explores the duality in aspects of human life. Neutral colored figures interact with various blue colored, undefined, material substances. The interactions occur with a variety of matter reflecting the counterpart or duality evident in the scene. Frequently an upside-down figure is employed as a metaphor further exploring the complexity of particular aspects of human experience.

Kristina Kuester-Witt: "The Matter II"

In a new series the possibilities and dangers of DNA research are explored. A dialog is opened through a use of visuals exploring what choices may mean in an area once the purview of biology without the interference of personal preference.

Review: Matthew Garrett photography and Gerald Saladyga paintings at Kehler Liddell (closed)

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Matthew Garrett: Recent Photographs
Gerald Saladyga: Landscapes 2008—2012
Closed

I'm catching up on some posts that I was unable to do earlier.

During the first Open Studios weekend, I also got to visit the two shows then on exhibit at Kehler Liddell Gallery in Westville, Matthew Garrett's Recent Photographs and Gerald Saladyga's Landscapes 2008—2012.

Garrett was at the gallery when I stopped by and told me that he "became a night photographer because I have a job and a baby." According to Garrett, "The way to look at them is that nothing ever happens in my pictures but it looks like something might have just happened or be about to happen. And I kind of like that."

Matthew Garrett: "Swimming Pool"

Being something of a neophyte to night photography, Garrett said he could still be surprised by some of what he captures albeit not on the level of when he was shooting with a film. As an example, he pointed to "Swimming Pool," a night shot of the back of a house with a swimming pool gone to seed and overgrown with weeds. Garrett was shooting for the pool and the quality of the evening light but discovered more when he blew the image up for printing. When he enlarged the image, he saw layers of imagery on the back of the house that resemble video projections, created by a number of different nearby light sources including a traffic light.

I'm struck by "Side Yard," a seemingly prosaic street scene enriched with an atmosphere of fog and subtle lighting from streetlights, the façade lights of a storefront in the background and the glow from the windows of the house in the foreground. It could be a film still, pregnant with drama.

Gerald Saladyga: "What's Going On" detail

Jerry Saladyga's paintings issue from a wild personal vision, the result of years of evolution and experimentation. Saladyga's paintings conflate social commentary with cartoons in a punchy graphic style that revels in bold colors and a plethora of interesting textures. Images of the natural world—mountains, stars in the heavens, pine trees, silhouettes of animals, birds and fish—contend with representations of the human war on nature and humanity itself—submarines, military helicopters, jets, drones, oil derricks, tankers, the cooling towers of nuke plants, explosions and tracers of light akin to night weapons fire.

Artists' reception for two shows on Sunday at Kehler Liddell Gallery

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Amy Browning: Sounding the Silence
Joseph Saccio: Memory and Transformation
Oct. 11—Nov. 11, 2012.
Opening Reception: Sun., Oct. 14, 3—6 p.m.

Press release from Kehler Liddell Gallery

Two shows open this week at Kehler Liddell Gallery in Westville and will run through Nov. 11, 2012. There will be an artists' reception for both shows on Sun., Oct. 14, from 3—6 p.m.

• Amy Browning: Sounding the Silence

Amy Browning: "Lighting the Lamp"

Serious injuries, sustained in an automobile accident last year, forced Amy Browning to consider how she paints and what she paints. No longer could the artist stand for hours inches away from the wall or easel; she needed to develop a new approach.

Light dawned, and she contemplated the floor. It became her support. Browning stretched canvases on the floor and went to work, slowly moving over the surface with brush, bottle, and plastic utensils—anything she could lay my hands on. Her preferred stance was hovering over the artwork at a height of two or three feet and constantly circling. The mystery appeared, disappeared, re-appeared, and after much struggle and good fortune revealed its hidden reality.

Amy Browning’s new work is an exhilarating revelation of order within disorder. Pre-ordained rules yield to the mysterious needs of the canvas. What emerged is what was already there before she began—silence.

