"Slight of Hand" reception this evening, Thurs., Mar. 13, at Seton Art Gallery

Seton Art Gallery at the University of New Haven
Doods Hall, University of New Haven, 300 Boston Post Rd., West Haven, (203) 931-6065
Slight of Hand
Through Mar. 21, 2014.
Reception: Thurs., Mar. 13, 6—8 p.m.; (Preceded by and concurrent with bake sale from 2—8 p.m.)

Press release from Seton Art Gallery

The group exhibit Slight of Hand will be marked by a reception this evening, Thurs., Mar. 13, from 6—8 pm. In the Seton Art Gallery at the University of New Haven. A bake sale will begin at 2 p.m. in the gallery and run through the reception. Participating artists are Geoffrey Detrani, Rachel Hellerich, Debbie Hesse, Jeanne Heifetz, Tim Nikiforuk and Rachel A. Vaters-Carr.

Intended to be a play on words: slight, refers to modest, handmade gestures that form interplays of spatial configurations. When wnvisioning space in the mind's eye, memories fade and certain details come into focus. Often our memory of particular space conflicts with physical rules, and the mind has a unique way of imposing elements from one space with those of another. Whether those space recall chaos theories, explore organic matter, and/or expose socio-political histories, each participating artist addresses his and her own spatial perceptions.

Jeanne Heifetz: "Working the Line 7"

From the layered abstractions of Geoffrey Detrani to the iconic geysers and volcanoes of Rachel A. Vaters-Carr, this exhibit attempts to capture spaces that are familiar but vaguely distant. Rachel Hellerich's detailed paintings draw on a variety of architectural references from German WWII style structures to Islamic patterns, depicting representational and embellished spaces. Debbie Hesse assembles plant matter with plastic and foam, alluding to the fragile balance between humans and nature. Jeanne Heifetz works with quartzite, bronze, zinc, nickel and wax to generate sinuous lines that recall ridges and other natural formations. Tim Nikiforuk, University of New Haven Art and Design faculty member, references biological entities and systems through condensed layering. Through line, pattern and textured surfaces, the artists in Slight of Hand employ highly crafted techniques that are subtle yet evocative.

Nature underfoot at Seton Gallery

Seton Art Gallery at the University of New Haven
Dodds Hall, University of New Haven, 300 Boston Post Rd., West Haven, (203) 931-6065
Constructed Ecology

The first thing I notice when entering the Seton Gallery to check out Constructed Ecology is the smell of grass (the lawn type). The floor is covered with sod and the gallery space is sectioned off, creating two cubicles. The juxtaposition of structure and a signifier of the natural environment—living grass—challenge visitors to contemplate our relationship to nature. The exhibit is the joint effort of summer artists-in-residence Michael Galvin and Kyle Skar with the multimedia interventions of Lisa Amadeo, Nicki Chavoya and Gary Velush.

While the grass is in one sense a signifier of nature it is also an archetypal example of the domestication of nature, the human urge to dominate and control nature. The sod is laid down in rectangular segments, like a living living room carpet. The visitor's experience as one walks through the gallery is symbolic of the human impact on nature—taking it for granted, trampling it underfoot.

According to gallery director Laura Marsh, the grass is watered twice a day. Still, much of it just clinging to life, brown and dispirited. But in corners and hugging the walls along the well-trod paths, green tangles endure.

Photo from the "Constructed Ecology" opening courtesy of Seton Gallery

The architectural structures function on two levels, serving both to break up the space into geometric pathways and to create rooms housing the multimedia responses of Amadeo, Chavoya and Velush. The first "room" I enter features the looping video piece "Digital Window" by Nicki Chavoya and Lisa Amadeo. The video is a succession of scenes overlaid with found sounds, bits of banal everyday conversation and static. The video, filmed throughout New England, features scenes of bucolic woods, views of suburbia, piles of freshly cut wood in a forest clearing, cats feeding at their bowls, big box retail stores. The accumulation of imagery suggests a deep undercurrent of alienation and even looming threat. The serenity of one suburban scene is belied by the fact that Amadeo and Chavoya have filmed a cul-de-sac, the dead end of the growth imperative. In another short clip—in what I have to believe was a highly fortuitous circumstance—they captured a big truck for "Global Environmental Services" turning a suburban corner like something out of a Don DeLillo novel. All is not well in paradise.

