Three solo shows open Nov. 9 at Silvermine Art Center

Silvermine Guild Art Center
1037 Silvermine Rd., New Canaan, (203) 966-9700
J Henry Fair: The Hand of Man
Carlos Davila: Neo-Archaism
June Ahrens: What's Left
Nov. 9—Dec. 23, 2014.
Opening Reception: Sun., Nov. 9, 2—4 p.m.

Press release from Silvermine Arts Center

Three new exhibits open at Silvermine Arts Center on Sun., Nov. 9. Three artists explore themes of beauty and ruin, broken landscapes and lost symbols in photography, sculpture and a site-specific work in which video is a predominant element.

J Henry Fair’s stunning abstract compositions are full of organic forms and graphic patterns: plumes, branches, rivulets, as well as grids and softened geometric forms. But in Fair’s large-scale photographs, beauty and horror coexist. Fair’s subject in The Hand of Man is a damaged environment: de-forested landscapes, polluted waterways, hydraulic fracturing sites, and waste from refinery operations and other industrial practices. His goal is to “produce beautiful images that stimulate an aesthetic response, then curiosity, then personal involvement.”

Photo by J Henry Fair

“Flying over these sites is the only way to see things,” Fair has said. “The aerial perspective is inherently intriguing to land-based animals.” It is the aerial view that is his particular angle of vision—the distant view, not of the peaceful blue planet, but of the compromised landscape of a world that even in the digital era is still predominantly industrial.

J Henry Fair’s photography has been the subject of solo exhibitions throughout the U.S. and in Norway, Germany, and the Netherlands. Fair has been a member of the SIlvermine Guild of Artists since 2011.

In Neo-Archaism, Carlos Davila creates a visual landscape that abstracts the symbols and forms of ancient cultures and combines them with those of advanced technology and modern industry. He explores the relationship between the modern, highly mechanized age that we live in and a totemic, stylized symbolism of a variety of ancient cultures from Egypt, South America, and Africa.

Carlos Davila: "Medusa"

Davila abstracts line, form, and color to create sculptures, three-dimensional wall pieces, and large-scale diptychs and triptychs. His mechanical and industrial elements coalesce into a layered, three-dimensional geometry that is textural and drenched in brilliant color. His is a figurative landscape at once familiar and alien.

After earning his MFA, Davila participated in the reconstruction of the ancient city of Chan Chan, Peru. His work at this Pre-Columbian archaeological dig led to a fascination with ancient and lost cultures, and the experience profoundly affected the course of his work. Carlos Davila’s art has been the subject of solo exhibitions from Lima, Santiago, and Bogota to New York, Boston, and Miami. Born and educated in Lima, Peru, he lived for many years in New York City. He currently lives in Ridgefield, Connecticut, and maintains a studio in a loft in Bridgeport. He has been a member of the Silvermine Guild of Artists since 2012.

In her recent work, June Ahrens has explored repurposed and broken glass as material and metaphor. What’s Left is a new turn for Ahrens—a unified environment made up of a video surrounded by blue walls that are layered with dried pigment mixed with salt. This site-dependent piece, created for the Hays Gallery at the Silvermine Arts Center, evokes loss and fragility while channeling light through a landscape of broken glass.

The video serves as the primary element in the composition and contains many of the materials used in her environment. The integration of materials and images (including images of a human face and hands) invites the viewer to explore and embrace the residue of lives. Salt and glass enhance the imperfections of the walls, which become a metaphor for the imperfections in each of us. The surface partially hides some of the scarring but salt and pigment reveal it in a new way. Repurposed broken glass (clear or blue) is also part of the installation—random patterns of fallen shards will pool and reflect danger, pain, and vulnerability. Ahrens calls the work “a map of awareness.

June Ahrens: Still from video

June Ahrens’s work has been exhibited at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City; at the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland; in Strong Women Artists, a group exhibit in Matera, Italy; and in many other exhibitions throughout the U.S. She lives in New Canaan, Connecticut, and has been a member of the Silvermine Guild since 1993.