• Joe Saccio: Memory and Transformation

The title and theme for Joe Saccio’s exhibit, Memory and Transformation, stems from his discovery when working on a four foot by twenty-foot section of a hollow black oak tree trunk. Saccio divided the old hollow trunk into three six foot sections and split each vertically to create three triptychs, or three open books revealing the old tree’s inner life and history.

The footprint for each six-foot high book section is seven feet wide by three feet in diameter. The inner, concave surfaces and the outer, convex bark surfaces are transformed in various ways to suggest new, strange growth and life in a tree that refuses to die.

Joseph Saccio: "Mouth of Medusa," detail

Gallery visitors can actually walk into the inner space of the tree and imagine the force and struggle of living, dying and finally regeneration into another form. Joe Saccio has created another large wall sculpture that is an eight feet high variation of the Medusa. In this case the serpents emerge from her mouth and not her hair.

Sunday reception at Kehler Liddell for "Artist's Choice" group show

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Artist's Choice
Through Aug. 16, 2012.
Opening Reception: Sun., July 8, 3—6 p.m.

Press release

Artist's Choice is a unique exhibition of member artists work paired with the work of guest artists accompanied by a written statement. Each artist in the show is accomplished. There is a broad spectrum of work including: painting, sculpture, photography and drawing or paint, wood, stone, metal, paper, ink, found objects and more. Broad spectrums of work and member/guest shows are not unusual. Artist's Choice is all this and more. It is the personal invitation from one artist to another, the particular pairings, the binding of one artist to another, which leaves the viewer wondering what stirred within the host artist to extend this invitation. The answers are provided by each of the 22 Kehler Liddell member artists in highly personal statements, which reveal inspiration and admiration among creative professionals. It is the statements and moves the exhibition out of the ordinary.

The show will be on display through Aug. 16. An artists' reception will be held Sun., July 8, from 3—6 p.m.

Host artist Gar Waterman (Web) reveals Jay Seeley as a "fellow hopeless accumulator of stuff." "Each object is fecund with the promise of finding a place in his work…. When Jay requested the use of a set of wings from my Tin Man series of sculptures, I was delighted to be able to contribute to his creative process, knowing that the result would be mysterious and wonderful…My reconfigured scrap metal sculptures and Jay Seeley's photographs (see image "Angelee" below) fuel that interpretive alchemy that we, as artists, all practice as part of our creative process."


"Marion Belanger," writes host artist Keith Johnson, "is a photographer interested in the concepts of persistence and change, and in the way that boundaries demarcate difference, particularly with regard to the land." She is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as other notable awards and has an extensive and impressive exhibition history. Johnson chose Belanger "because she is a smart, creative well seeing photographer. The piece she will show (see image below) was site-specific and printed in a non-traditional way. It will hang from the rafters in the gallery. She is a good friend and I like her work.”


The show includes the work of forty-four artists and twenty-two thoughtful statements making sense of the pairings, revealing both host and guest artist and work that surprises, delights and on occasion, confounds.

Kehler Liddell holiday show and sale reception this Sunday

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
It's A Wonderful Price
Nov. 17, 2011—Jan. 15, 2012.
Opening Reception: Sun., Nov. 20, 3—6 p.m.

Press release

Kehler Liddell Gallery presents It’s A Wonderful Price, a holiday exhibit featuring fine art for every palette and every purse. The Walls of Affordable Treasures include paintings Image—Frank Bruckmann's "Whitehead in Winter"), photographs, sculptures, and drawings by twenty-five diverse Connecticut artists. Artwork is “priced to move” so shop for yourself while shopping for gift giving.


The exhibit and sale will be up from Nov. 17 through Jan. 15 and there will be an opening reception this Sun., Nov. 20, from 3—6 p.m.

Sunday reception for photography show at Kehler Liddell

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Seven: An Exhibition by Seven Photographers
Oct. 13—Nov. 13, 2011.
Opening Reception: Sun., Oct. 16, 3—6 p.m.