"Digital Window": Video by Lisa Amadeo and Nicki Chavoya

In the other cubicle, Gary Velush set up a sound installation incorporating readings of the work of James Joyce, natural and mechanical sounds, strange rumblings. This cubicle is more enclosed, claustrophobic. The plywood walls are painted black with the exception of numerous unpainted areas in which the wood grain looks like ghostly figures with the knots for eyes. Cut into the walls are six portals, which are painted gold. Within each portal, Michael Galvin has placed a couple of plaster casts of mushrooms daubed with gold paint. The environment references altered states, heightened sensory awareness, magic and the spiritual quality of nature.

Constructed Ecology, which is open through Oct. 26, prompts contemplation of our relationship to nature. In thinking about that I return to the sensory image at the start of this post, that of the smell of grass when I entered the gallery. Gallery director Laura Marsh sent me photos from the opening and one of the striking things is how green and fresh the ersatz lawn looked. In its decay, this aspect of the installation speaks volumes. We were given paradise and have put up a parking lot.

Opening tonight: "Constructed Ecology" at Seton Gallery at UNH

Seton Art Gallery at the University of New Haven
Doods Hall, University of New Haven, 300 Boston Post Rd., West Haven, (203) 931-6065
Constructed Ecology
Sept. 19—Oct. 26, 2013.
Reception: Thurs., Sept. 19, 5—9 p.m.

Press release from Seton Art Gallery

Constructed Ecology aims to enhance the viewer's spatial perception using light, sound, video and texture. When entering the gallery space, one is confronted with two luminescent cubes in a field of grass. These architectural vessels create tension between themselves and the triple L-shaped gallery. This spatial narrative is akin to the first day of spring, recalling the feeling of grass beneath one's feet as one takes in a deep breath of fresh air.

The exhibit will be on view through Oct. 26. An opening reception is scheduled for Thurs., Sept. 19, from 5—9 p.m.

This exhibition blurs the lines of the natural and the engineered. Subsequently, the notion of "viewing" space and "passage" through space is inhibited, forcing the viewer to slow down and interact with the work. The installation encourages one to challenge their perception of curated and regulated spaces from that of nature and the wilderness.

Seton has become more experiential as two artists, Michael Galvin and Kyle Skar, work for one month as artists-in-residence. They have customized the gallery and used it as an incubator for a large-scale project. This discovery aims to challenge the traditional views of exhibition space through an interaction with the existing architectural space. Galvin and Skar have invited two local video collaborators Lisa Amadeo and Nicki Chavoya to develop and project video content within one of the architectural vessels. Gary Velush will customize an auditory piece in the second space. Within this interdisciplinary exhibition, a variety of sensory experiences will be produced.

Constructed Ecology raises questions and draws awareness to the built environment, encouraging viewers to seek out natural spaces. This interdisciplinary project combines architecture, sculpture, digital media and natural forms resulting in conversations about manufactured experiences and the air we breathe. This discourse is relevant to the development of the Seton Gallery as a cultural center for both the University and the New Haven community.

"Local Industry" show reception at Seton Art Gallery Sat., May 25

Seton Art Gallery at the University of New Haven
Doods Hall, University of New Haven, 300 Boston Post Rd., West Haven, (203) 931-6065
Local Industry: Reflections on Nearby Desolation
May 18—Jun. 15, 2013.
Reception: Sat., May 25, 6—8 p.m.

Press release from Seton Art Gallery

Local Industry is an illustrated encyclopedia of responses to the remnants of industrial Connecticut. Whether stepping through the rubble to capture the best vantage point for a photograph, meticulously painting a distressed surface or constructing a sculptural analogy to abandoned buildings, each artist evokes a different sense of both appreciation and longing.

J.D. Richey: "91 Shelton"

The featured artists are Michael Angelis, Anna Held Audette, Roland Becerra, Laura Boyer, Joy Bush, David Coon, Claudia Cron, Phyllis Crowley, Matthew Hester, Brent Howard, Aniko Horvath, Keith Johnson, Todd Jokl, Nathan Lewis, David Ottenstein, Chris Randall, J.D. Richey, Cindy Tower, Maria Tupper and Tracy Walter Ferry.

Local Industry will be on view from May 18 through Jun. 15. There will be a reception for the artists on Sat., May 25, from 6—8 p.m.Local Industry was curated by Stephen Vincent Kobasa and Laura Marsh.