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.

Opening reception for Katie Bassett "Seamless" show at Trailer Box Gallery in Danbury Saturday

Trailer Box Gallery
15 Great Pasture Rd., Unit 15, Danbury, (203) 797-0230
Kastie Bassett: Seamless
June 8—Aug. 15, 2013.
Opening Reception: Sat., June 15, 5—8 p.m.

Press release from Trailer Box Gallery

Fresh from her first year in Western Connecticut State University's Master of Fine Arts program, Bethel, Connecticut artist Katie Bassett will be showing a solo exhibition of her mixed media installation work at Danbury's Trailer Box Gallery at Jim Felice Studios from June 8 through Aug. 17. An opening reception for the show, Seamless, will be held on Sat., June 15 from 5 to 8 p.m, and Bassett has organized an interactive project for those who attend: a "braiding social," designed to intertwine the construction of art and relationships. A large part of Bassett's recent work has involved braiding and weaving materials such as yarn and black contractor garbage bags.

"[The braiding social] is about people getting together over coffee or a glass of wine to share their experiences and make new memories," Bassett explains. "The constructing of art can be a very personal journey. I have recently come to realize that letting people into the experience can be extremely powerful and special."

In a similar vein, Bassett is planning a special spread of foods to be enjoyed at her reception: via social media, she'll be putting out an invitation to friends, followers, and acquaintances to collaborate with her in the kitchen. She's looking to help people prepare and serve their family recipes to build even further on the spirit of sharing and participation.

Katie Bassett: "Red Shoes Braid"

Bassett, who is co-curator at The Mercurial Gallery in Danbury and a long-time collaborator with sculptor Jim Felice, began this past semester by dismantling all of the work she had constructed during her first months in the MFA program, ironing the various pieces, then weaving and sealing them into a wall-mounted series of 8" by 5" by 1.5" rectangles. The piece, "Interwoven Semester," will be on display in Seamless along with other works she has created within the past semester, including "One Connection Left," a piece constructed with braided garbage bags, and "Nothing" a delicate piece made of window screen and garbage bags. This will be Bassett's first exhibition of this scale.

"The primary interest I address in my work is to push the limits of what the materials will allow, while finding a delicate balance between hues of black," Bassett says. "I utilize a large range of domestic materials to represent fragments of my existence as an artist and a woman. Instead of trying to replicate an object or emotion, I believe it is essential to express it. All of my work expresses the need to rebuild what has been altered by breaking my own preconceived rules of art, expression, and materials. The pieces are reflections of my own inner dynamics alongside observation and participation in relationships—abstractly representing my footprint in this perishable existence."

Bassett aims to express emotions abstractly; she feels representational work can fall short in this area. "I'm interested in constructing work, being so involved with the work that it becomes a true extension of myself and my relationship to others."

A milestone in this endeavor is Seamless: a body of work inspired by life. "I came up with Seamless in the thought of transition," says Bassett. "Moving from a style of work and a life I had become complacent in to changing it around completely. Hopefully seamlessly."

Balkun show reception at 100 Pearl Street Gallery in Hartford Thursday

100 Pearl Street Gallery
100 Pearl St., Hartford, (860) 525-8629
Anita Gangi Balkun: Sanctuary
Through June 1, 2013.
Opening reception: Thurs., Apr. 11, 5—7 p.m.

Press release the Greater Hartford Arts Council

Sanctuary, a mixed-media installation exhibit by local artist Anita Gangi Balkun, premieres at the 100 Pearl Street Gallery managed by the Greater Hartford Arts Council. Balkun pairs memorable photographs with collages of personal artifacts to illuminate the beauty of everyday life, examining how these tokens combat the loss of memory and impermanence of identity as we grow into old age.

Anita Gangi Balkun: "Sanctuary"

A free public opening reception will be held on Thurs., Apr. 11, from 5—7 p.m. in the gallery space. Wine and light hors d’oeuvres will be served.