Press release

Kehler Liddell Gallery is pleased to present Seven, a group show by seven photographic artists. Featuring the work of Rod Cook, Matthew Garrett, Andrew Hogan, Keith Johnson, Hank Paper, Alan Shulik, and Marjorie Wolfe, this unique exhibition is a testament to the diversity of styles and esthetics within the photographic medium. The diverse methods used by the seven artists include Platinum palladium process, multiple image printing and photojournalism.

Rod Cookʼs photographs offer rare moments of surreal beauty. Each image is a glimpse into an intimate gesture—sometimes haunting, other times reminiscent of a comforting memory. Using the Platinum/Palladium process—a technical process in which a light sensitive emulsion is coated directly on the surface of a sheet of paper—Cookʼs photographs exhibit a stunning, soft luminosity that evoke a deep emotional response within the viewer.

Matthew Garrett is a photographer who extracts uncanny and strange images from urban and suburban environments. His photographs isolate murmurs from the rhythms of our daily surroundings. Garrett transforms familiar spaces into mysterious, meditative spaces. His compositions play with light intensity and utilize spatial juxtapositions to create signature, dramatic visual effects.

Andrew Hogan's photographs capture fleeting moments of emotion that are indefinable by words alone: Mere glimpses or gestures that can suggest an entire life story. His photographs reveal fleeting moments of personal history and their underlying emotions that are undiminished by time. Hogan captures these powerful emotional stories in their beauty and mystery. His images uncover what is hidden in our everyday lives, and show how time and distance affect our personal realities and perceptions.

Keith Johnson makes photographs that are an investigation of extended imagery. By printing multiple images on a single piece of paper, Johnson is able to push the photograph beyond the single print, into a grid work that creates new frames and connections between images. The juxtaposition of multiple pictures steers the viewerʼs focus to the idea of the image—toward the imageʼs string of potential suggested by layers of graphic detail.

Hank Paperʼs photographs are from a series entitled “Island Life.” Paper shoots in an intuitive, photojournalistic style that allows the true nature of his subjects to be seen, often in juxtaposition with their absurd nature. Paperʼs photographs can be viewed as testimonies of people in their everyday life. However, his often humorous images do more than just expose the ordinary. They puncture the viewerʼs preconceived notions of his fellow man by revealing his subjects in unexpected roles and contexts that both surprise and sometimes astonish.

Alan Shulik (see image) paints with the lens of the camera in such a way as to produce abstract-surrealist images that conjure up ethereal, dream-like experiences. The images he will exhibit in this show are landscape photographs depicting the coastlines of Maine and Connecticut. Possessing a quiet, ethereal quality, these images are at once fleeting glances and moments of stillness.

Marjorie Wolfeʼs approach to photography, though simple and direct, reveals a hidden world. Wolfeʼs photographs were all taken at the same pond in Marthaʼs Vineyard, a place that the artist visits often. However, despite familiarity with the location, through Wolfeʼs sensitive visual esthetic, she is able to use the camera to expose the subtle contrasts around her—near and far, old and young, clamor and peace.

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.

And the Oscar goes to...

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
My Brother Jack: Works of Silas Finch & Larry Morelli
Through Sept. 4, 2011.

There is an unusual film preview on view at Kehler Liddell Gallery through September 4. My Brother Jack features work by local artists Silas Finch and Larry Morelli. Works of each artist will feature prominently in writer/director Stephen Dest's (Web) film of the same name, slated to be shot in New Haven this fall. (There is also a promotional trailer for My Brother Jack playing on a continuous loop in the gallery.)

The approaches of the two artists are strikingly different. Whereas Morelli's paintings (and a suite of drawings) are kinetic and gestural, Finch's sculptures are stately and intricate.

Morelli's paintings bristle with energy. His work—both portraits and highway landscapes—are characterized by the forcefulness of his application of paint. To say these works are gestural doesn't really do them justice. The physicality of Morelli's painting implies a powerful emotional engagement with his subjects.


