Multimedia happening at new NEST Art Center in Bridgeport this Saturday night

NEST Art Center
1720 Fairfield Ave., Bridgeport, CT
Cinematic Multiplex 4 the Senses
Sat., Jan. 7, 2012, 6:30 p.m. til "late."
$5 cover includes refreshments. BYO wine.

Press release

It's a happening, baby! At the new NEST (North East Space/Time) Art Center (directions) in Bridgeport this Saturday, Liquid Nitrate Films and A/V Xperiment present a Film and Video Experiment Multi-Media Festival—Cinematic Multiplex 4 the Senses. There will be a $5 cover, which includes refreshments. Attendees are encouraged to BYO wine.

Original Films by original local filmmakers in a huge warehouse filled with people and Buttered Popcorn. View these films on our huge panoramic professional movie screen 20 x 40 ft. Six screens to show their films on. Invite your friends and family.

6:30—9 p.m.: Peter Konsterlie Art Works & Productions—Tec color tidal scope squidialous films:

1 • The Beatles hold their breath with excerpts from “Yellow Submarine” (Blue Meanies optional)
2 • French surrealist Jean Painleve featuring the sounds of Yo La Tengo “The Sea Horse”
3 • “CULTOONS” rare and lost, and zany cartoons from the great beyond
4 • Crowd-pleasing “The Way Things Go” a Duchampian extravaganza, and a mousetrap of a movie!
5 • Stan Brakhage’s landmark film “Moth Light” and much, much more!
6 • Bjork “Hidden Place”

9—12 pm: Live video art, project Internet, video games, compter art, animations, open mic poetry reading.

VIDEO PRODUCTIONS:
Kelly Bigelow Becerra
Sean Corvino
Greg Catalano
Dustin DeMillo
Rob Greenberg
Tony Juliano
Mary Jo Lombardo
Rob Parkman
Doug Poger
Lisa Seidenberg

Lisa Spetrini and friends, Hula Hoops
This is a Hula-Hoop Friendly Event !

OPEN CALL—BYO DVD!

Saturday opening at the Bruce Kershner Gallery in Fairfield Public Library

Bruce S. Kershner Gallery at Fairfield Public Library
1080 Old Post Rd., Fairfield, (203) 256-3155
Beauty Marks
Mar. 27—May 16, 2010.
Opening reception: Sat., Mar. 27, 5—7 p.m., Curator/Artists' Talk at 6 p.m.

Press release

Curated by Janine Brown, Beauty Marks, at the Fairfield Public Library's Bruce S. Kershner Gallery, is an exhibition of 10 Connecticut artists that use mark making in their art. The exhibition will run from Mar. 27 through May 16. The opening reception will take place on Sat., Mar. 27 from 5—7 pm with a brief talk by the curator and artists at 6 p.m. The Bruce S. Kershner Gallery is located at 1080 Old Post Road in Fairfield.

Ms. Brown states that "Beauty Marks was inspired by the history of the beauty mark." During 17th century France, high society women used faux "beauty" marks made of black taffeta to enhance their looks and communicate coquettish messages. For instance, a mark on the forehead suggested majesty, a mark close to the dimple was playful, and a mark at the corner of the lips was regarded as murderous. Similar to the French female aristocrats, the artists in this exhibition use their "beauty" marks to communicate a message to the viewer. The act of mark making for these and other artists is done by intentionally placing lines and symbols on paper or other supports to ultimately create the artist's unique message. In this exhibition, the humanity and the human form are the common threads, yet each artist in the exhibition communicates their reference to humanity in a different way.

Referencing the origins of man, Paul Kaiser's graphite drawings of hominid skulls on the worn pages from the first edition of The Tragical Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke combines the marks made by the artist with the marks of the typography of the book. The juxtaposition of the skulls and the story of Hamlet provide a subtle statement of man as beast.

