Roberta Friedman show opens Sunday at City Gallery in New Haven

City Gallery
994 State St., New Haven, (203) 782-2489
Roberta Friedman: Embedded
Oct. 3—27, 2013.
Opening Reception: Sun., Oct. 6, 2—5 p.m.

Press release from City Gallery

Roberta Friedman, a member of City Gallery, 994 State Street, New Haven, CT., presents Embedded, new work of multimedia collages and encaustics, from Oct. 3—27, 2013. The opening reception is on Sun., Oct. 6, from 2—5 p.m. On Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 12 and 13, City Gallery hours will be extended to 5 p.m., as a participant in City Wide Open Studios.

Roberta Friedman: "Escape"

Friedman's watercolor and wax enhanced collages transform papers and natural elements into embedded layered paintings that explore and celebrate the wondrous unpredictability of water-based media infused with the intense colors of wax and oil based pigments. Friedman's bias remains her unending fascination with the natural layering of the landscape—its grandeur and its serenity—and her continued quest to re-imagine those layers, through textures, light and color. She has introduced both hot and cold wax techniques into her layering process.

Art show reception Sunday at City Gallery in New Haven

City Gallery
994 State St., New Haven, (203) 782-2489
Elemental: The collages of Roberta Friedman and the photographs of Roslyn Meyer
Jan. 12—29, 2012.
Opening Reception, Sun., Jan. 15, 2—5 p.m.

Press release

Roberta Friedman, a member of City Gallery, and guest artist Roslyn Meyer are presenting Elemental, the collages of Roberta Friedman and the photographs of Roslyn Meyer, from Jan.12—29, 2012. The opening reception is on Sun., Jan. 15, from 2—5 p.m.

Friedman’s watercolor collages transform papers and natural found objects into layered paintings that explore and celebrate the wondrous unpredictability of water-based media. Her vision is to contemplate and re-imagine the natural layering of the landscape—its grandeur and its serenity—through texture, light and color.


Meyer’s photographs are meditations on the beauty of the natural world, both vistas and more intimate detail. Her painterly, evocative images explore the tension between surface and depth, motion and stillness, reality and abstraction.

Complementary work at City Gallery, one viewing day left

City Gallery
994 State St., New Haven, (203) 782-2489
Roberta Friedman & Kathy Kane: New Members, New Work
Through Jan. 30, 2011.

This show is only up through tomorrow (Sun., Jan. 30) from noon—4 p.m. but it is worth dropping by to check out.

Roberta Friedman’s first medium was watercolor. But in recent years, Friedman has enriched her compositional technique by melding her watercolors with collage. Friedman’s subject is landscape albeit with a highly personal vision. Responding to the natural layering of landscape, Friedman crafts complex abstract compositions that suggest nature as a seething web ofvisual and tactile pleasure.

To this end, Friedman not only layers torn strips of painted watercolor paper but also fibrous handmade paper, seaweed, found strips of bark and lichen and even thin pieces of rusted metal. With “Glacial Plain” and “Glacial Shift,” outcroppings of brown and gray rock—represented by bark, rusted metal and distressed painted paper—appear mineral-veined and sparkle like mica in the sun. In each, the rock is set amid a frozen sea of washed-out blue green puckering like frozen crystals, the snow and ice reflecting the tundra gray of the sky.

The works of Friedman and Kathy Kane complement each other well. Where Friedman’s compositions are characterized by jagged, uneven or flowing natural forms, Kane’s acrylic paintings on panel favor strongly delineated geometric shapes.

But Kane uses a lot of underpainting and also dilutes her acrylic colors to achieve a liquid wash. “Fields” is, on the one hand, striking for its two rectangular fields of color—yellow and red. On the other hand, “Fields”—as with most of Kane’s other paintings—is notable for the energy that surges through both blocks of color because the darker underpainting shows through Kane’s lively brush strokes.

The energy of those brush strokes—the sense of seething natural processes—is a point of connection with Friedman’s turbulent natural forms and textures.

Paintings and collage at City Gallery opening this Saturday

City Gallery
994 State St., New Haven, (203) 782-2489
Roberta Friedman & Kathy Kane: New Members/New Work
Jan. 6—31, 2011.
Opening reception, Sat., Jan. 8, 3—6 p.m.

Press release

City Gallery is presenting New Members/ New Work, the collages of Roberta Friedman and the paintings of Kathy Kane, from Jan. 6 through Jan. 30, 2011. The opening reception is on Sat., Jan. 8, from 3—6 p.m. There will be an informal discussion with the artists on Sun., Jan. 23, at 2 p.m.

Friedman’s watercolor collages transform papers and natural found objects into layered paintings that explore and celebrate the wondrous unpredictability of water-based media. Her vision is to contemplate and re-imagine the natural layering of the landscape—its grandeur and its serenity—through texture, light and color.


Kane is a Connecticut based painter. In this body of work, the paintings reflect with simple structure the personal observations of her daily life and the input of media. The surprising results are works that are dance-like, musical and rhythmic.

Reunion show rocks Hull's Gallery One Whitney

Hull's Gallery One Whitney
1 Whitney Ave., New Haven, (203) 907-0320
3 After 30: Roberta Friedman, Natalie Melbardis, David Millen with guest Maishe Dickman
Through July 9, 2009.

As Part I of the Hull's Gallery One Whitney "Summer Salon," the venue is hosting 3 After 30. It is a reunion show of sorts, featuring three artists—Roberta Friedman, Natalie Melbardis and David Millen—who exhibited together 30 years ago at a Whitney Avenue gallery. There is also an installation piece and several vessels by guest artist and master potter Maishe Dickman.

Friedman is represented by a number of wonderful watercolor collages. These new works have roots in her earlier watercolors. One of those older pieces, "Autumn Reflections" from 1979, is a serenely fluid depiction of orange, red and golden leaves on a pond surface.

Stepping three decades ahead finds Friedman still preoccupied with landscape but approaching it with a richer and more experimental aesthetic. "Tanzania Vista" (2009) is typical of her contemporary approach. Instead of painting a straightforward watercolor of the scene (shore, jungle, mountains in the distance), Friedman layers pieces, strips, fragments of watercolor-painted paper, some of which looks handmade. This approach creates a vibrant surface that better captures the feel of nature—unruly, wild and beautiful.

David Millen, who I have written about previously, is showing several of his smaller scale figurative sculptures (as well as some porcelain vessels). Millen's sculptures are characterized by the grace of the interaction between his troupe of dancers, gymnasts and circus aerialists. Miller, with most of these, is working with marbleized epoxy resin to create his figures. They are mounted on a steel base. "Forming a Circle" features three figures. Two males (one standing on his hands) hold a woman up in the air. There is a strong visual circularity to the composition, flowing from the way Millen directs the energy from figure to figure (as though they are swimming after each other). This illusion of movement is accented by the swirling color of the smooth, marbleized surface.

Melbardis' pieces are the most disparate selection in the show, encompassing black and white collages, color collages in quilt-like geometric patterns and a couple of acrylic on paper paintings that combine Pollockesque density with a controlled intricacy of execution.

There are several beautiful pieces of stoneware by Dickman in the show, particularly the stunning "16-Tile Wall Piece."