Where some painters express their boldness through rich, pulsating color, Morelli chooses to invest himself in mark making, the energy of paint coating canvas. In fact, his color palette is generally muted although some bright yellows—like the sun peeking through a cloudy sky—do dash across the surface of a couple of his highway landscapes.

Finch's found object sculptures are painstakingly hand-built. (The main character in Dest's film is a found object sculptor.) A former professional skateboarder, Finch often uses old skateboards as the base for his assemblages. Fascinated by history, Finch reclaims the past—almost enters the past—by using relics from the past in his work. This includes old newspapers and magazines, antique cameras and other scavenged items from flea markets and junk shops.

A series of three skateboard-based works relives traumas from the 1960's—the shooting of a young East German trying to flee over the Berlin Wall ("2 Sides of the Communist Coin"), the John F. Kennedy assassination ("Prime Suspect") and Charles Whitman's 1966 mass murder shooting spree at the University of Texas in Austin ("Charlie"). Finch either hand-stitches or otherwise affixes image-laden stories from yellowing copies of Life magazine and The New York Times to the skateboard, collage-style. He makes the pieces pop with additional elements, pulling out the imagery into the third dimension almost like the sculptural equivalent of a journalistic "pull quote." The Berlin Wall work includes framing of a length of barbed wire and a piece of cement—an actual chunk of the Berlin Wall, perhaps? A gunstock and old movie camera add referential depth to "Prime Suspect."


Not all of Finch's sculptures/assemblages are based on skateboards—see the image detail of "Indefatigable Nixon," for example. But they all combine an unfettered sense of imaginative play with a love for the materials and a gift for finding evocative ways to reuse them.

Sunday opening at Kehler Liddell Gallery

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Jason Friedes: Domi-cells
Hank Paper: Cuba, Arrested Splendor
June 23—July 24, 2011.
Opening reception: Sun., June 26, 3—6 p.m. Artist talk at 3:30 p.m.

Press release

Kehler Liddell Gallery is pleased to present Domi-cells, an exhibition of steel sculpture and mixed media installation by guest artist Jason Friedes, and Cuba: Arrested Splendor, an exhibition of photographs by street photographer Hank Paper taken over the past 10 years.

Friedesʼ work responds to the metaphor of the various cages that we build around each other and ourselves. The work questions whether these boundaries are a means of identification and protection, or stereotyping and isolation.

Select works invite public interaction. “Cage for Family,” for example, is made up of 3 cramped cells—one large, one medium and one small, the ideal accommodation for a father, mother and child. Participants must crouch and bend sideways to fit into their personal cages, which can be bound by a padlock. Inside, visitors can reflect on their own family experiences or childhood memories.

Other works suspend and bind ordinary objects in steel grids. In this context, sentimental objects, such as school desks, a rocking horse and a highchair undergo revision. Perhaps these icons of education, play and nurture are outdated or romanticized. Can memories, like the cages, manufacture superficial constructs of our culture and society?

Friedes received his BFA from Rhodes College in 2005. He currently lives and works in New Haven, and will pursue an MFA in the sculpture program at the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago this fall.

Hank Paper traveled to Cuba in 2001 to study with Constantine Manos, a landmark artist recognized for introducing color to street photography, and returned this March to document the change. A comparison of the old and new reveals a country that has actually changed very little. But beaming through the seams of Cubaʼs majestic crumbling architecture and repressive socialist economy is an optimistic inner rhythm of the Cuban people, who maintain their legendary vintage Cadillacs, dance in the streets and embrace sexy fashions, while awaiting normalization.

For his recent trip, Paper navigated the streets of Havana, Santa Clara, Trinidad, Cienfuegos, San Francisco de Paula and beyond with handheld Leica camera. The photos are cropped with his lens in the style of the eponymous New York street photographers of the 70ʼs and 80ʼs, Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus. The invention of digital imaging has not fundamentally changed his craft.