Soon to be a memory: "Multi-focus Memoryscapes" at Seton Art Gallery

Seton Art Gallery at the University of New Haven
Doods Hall, University of New Haven, 300 Boston Post Rd., West Haven, (203) 931-6065
Multi-focus Memoryscapes
Through Mar. 28, 2013.

Multi-focus Memoryscapes, which closes tomorrow, is a three-artist show—painter William McCarthy, painter/mixed media artist Graham D. Honaker II and photographer Hank Paper (objectivity alert: this writer's employer)—hung to exploit the complementarity of the varying imagery. And the variations are substantial—comprising Paper's perceptive and witty street photography, McCarthy's austere and spiritual landscapes and Honaker's unique mélange of collage, painting and assemblage.

One wall serves as a perfect example of how slyly this show was put together by curator Laura Marsh. Facing the entrance, the wall displays, left to right, a McCarthy painting ("These Dreams"), a Honaker mixed media work ("The stewardess") and Paper's photograph "Terminal."

Multi-focus Memoryscapes: from left to right, "These Dreams" by William McCarthy, "The Stewardess" by Graham D. Honaker II and "Terminal" by Hank Paper

The three works could barely be more different. But—Honaker's "The Stewardess" acts as the fulcrum, the hinge connecting the three works. Like all Honaker's pieces, "The Stewardess" is dense with imagery—old magazine photos, advertisements and product packaging are layered in a clear epoxy resin with abstract drips and smears of paint and his hand-cut repeated stencil image of a stewardess. As a composition—despite the fact that it employs representational imagery—it is an abstraction, defying the viewer to create narrative meaning out of the panoply of juxtapositions. It contains multitudes. Do its disparate images relate to each other in a coherent way? At least formally, they do. It is exciting to look at.

Compared to Honaker's "The Stewardess," McCarthy's "These Dreams" and Paper's "Terminal" are quiet. But there is a subliminal sense to their side-by-side display. Splashes of teal and orange paint in "The Stewardess" are answered by the presence of similar pigments in McCarthy's misty, mysterious landscape. That teal is also hinted at in the shadow in the corner of a wall abutting a window in "Terminal." And, of course, a stewardess—or flight attendant, in contemporary parlance—could be found prowling the corridors of an airport terminal.

Each of these works in their own way shows off the strengths of the individual artists. McCarthy's paintings are works of imagination rather than depictions of specific locations. They appear to be as much about the pleasures of working with paint and color as they an idealization of nature. Detail is as important to McCarthy as it is to Honaker. But for McCarthy, that attention to detail manifests itself in a completely different way—in layering colors, in the textures afforded by varying brush strokes.

Paper is a street photographer of uncanny perception, his antennae always up to serendipitous moments, some wry, some poignant. In "Terminal," the viewer see five jets in formation, presumably part of an air show, zooming past the floor-to-ceiling windows. But this evocation of unfettered motion and speed is counterbalanced by the appearance on the right of the frame of a wheelchair with its occupant's legs and clasped hands visible. Another photograph, "Where Are You?", was shot in a restaurant. A chic young blonde woman, sitting alone at a table for two, clasps her pink cell phone to her ear. On the wall behind her is a print of a Roy Lichtenstein comic strip-inspired painting of a similar blonde woman on the phone, the word balloon reading, "I don't know what to say." Paper has apparently never meta set-up he didn't recognize, camera in hand. Then there is the subtle social critique of the diorama scene in "Miss America Museum." A cutout of a young African-American girl in a red turtleneck and blue overalls clasps her hands together in delight as she surveys an array of Miss America dolls, games and photos while a crown is placed on her head. But all the images of Miss America are white.

Memory being the thematic hook of this show, it's notable that the concept is applicable to each artist's work in different ways. McCarthy's landscapes are works of memory and imagination, conjuring a sense of place out of his recollection of light, scenery and paint. Paper's photograph's capture moments in memory but do so in a way that invites deeper consideration and contemplation. The imagery in Honaker's works is treated much the same way memories are in dreams—as material to be reshuffled and re-contextualized, to be made strange and fantastic. Perhaps, like memories in dreams, these three artists' works shouldn't fit together. But they do.

