Christian Berman show opens at Ulla Surland in Fairfield Saturday

Ulla Surland Gallery Eleven
11 Unquowa Rd., Fairfield, (203) 259-1572
Christian Berman: Recent Works
Jan. 19—Feb. 16, 2013.
Opening Reception: Sat., Jan. 19, 6—8 p.m.

Press release from the Ulla Surland Gallery

Christian Berman was born in Mexico and raised in Westport, Connecticut. Berman attended Duke University where he received a BA in International Comparative Studies. He went on to receive a masters degree in Landscape Architecture from Rhode Island School of Design. He lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and has a working studio in the American Fabrics Arts building in Bridgeport, Connecticut as well as in the Active Space in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Berman spent his youth connecting to the natural world while exploring the woods in New England. He was particularly drawn to birds and their visual diversity of color, patterns, textures and forms. His paintings, fantastic combinations of abstract imagery, realist elements, computer graphics and stenciled patterns, strongly reflect these early influences. He cuts, pours, paints and glues imagery on to large canvases creating intelligent works with exquisite visual impact and powerful emotional resonance. He creates diptychs and triptychs, often fairly small, telling stories containing undertones of mystery, spirituality and his perceptions of reality. In addition to his experiences of nature, his works are influenced by the visual iconography of his Mexican roots, his love of the Impressionists, the abstract expressionists, the surrealists and of Eastern artists such as Japanese painter Hiroshige. The resulting paintings are a fiercely personal, unique and undogmatic expression of this young and gifted artist's efforts to understand and express the world of his experience.

Christian Berman: "Truth or Consequences"

The works being shown in this exhibition were created over the past year and a half. When asked to explain this body of work, Mr. Berman states the following: "A Buddhist proverb asks, 'How can I die if I was never born?' The notion of time having flexibility, and existing as more than a linear progression, is a driving force in my work. My paintings are improvisational constructions of imagined places, often reminiscent of digital worlds. I endeavor to create a conversation between the individual panels of each triptych and with the history of painting as a whole. In my larger works, 18th century etchings are collaged into geometric, often computer-drawn objects. The abstract form thus encapsulates and simplifies the convoluted history of human invention. The birds in the paintings are intermediaries, able to transcend the boundaries between past and future, the real and the imagined, the Eastern and the Western, the digital and the concrete."

The show will be on view from Jan. 19 through Feb. 16. There will be an opening reception this Sat., Jan. 19, from 6—8 p.m.

Saturday evening opening for group show at Ulla Surland in Fairfield

Ulla Surland Gallery Eleven
11 Unquowa Rd., Fairfield, (203) 259-1572
Water: A Group Exhibition
July 14—Aug. 31, 2012.
Opening Reception: Sat., July 14, 6—8 p.m.

Press release from the Ulla Surland Gallery

Marianne Van Lent—Fresco Secco & Dispersed Pigment on Canvas
Brechin Morgan—Acrylic on Canvas
Janis Melone—Collage/Mixed Media
Rebecca Harper—Oil on Canvas
David Dunlop—Oil on Metal
Ann Conrad—Intaglio Prints with Hand Coloring
Frank Bruckmann—Oil on Canva

Where there is no water, there is no life as we know it. Water covers 71% of the earth's surface. It exists in the universe in vast quantities, it's components, hydrogen and oxygen, among the most plentiful of the elements. Water vapor along with carbon dioxide create a buffer around the earth keeping the temperature stable and within a range that supports life.

Too much water as in floods, and combined with energy as in tsunamis and hurricanes causes cataclysmic destruction. Scarcity of water creates deserts where life exists only in the rarest forms and with difficulty. Civilizations rise and prosper in the fertile land around rivers and in the temperate zones where oceans meet land masses. Waterways are used as pathways of transportation, as receptacles of waste, for recreation, and when harnessed, to produce energy. Water is used for food preparation, to extinguish fires, for bathing, to cool our nuclear reactors, quench the thirst of factory farms, and in religious ritual.