Paper has documented contemporary society, mining the streets of North America, the UK, Western Europe, the Middle East and Cuba for the past 35 years. He has exhibited in museum and gallery shows around the world, including The African American Museum in Philadelphia (2006), The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel (1999), The Jewish Museum of New Jersey (2008), the High Point Historical Museum in North Carolina (2001), and the Leica Gallery in New York City (2002). He received the Piedmont Award from the Somers Juried Photography Show in 2009 and a grant from the CT Commission on Culture and Tourism in 2006. He currently lives and works in Hamden, CT where he runs the acclaimed independent film store, Best Video.

Oil and Wax: Sunday opening at Kehler Liddell Gallery

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Joseph Adolphe: New Paintings
Rod Cook: New Work
May 19—June 19, 2011.
Opening reception: Sun., May 22, 3—6 p.m. Artist talk at 3:30 p.m.

Press release

Kehler Liddell Gallery is pleased to present new paintings by Joseph Adolphe that measure the speed, agility and muscularity of two stoic beasts: the horse and the bull. For his third show, Adolphe works in a classic Expressionist style, building exaggerated palettes and movements with his brush and palette knife that relate his unique vision and emotional response to these creatures. At 5 x 5 feet, the paintings make profound impacts on the viewer and reward those who linger long enough to reflect on the freedom and vitality of nature operating at full force.

The new work relates to Adolphe's interest in making paintings that measure the relationship between movement and stillness-- between solid forms and transient, ephemeral forms. A curiosity of "what is real!—or more specifically, how one can pursue the unreal through the real drives his practice.

Adolphe was born in Calgary, Alberta Canada in 1968. He moved to NYC in 1992 to attend the School of Visual arts, where he received an MFA in 1994. His work is in several corporate collections, but mostly in the homes of some very good people. He currently teaches drawing and painting in the Department of Fine Arts at St. John's University in New York, and lives with his wife and six children in the Westville section of New Haven.

Kehler Liddell Gallery is pleased to present new photographs by Rod Cook that convey the subtle role of the pose, jest and gaze in full body portraiture. With references to Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Pre-Raphaelite Renaissance painting, the Classic Pinup, Studio Fashion and Pictorialist Photography, Cookʼs female nudes, draped in rich, exotic fabrics stretch across his compositions in dramatic, choreographed positions that idealize the feminine form. Ranging in size from an intimate 8 x 16 inches to a life sized 36 x 70 inches, his models communicate diverse personas, from the commanding blue-eyed femme fatale to the gentle portrait of a seated woman.

Cook uses his photographs as source material. His inventive process involves applying layers of wax to the surface of each photograph, encasing the image in a soft balm that he hand dyes to highlight specific areas. The use of carefully appointed color references early hand-painted photographs, and acts as a metaphor for the aesthetic preparation of his models.

Cook worked in commercial and fashion photography in New York for the first twenty-five years of his career. He has had one person shows at galleries in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Petaluma, Houston, New Orleans, Aspen, Woodstock, Norwalk, and New Haven. His work is represented in the Graham Nash, University of Chicago, and the Cherye R. and James F. Pierce Collections. He has been published in BXW Magazine, 21st, The Journal of Contemporary Photography, Photo Design Magazine, Popular Photography Annual, Photo District News and In Celebration of Light. He currently lives and works in Bridgeport, CT.

Westville ArtWalk this Friday and Saturday

Westville Village Renaissance Alliance
838 West Rock Ave., Suite A., New Haven, (203) 285-8539
14th Annual ArtWalk
Fri., May 6, and Sat., May 7

Press release

Westville Village Renaissance Alliance, or WVRA, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the revitalization, celebration and enhancement of historic Westville Village and all its amenities.

WVRA is holding its 14th Annual ArtWalk this weekend, one of the organization's largest events in the heart of Westville Village. ArtWalk attracts thousands of people each year. Admission is free, and with a wide variety of activities, families are given the opportunity to spend time together in the quaint vicinity of Westville Village. A full schedule can be found at WVRA's Web site.