"Multi-focus Memoryscapes" show opens at UNH Thursday evening

Seton Art Gallery at the University of New Haven
Doods Hall, University of New Haven, 300 Boston Post Rd., West Haven, (203) 931-6065
Multi-focus Memoryscapes
Mar. 7—28, 2013.
Reception: Thurs., Mar. 7, 6—8 p.m.

Press release from Seton Art Gallery

The 3rd century Greek saying, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, is a phrase that not only discusses subjective attraction but can also be applied to artist intuition when choosing a subject. Whether it is a composition, juxtaposition of imagery, or imagining of an idyllic landscape, all three artists in Multi-focus Memoryscapes approach their work with a sense of intrigue and irony.

Memory, much like a dream, is never sharply in focus or detail but always suggestive, says William McCarthy.

A memoryscape is not an exact representation of a factual world, rather it is an impression or evocation of things remembered. Many of Graham Honaker's, Hank Paper's, and William McCarthy's memoryscapes invoke nostalgia while some share a subtle humor with the viewer. There are multiple themes that run throughout the exhibition including commentaries on popular advertising and culture, the longing for an imagined or once visited landscape, and a return to former values or ways of living.

From moments of quiet reflection with William McCarthy's soft-focus, dream-like landscapes, all of which are in fact painted from memory; to the urban-scape collage paintings of Graham Honaker II that—like layers of dreams rising up—combine disparate iconography from the past with abstract figurative work that evoke memories of a certain time and place and emotion, to Hank Paper's photographs of moments in time that showcase the off-kilter beauty of everyday life, turning the real into the surreal, "We offer a palate of projections that will hopefully move the viewer to a place deeper within him-or-herself," says Hank Paper.

In passing through the exhibition, the varied styles and approaches of each artist coalesce via color, references to culture and society, and the feeling of timelessness and weightlessness.

Originally from New Mexico, Graham D. Honaker II lives and works in Hamden, Connecticut. He received his BFA from Eastern New Mexico University. Influenced by Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Street Art, his paintings comment on contemporary society with subjects ranging from potentially harmful political structures to the simple poetics of everyday life. Also influenced by Existentialism, which emphasizes the act of creating, Honaker exercises his subconscious through auto-painting. He is currently represented by Eidos, LLC.

William McCarthy is originally from Columbus Ohio and works in a basement studio in Hamden, Connecticut. From memory, he paints variations of the Connecticut landscape, along with images of Cape Ann salt marshes and the flat countryside of Ohio. These landscapes coupled with an abstract sensibility are reappearing themes and devises that allow him to create the illusion of atmospheric perspective. His solo exhibition venues include The Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, CT, Kehler Liddell Gallery in New Haven, CT, Middlesex Community College, Middletown, CT, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, Weir Farm Trust, Wilton, CT, Muse Gallery in Columbus, OH, and Trudy LaBelle Fine Arts, in Naples, FL.

Hank Paper documents contemporary culture and society in the streets of North America, The United Kingdom, Western Europe, the Middle East, and Cuba. He turns the quotidian into the quintessential, the real into the surreal, and the actual into a dream. His many solo exhibition venues have included The African American Museum in Philadelphia; Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel; the High Point Historical Museum in North Carolina; The Jewish Museum of New Jersey; the Morgenthal-Frederics Gallery, the Tamarkin Leica Gallery, and The Harlem School of the Arts in New York. He has also exhibited extensively in New Haven, where he is a member of the Kehler Liddell Gallery.

Susan Clinard sculpture show opens at UNH Thursday

The Seton Art Gallery at the University of New Haven
Dodds Hall, 300 Boston Post Rd., West Haven, (203) 931-6065
Susan Clinard: Turning Wheel
Mar. 4—Apr. 1, 2010
Opening reception: Thurs., Mar. 11, 5—7 p.m.

Press release

The Seton Gallery at the University of New Haven is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Susan Clinard titled Turning Wheel. The exhibition is open Mar. 4 through Apr. 1 with a reception on Mar. 1 at 5 p.m.

Clinard's sculptures reflect her strong desire to honor nature's pure form. Whether sculpting from life in clay or carving wood, she strives to reveal nature's truths—the duality of chaos against perfect symmetry. Clinard's integration of found natural objects in her work brings about an organic simplification to the figurative elements. The work draws on and layers nature's puzzles with personal and political themes of inherently deep emotion.