Five solo shows open at Real Art Ways tomorrow

Real Art Ways
56 Arbor St., Hartford, (860) 232-1006
Jarrett Min Davis: Guts and Glory
Michael Donovan: Senseless Utility: Sculptural Constructions
Amy Theiss Giese: Light in Sound: Concealed at first at last I appear
Asuka Goto: Space as inventory, space as invention
Nicole Ratos Enerson: In and Out
June 16—Aug. 14, 2011.
Opening reception during Creative Cocktail Hour: Thurs., June 16, 6—10 p.m.

Press release

Real Art Ways presents five solo shows by emerging artists Jarrett Min Davis, Michael Donovan, Amy Theiss Giese, Asuka Goto and Nicole Ratos Enerson, opening Thurs., June 16. The artists were selected for solo exhibitions as part of Step Up 2010, Real Art Ways' annual open call to young and emerging artists in New York, New Jersey and New England.

An opening reception on Thurs., June 16, from 6—8 p.m. will be held as part of Creative Cocktail Hour, Real Art Ways' monthly third Thursday gathering. Creative Cocktail Hour is from 6—10 p.m.; admission is $10/$5 Real Art Ways members.

The five solo shows span a wide range of media: painting, experimental photography, video, site-specific installation and sculpture. Real Art Ways, which is committed to supporting artists, has shown the work of emerging artists through an open call program since 2003.

About the Exhibitions

Jarrett Min Davis: Guts and Glory

Jarrett Min Davis' figurative oil paintings in linen depict forlorn soldiers struggling in battlefields littered with helmets, bodies and geometric orbs (see image). These images are a departure from traditional and historical representations of war that highlight the heroic and victorious virtues of conflict. "This work isn't about judging the morals or politics of war, but rather it is intended to highlight the soldiers who sacrifice their lives and psyches for these political aims," Davis says.

Michael Donovan: Senseless Utility: Sculptural Constructions

Michael Donovan will exhibit constructions of finished oak, welded metal, pulleys, steel cables and other hardware that plays with notions of stability and flexibility through the use of extreme tension. Donovan says, "Each piece performs a designated task with no true purpose other than sustaining the level of energy generated within it." Donovan's work appears to bend and manipulate itself, as if the sculptures themselves could break under their own tension.

Amy Theiss Giese: Light in Sound: Concealed at first at last I appear

Amy Theiss Giese will create an installation of photographic murals and sound. The imagery has been generated through the use of a camera obscura she constructed in a room at 56 Arbor Street, Hartford. Although traditional camera obscuras function during the daytime, Amy's images come from the shadows cast at night. The resulting image is haunting and structural at the same time.

Asuka Goto: Space as inventory, space as invention

Asuka Goto will build a site-specific installation composed of rotating walls, requiring the viewer to move pieces of the room's architecture in order to navigate the space of the gallery. "I am interested in the way that we interact with architectural space and the degree to which our physical surroundings can manipulate our perceptions of ourselves." Her installation further explores the complex relationship between humans and the constructed space we occupy.

Nicole Ratos Enerson: In and Out

Nicole Ratos Enerson's exhibition is composed of paintings and video played on wall-mounted screens. Her oil paintings are representational depictions of mouths and nostrils in various stages of breathing. The video works depict the shapes created by breathing on a piece of frosted glass, resulting in ghostly forms that slowly emerge and recede. Her paintings and videos hinge on manifestations of breath and breathing as a way to reflect upon multiple dualities of existence.

Thursday night opening at Middlesex Community College

Middlesex Community College Pegasus Gallery
100 Training Hill Road, Chapman Hall, Middletown, 1-800-818-5501
Paul Gobell: Floral Menagerie
Middlesex Community College The Niche
100 Training Hill Road, Founders Hall, Middletown, 1-800-818-5501
Michael Donovan: Sculptural Apparatus
Sept. 13—Oct. 21, 2010.
Opening reception, Thurs., Sept. 23, 5:30—7:30 p.m. in the Pegasus Gallery

Press release

Sculptor Michael Donovan creates quasi-mechanical implements that momentarily suspend muscular operations of expansion and contraction. In works like “construction for flexure,” considerable physical tension is enacted on the skeletal form where danger lurks in its potential for spontaneous motion. Donovan’s contraptions exploit the visual, associative and inherent physical properties of his chosen materials. Warm strips of wood are contorted against gray planes of structural steel by welded and fastened springs, cables and pulleys. These sculptural works are expressions of momentary action and embody the imaginary and inventory spirit of the da Vincian tradition.



Donovan is a Cheshire resident and M.F.A. Graduate of the University of Connecticut. He has exhibited his work in Connecticut and New York.

Paul Gobell’s floral series paintings portray dream like worlds that mediate both intimate and monumental botanical scales. In works like “Annabelle on the Hudson,” the pristine, closely framed and truncated rose is treated with the figurative significance and moralizing precision of a Baroque vanitas still life. The background landscape vista is expansive as if to reference the compositional order of Romantic period expressions of the picturesque. Surreal spatial effects are evoked by these dramatically staged figure ground relationships that delight in as much as disorient specific interpretations of time and place. Gobell's vision of coexisting cultivated and wild topographies draw the mind deep within his compositions where still life and landscape traditions blend to celebrate the intrinsic beauty of nature.

Gobell is a Middletown Artist Cooperative resident and B.A. graduate of Central Connecticut State University. His works have been shown at the Renana Gallery, The William Benton Museum, New Britain Museum of American Art and are included in several private collections.

There will be an opening tomorrow, Thurs., Sept. 23, from 5:30—7:30 p.m. in the Pegasus Gallery.