This year’s ArtWalk will be held on Mother’s Day weekend, rain or shine, on Fri., May 6, and Sat., May 7. Kick-off events will begin Friday night from 5—9 p.m. including art gallery openings, artist receptions, ribbon cuttings, merchant open houses, musical performances and refreshments at over 20 merchants throughout the village.

The fun continues throughout the day on May 7 from 11 a.m.—5 p.m. with live music, theater and dance, open studios and gallery exhibitions, fashion displays, all-day activities for kids including arts & crafts and a rock climbing wall, dining, a craft corridor, and great sales throughout the village.

There will be numerous visual arts-related events as part of ArtWalk. Kehler Liddell Gallery will be sponsoring The Exquisite ArtWalk landscape, a community art project:

In the 1920's, the Surrealists played the parlor game "cadavre exquise" or "exquisite corpse" in which they passed around a sheet of paper to three or four players who would collaborate on drawing a picture of a body. The first participant would draw the head and shoulders of the "corpse" and then fold over and hide his portion and pass the paper onto another player who would create the torso. The upper portions of the work were folded and hidden before being passed onto a final player who would complete the composition by adding the legs and feet.

The Exquisite Artwalk Landscape is our spin on this age-old game. The Landscape will include the participation of 200 artists to create their individual drawings on 10 x 10 inch squares that, when assembled, will create a outdoor scene that relates to Artwalk. Upon arrival, each visitor will be asked to randomly draw 1) a number and 2) a color from a hat. The number will correspond to a square that may contain a hint of a body part, animal part, or bit of nature. The back of the square will give the visitor a prompt to help guide them in how they choose to design the square.

The squares will be collected until and placed in a secure box out of sight. After all of the squares have been drawn upon, the project is over. When assembled, the squares will combine to form a large landscape mosaic, created by gallery painter Jason Buening. Like all good puzzles the final composition will remain an exciting mystery until its unveiling on Sat., May 7 at 6 p.m. The mural will remain on display through Mother's Day on Sun., May 8 until 4 p.m.

Sunday opening of sculpture and photo show at Kehler Liddell

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Gar Waterman & Marjorie Gillette Wolfe: Coruscations and Cotyledons
Apr. 14—May 15, 2011
Opening Reception: Sun., Apr. 17, 3-6 p.m., Artists' talk: 3:30 p.m.

Press release

Kehler Liddell Gallery is very pleased to present Coruscations and Cotyledons, a two-person exhibition of sculpture by Gar Waterman and photographs by Marjorie Gillette Wolfe. The two visuals at play—coruscations, sudden flashes of light, and cotyledons,leaves of the embryo of a seed plant—engage in conversations about the discrete phenomena that shape our environment and inform our aesthetic experience.

Delicate, close observation on the part of both artists manifests in works that explore the relationship between architecture and science. Watermanʼs magnified cotyledon sculptures investigate the exquisite physicality and intricacies of plant forms and respond to their architectural components—balance, strength, geometry, perfection, pattern, mechanisms of defense and attraction. Wolfeʼs photographs document isolated shots of real places where natural light backlights, screens and mixes with architectural elements—buttresses, plastic siding and weathered glass, in series of environments that read like abstract paintings. Shared appreciations for the structure of nature unites the two distinct bodies of work, both characterized by natural palettes, and allow the viewer to move thoughtfully through moments of soft and hard texture and form.

Watermanʼs sculptures represent a fundamental dialogue between architecture and nature, which is his primary source of inspiration. In addition to wood, Waterman works in stone, bronze, glass and steel. His imagery ranges from plant life, marine forms and insects to imagined figures.

Waterman grew up in New Jersey and Maine, with a formative year in Tahiti at age 10, where his father, underwater filmmaker Stan Waterman, shot and produced a documentary for National Geographic. After graduating from Dartmouth College, Waterman moved to Pietrasanta Italy, where he studied for seven years to become a master stone carver. Waterman currently lives and works in New Haven, Connecticut and Sargentville, Maine.