Volumes have been written about water in all its forms and uses, from the world of science and the finite, to the world of science fiction and the infinite and in the places where they meet and combine. The seven artists participating in this exhibition using their creative voices have used water as inspiration for works of art. The works are literal and abstract, sometimes both, small and large, and use a variety of materials, scales and dimensions, expressing the poetic, the factual, the surreal and the fantastic.

The show will be on view from July 14 through Aug. 31. There will be an opening reception this Sat., July 14, from 6—8 p.m.

(Image: "Bitmap XIV" by Ann Conrad.)

Eve Stockton woodcuts show opens Friday in Fairfield

Ulla Surland Gallery Eleven
11 Unquowa Rd., Fairfield, (203) 259-1572
Eve Stockton: Seasons in Transition—Woodcut Prints
Mar. 9—Apr. 28, 2012.
Opening Reception: Fri., Mar. 9, 6—8 p.m.

Press release

Eve Stockton is known for her large-scale woodcut prints. Her imagery is nature/science based and has been featured on many covers of Nature Genetics Magazine. Her work will be shown at Ulla Surland from Mar. 9 through Apr. 28. There will be an opening reception Fri., Mar. 9, from 6—8 p.m.

In the last few years she has had one-person exhibitions at Brown University, Providence, RI; the Wexford Arts Center, Ireland; the Inverness County Centre for the Arts, Nova Scotia, and the Heurich Gallery, Washington, DC. She won Best in Show at the Ridgefield Guild of Artists juried competition (juror: Benjamin Genocchio, The New York Times), and Second Prize in the Prints America juried competition (juror: Jacob Lewis, Pace Prints, NYC).

Stockton regularly exhibits in the CT, NY, and DC areas. She is an active member of the Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, CT and the Silvermine Guild Arts Center, New Canaan, CT. Her work is in many private and public collections.

Painting show opens at Ulla Surland Gallery Eleven in Fairfield Saturday

Ulla Surland Gallery Eleven
11 Unquowa Rd., Fairfield, (203) 259-1572
Lisie Orjuela: Oil Paintings on Canvas
Jan. 21—Mar. 3, 2012.
Opening Reception: Sat., Jan. 21, 6:30—8:30 p.m.

Press release

Lisie Orjuela was born in Argentina, South America. She has lived in a number of countries including Uruguay, Switzerland, Mexico and several states in the United States. She currently lives in Trumbull, Connecticut. She creates art in her studio space in the American Fabrics Arts building in Bridgeport, Connecticut. She received a BFA from Andrews University in Michigan and an MFA from New York University.

Orjuela's art is multi-faceted, energetic and deep. While she works, she dwells in the world of dreams where imagery, color, magic and ambiguity blend and sway creating a reality that competes with wakefulness in its complexity. The works evolve slowly; layers emerge and perhaps submerge only to emerge again as Orjuela wields her art with oil paint, oil bars and oil pastels. Her paintings are a stream of consciousness inspired and steered by her multi cultural experiences, the demands and responsibilities of her busy life and her hopes, fears and dreams. The elements of her life combine and bubble to the surface of her beautiful paintings.


Orjuela does her job as an artist magnificently well; she dazzles and alters our perceptions with deftness and grace, never succumbing to manipulation or sentimentality. An exciting journey awaits as one surrenders to the powerful and modified reality depicted in Orjuela's paintings and allow the richness of this world to guide the direction of ones thoughts. There are no set rules here, or rather, the rules change at random. A crow is sinister at one glance and friendly and playful in the next. Color carries one from cool and murky depths to fierce and heated heights. The pathways through these paintings are natural and without affect. Things are just as they should be even if what that is may be subject to change and full of mystery. One emerges from this journey feeling rejuvenated and enlightened, having been touched by something natural, open and honest in our world where artifice reigns.