Two openings at Middlesex Community College on Wed., Feb. 6

Middlesex Community College Pegasus Gallery
100 Training Hill Road, Middletown, 1-800-818-5501
Sonya Suydam Gill: Color in the Pegasus Gallery (Pegasus Gallery is located within the library on the first floor of Chapman Hall)
Jan. 28—Mar. 22, 2013.
Michael DiGiorgio: Drawn from Life in the Niche (The Niche is located in Founders Hall across from the Registrar’s Office.)
Feb. 4—Mar. 22, 2013.
Opening Reception: Wed., Feb. 6, 4—6 p.m.

Press release from Middlesex Community College

Sonya Suydam Gill’s painting process confronts color and composition with dynamic and expressive force. “Color” is dominated by landscape paintings that emphasize the abstract qualities of paint. Broadly applied brush strokes create an active surface where successive paint layers suggest depth and light. This is best observed in “River at Dusk,” where balance is struck between a gestural image construction and its serene waterscape subject.

Sonya Suydam Gill

Gill says, “I paint those things that are part of my life. I love flowers, the water and often in my still lifes, incorporate lively fabrics in vivid colors. I could not live in a world without color.”

Gill has exhibited throughout Connecticut and lives in Chester. She received her BFA, MFA and EdD at Syracuse University, instructed art in New York and was the principal at East Lyme High School.

Michael DiGiorgio's illustrations are based on direct observation of bird species within their natural habitat. Drawn from Life consists of preparatory watercolor sketches produced in Connecticut and abroad. Drawing and painting birds while in the field rather than from photographs is significant to DiGiorgio's process and contributes the life-like appearance of his subjects. In his statement prepared for this show he says that: "These field sketches help me produce some of my favorite work, because they have a freshness and immediacy that is almost impossible to get in the studio."

Michael DiGiorgio

DiGiorgio lives in Madison and is an adjunct instructor of art at MxCC and Wesleyan University. He has exhibited nationally including the Bennington Center for the Arts (Bennington, VT), Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum (Wausau, W.I.), Dietel Gallery (Troy, N.Y.), Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia, P.A.) and the Northeast Wildlife Art Exposition (Albany, N.Y.).

Two openings Thursday evening at Middlesex Community College

Middlesex Community College Pegasus Gallery
100 Training Hill Road, Chapman Hall, Middletown, 1-800-818-5501
Mark Williams: Can’t We All Just get Along?
Middlesex Community College The Niche
100 Training Hill Road, Founders Hall, Middletown, 1-800-818-5501
Thanakhon Likhitlerdrat: Silken Forms
Through Jan. 6, 2011.
Opening reception, Thurs., Nov. 18, 5:30—7:30 p.m. in the Pegasus Gallery

Press release

Mark Williams’ exhibition Can’t We All Just Get Along? addresses issues of militarism introduced to children as war toys. In this series of paintings, the mock art of war is transformed into new modes of visual play. Williams’ positions colorful monolithic forms derived from Play-Doh molds to overpower heroic fixed-posed army action figures. A doughy banana cluster, frog, bear, and a roster form ride piggyback atop toy soldiers posed for action. In works like “untitled (transparent white elephant)”, only a solder’s legs, torso and rifle protrude beneath a pudgy elephant as if smothered in soft squishy amour. Williams’ work transmits a universal statement of peace and critiques the militarist theft of childhood innocence.


Williams lives in New Haven and has exhibited throughout the Northeast, Canada and Bulgaria.

Silken Forms showcases a series of recent silk covered boxes and pottery by Thanakhon Likhitlerdrat. Likhitlerdrat lives in Bangkok, Thailand where traditional arts and crafts associated with silk are highly prized cultural and economic commodities. Thai silk fabric is renowned for its complex surface luster, fine texture and intricate woven patterns. Its production and artesian training is presided over by Thai royalty as a means to preserve its exceptional quality and future practice.


The silk pottery works produce by Likhitlerdrat are at once, intimate, delicate, and electrifyingly vibrant. The finely thrown and sculpted vessels reveal and conceal their three-dimensional forms as the eye is insistently drawn back and forth between surface and form. The sumptuous and elaborately patterned silks and trim reflect light in dynamic and unexpected ways to unify their appliqué surfaces and sculptural complexity.

Likhitlerdrat studied drafting at the Institute of Technology in Bangkok and is training in silk craft practices in a Thai Government program developed to promote arts related entrepreneurship.

There will be an opening tomorrow, Thurs., Nov. 18, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. in the Pegasus Gallery.