Wolfeʼs photographs investigate the abstraction of real space and ephemeral elements. For this show she will focus on the way diptychs, triptychs and larger series of photographs inform one another. In addition to her abstract series, Wolfe will present traditional landscapes that confound perspective and facilitate the viewerʼs reconsideration of a well-worn subject.

Sunday opening at Kehler Liddell Gallery in New Haven

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
I…and Love…and You
Jan. 27—Mar. 6, 2011
Opening reception: Sun., Jan. 30, 3—6 p.m., with Artists’ Talk at 3 p.m.

Press release

Kehler Liddell Gallery is pleased to present I…and Love…and You, a group exhibition of paintings, photographs, sculpture and works on paper that examine the contemporary complexities of honest communication in exchanges related to love. Artists include: Joseph Adolphe, Edith Borax-Morrison, Amy Browning, Frank Bruckmann, Jason Buening, Susan Clinard, Rod Cook, Emilia Dubicki, Matthew Garrett, John Harris, Lisa Hesselgrave, Gigi Horr Liverant, Blinn Jacobs, Keith Johnson, Kristina Kuester-Witt, Lawrence Morelli, Hank Paper, Joseph Saccio, Gerald Saladyga, Deirdre Schiffer, Alan Shulik, Gar Waterman and Marjorie Wolfe.

The title of the exhibition references an indie-folk song by the Avett Brothers that tells the story of a man who cannot utter the simple phrase “I love you.” He is plagued by the radical differences between speaking and acting on feelings of love and hate. He fights with words, preferring verbal attacks to physical attacks, and loves with action, preferring courtship to intimate profession.

The show will illuminate the great love dysfunctions of our time, place and culture by addressing the quiet underpinnings of love and its converse aspects, such as: romance and sex, ambiguity and directness, polygamy and monogamy, naiveté and maturity, honesty and deceit, and madness and betrothal.

A selection of works will investigate the psychological dimensions of love that arise in Harold Pinter’s 1963 play, “The Lover.” The 50-minute play follows the erotic escapades of a long-married British couple that engage in an afternoon of fantasy role-playing. The husband makes 3 visits to his house as an illicit “lover,” assuming the role of a young park keep, an aggressive mugger and a kidnapper. The couple forces each other into and out of jealousy in a series of small actions that raise the drama to uncomfortable boiling points.

During the run of “I and Love and You”, Elm Shakespeare Company will perform eight nights of “The Lover.” The theatrical stage will occupy the center of the gallery, and seating will take place in the round, so that the set and audience will be surrounded by the works. In this setting, the play will act out themes expressed in the images: power struggles, verbal dominance, game playing, moving beyond reason, and falling out of love.

Performances will take place February 3—6 & 10—13; Thursday-Friday: 8 p.m.; Saturday: 8 and 10 p.m.; Sunday 4 p.m. Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door. The Special Benefit Performance will take place on Friday, February 11, 6:30 p.m., $75 per ticket; hors d'oeuvres and wine will be served. Please visit the Elm Shakespeare Company Web site for tickets.

Bruckmann/Clinard show reception Sunday afternoon at Kehler Liddell in Westville

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Frank Bruckmann & Susan Clinard: New Work
Dec. 9, 2010—Jan. 19, 2011
Opening Reception: Sun., Dec. 12, 3—6 p.m.

Press release

Kehler Liddell Gallery is pleased to present a two-person exhibition of new paintings by Frank Bruckmann and new sculpture by Susan Clinard that revel in the spirit of anti-technology art to communicate emotion and allegory.

Before moving to New Haven, Frank Bruckmann studied at École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he spent nearly a decade in France and Spain coping the masters in the great museums and painting landscapes in the cities and countryside. These years of intense study inform his rich palette and humanist depictions of contemporary America, which provide him with endless sources of inspiration. Both a plein air and studio painter, Bruckmann paints that which surrounds him. Past series depict local merchants in their shops, cityscapes of downtown New Haven, sublime views of West Rock, and landscapes of Monhegan Island, Maine, where he frequently travels.