Karen Sorensen also references early man with "Viking I" and "Viking II." Sorensen's life-size drawings of the Norse warriors provide an unsettling contrast to the tranquility of a library setting by showing the warriors in full armor with weapons drawn.

Likewise, Jak Kovatch has used the warrior as inspiration. Kovatch uses mixed media to create powerful graphic elements and linear shapes that wrap around or weave in and out of diffused forms. In the works selected for this exhibition, Kovatch starts with the skull and transforms it into various references of the warriors of yore.

Nomi Silverman comments on humanity with three of her works that deal with homelessness. The expressive use of lines and color characterize the sadness and despair that one imagines feeling if one was homeless.

Expression and use of line comes across in artist Peter Konsterlie's work, which fuses medical illustrations with linear marks and patterns to create his response to a loved one's medical treatment and illness.

Addressing the linear in a different way, Edith Borax-Morrison uses a woven sheath of free flowing strings and fibers to create references of women in her pen and ink pieces, "Ensnared" and "Wired Woman."

Noted for her works on ceramics and drawings, Judy Henderson was selected for this exhibit for her drawings executed on tea bags. Henderson's charming works are based on her interest in the human body and the head as a vessel holding information.

The other artists included in the show include Anne Doris-Eisner, M.G. Martin, and James Reed.

Thursday night openings at Artspace

Artspace
50 Orange St, New Haven, (203) 772-2709
Phil Lique: Traces of Things That Are Alive and Dead
Fritz Horstman: Guerrilla Trees
Elaine Kaufmann: International Design
Conspectus I: New Work from the Flatfile Collection
Cecile Chong: Unspoken Word
Peter Konsterlie: Medical Systems
Feb. 25—Mar. 20, 2010
Public Opening: Thurs., Feb. 25, 6—8 p.m.

Press release

Artspace announces four new solo exhibitions with works by both Connecticut and Brooklyn-based artists. Fritz Horstman, Elaine Kaufmann, Cecile Chong, and Peter Konsterlie explore ecological concerns, issues of sustainability, and the relationship of the human form to nature, tradition, and mortality. Artist Phil Lique's exhibition, Traces of Things That Are Alive and Dead, previously opened in January and continues to cast a flame over Gallery 1 with a large-scale performative sculpture and five equally assertive paintings.

Phil Lique's collaged paintings of bears, sharks, and deer juxtaposed with laptops and SUVs speak to a generation of artists concerned with the way the Internet and Google affect our everyday lives. Lique's performance, "Evidence of Competitive Natures," took place at Artspace this past January and is featured in our artist directory (http://artspacenh.org/artists/PLique).

Part sculpture and part performance, Fritz Horstman's Guerrilla Trees is an interactive, urban planning project that invites visitors to take an elm sapling from Gallery 2 and plant it in the city as an environmentally proactive gesture.

Visitors are invited to Gallery 3 to view Elaine Kaufmann's International Design, a series of arresting pencil drawings that connect the fantasies of first-world affluence with the production of third-world poverty (see image).

In conjunction with these five solo exhibitions, Artspace presents Conspectus I, a group exhibition of Flatfile drawings, paintings, and photographs in Gallery 4. The exhibition showcases the diverse techniques and approaches of 40 Flatfile Collection artists working in diverse mediums and subject matter that range from small-scale drawings to large-scale photographs. This group exhibition represents the first of many of Artspace's upcoming Flatfile exhibitions.

Cecile Chong's Unspoken Word series recalls the fantastical foreign worlds frequently found in children's books in her intricately designed painting assemblages in Gallery 5. Chong's pictorial vignettes speak to notions of cultural identity and assimilation in the age of globalization.

Peter Konsterlie's Medical Systems series in Gallery 7 juxtaposes the technical precision used in anatomical drawing with the emotional content of color.

These exhibitions are on view from Feb. 25—Mar. 20, 2010. Please join us for the public reception on Thursday, February 25, from 6—8 p.m.