For this show, Bruckmann will present new small and medium sized paintings of the volcanic Gabbro rocks in Monhegan that are more detailed and abstract than anything he has done before. The paintings investigate the mysterious surfaces and orifices of the purple-black rocks, delicately cut by white lines (quartz) and speckled with orange clusters (fungi). The paintings investigate new textures, shadows, colors, and reveal secret biological world that fights to live in places the human eye cannot see.

Susan Clinard is one of those rare artists who can work in wood, clay, bronze, stone and metal. Real people, experiences, and stories inspire and inform her work, which confront issues of inequality, fear, compassion and courage. Since giving birth to her first son in 2004, motherhood and life cycles have become major semi-autobiographical themes. For this show, Clinard has treaded on radical new ground, and will present a series of mixed media wunderkammers, (“cabinets of curiosities”). Wunderkammers were popular toys of nobles in the late 1500ʼs, before the advent of public museums. These cabinets, ranging from small boxes to library-sized rooms included collections of oddities that belonged to a specific natural history—precious minerals, strange organisms, indigenous crafts, collected from civilizations and placed in a microcosmic memory theatre. Clinardʼs wunderkammers incorporate this idea of the biological unknown, and organize the various found elements in compartments that suggest an internal, psychological narrative. Each cabinet shelters its own landscapes, precious moments, and measurements of darkness and clarity.

Clinard will also present a new major installation titled “Procession,” which incorporates figurative elements that she is known for. Unlike her traditional clay busts, the line of male figures is roughly cut, minimal and distorted. Positioned on a wheeled platform, the men move in a unified direction with a clear purpose, lending to a strong compositional impact. The work responds to the ceremonial weight and cultural significance of processions in contemporary and ancient history—their association with life, death and strength in unity.

There will be an opening reception for this show this Sun., Dec. 12, from 3—6 p.m., with an artists' talk at 3 p.m. and live music by oud player Qusai Al Bakri.

Saccio and Saladyga at Kehler Liddell

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Ave., New Haven, (203) 389-9555
Joseph Saccio & Gerald Saladyga: Site Unseen
Through Dec. 5, 2010

The exhibition airing of Joseph Saccio and Gerald Saladyga at Kehler Liddell Gallery in Westville ends tomorrow. It is a fine show of new (Saccio) and old (Saladyga) work by two artists with shared interest in incorporating metaphysical themes into their art.

For me, the paintings of Gerald Saladyga came as the biggest surprise. Dating back to the early 1990's but not shown until now, they are geometric and austere. As with his present works—which I have written about several times in Connecticut Art Scene—they are painted with latex house paints and modeling paste.


Saladyga has told me the quiet understatement of these paintings was a personal reaction to his paintings of the 1980's. The 1980's paintings, figurative and expressionist in nature, offered visceral revulsion to the violence of American foreign policy at the time, particularly in Central America. Saladyga told me that he ended up recoiling from his own representations of violence; these works addressed his concerns in ways more symbolic and spiritual.

I've written about Joseph Saccio's work before also. Saccio employs organic and inorganic materials to plumb themes of death and rebirth. In several of the works here, Saccio engages with the book form. In some cases this is overt. With "Do Not Forget the Burning Books," a cyliner of ruffled pages with singed edges is wedged between segments of a tar-blackened telephone pole. The book form is an interesting choice for Saccio because his works invite reading and interpretation. They are freighted with metaphor, dreamlike.

Whether this was Saccio's intention or not, "Do Not Forget the Burning Books" invokes two different forms of communication: written (books) and oral/verbal (telephone pole). To riff on that some more, we see the written word trapped within the two segments of the telephone pole as if verbal, technologically facilitated communication is squeezing out the written literary form. Of course, there is another association here—that trees have a second life as the paper that makes up the pages of a book.


Three works in the show were created in memory of a friend of Saccio's who dies in the 1970's. "Elegy for Clint: Homage to Motherwell" and "Requiem for Clint: A Thousand Cuts" are wall-mounted sculptures that also allude to the book form.