Anita Gangi Balkun received her MFA in Painting at the University of Hartford in 2009 under the mentorship of Stephen Brown. Since then, she has completed a studio residency at the Farmington Valley Arts Center and was commissioned to create an installation for the 2012 City Wide Open Studios sponsored by Artspace New Haven. Currently a West Hartford resident, Balkun teaches at the Greater Hartford Academy of Art and creates art in her studio in Avon.

Gil Scullion show opens Thursday at Housatonic Museum of Art

Housatonic Museum of Art
900 Lafayette Blvd., Bridgeport, (203) 332-5052
Gil Scullion: Up All Night
Feb. 28—Mar. 22, 2013.
Opening Reception: Thurs., Feb. 28, 5—7 p.m.

Press release from the Housatonic Museum of Art

Up All Night: work from the insomnia project opens February 28 and continues through March 22, 2013. This exhibition has been curated by Robbin Zella and features the work of installation artist Gil Scullion of Middletown, Connecticut. There will be an opening reception for the show on Thurs., Feb. 28, from 5—7 p.m.

Up All Night (2013) is inspired from the sleep disorders that the artist has wrestled with for several years. Although the project is not a first-person record of tossing and turning, it nevertheless is inspired by Scullion’s interest in sleeplessness. This theme evolved through the recognition of insomnia’s intriguing formal relationships, especially its foundation as a presence defined by an absence. After all, insomnia is the absence of sleep, which is itself the absence of consciousness. So while autobiographical information is integrated into the structure of the installation the elements are manipulated with an emphasis on their formal characteristics.

The project incorporates five different but related sets of work, "Wake Me Shake Me," "Sheet-Sheep-Sleep," "00-60," "Not Just Another Good Night’s Sleep," and "It’s the Same Thing Every Night."

"Wake Me Shake Me" (2010 – 2011) depicts the brain’s sleep center as a workshop. Here the stimuli that provoke sleeplessness are represented as templates for the production of various images. Paper bags serve as containers for the resulting pictures. Two projection screens are utilized: one describes sleeplessness as a lost love and the other describes a rare, fatal form of insomnia.

Gil Scullion: "Wake Me Shake Me"

In "Sheet Sheep Sleep" (2009-2010) 30 stenciled panels of sheep are hung out on a line laundry-style. Each template is capable of producing multiple impressions; however, that potential is, as yet, unrealized. Here, Scullion’s use of sheep is a humorous reminder that counting them is believed to induce sleep.

"00-60" (2009-2011) features a modified digital alarm clock that endlessly reads out minutes but not hours, reflecting the dislocation from time that characterizes a loss of sleep. Cardboard bedroom furniture provides a setting for the clock. A one-hour video of the clock in an actual bedroom is projected within the installation.

"Not Just Another Good Night’s Sleep" centers on a set of three short texts describing incidents that contribute to sleep deprivation. The texts, and a series of images inspired by the texts, have been cut into stencils. The stencils are used to produce paintings directly on the gallery walls on scrap paper or, as in this installation, on discarded cardboard boxes. The paintings are temporary, disposable and frequently recyclable.

In "It's the Same Thing Every Night" (2011) stenciled sheep are combined with an ornamental motif and the texts from "Not Just Another Good Night’s Sleep" to produce a tense standoff between sleeplessness and slumber. The elements appear in two and three-dimensional forms evoking our visceral engagement with painting and sculpture.

Each of the five bodies of work was conceived as an independent piece, but they are cumulative as well, in effect, flexible modules that create a profoundly more dramatic work over time. Each exhibition utilizes a different set of elements while each new installation is expressly tailored to engage with each new physical space. Gil Scullion’s Up All Night: work from the insomnia project in the Burt Chernow Galleries at the Housatonic Museum of Art is the most comprehensive installation of the project to date.

On the sunny side of the street: Insook Hwang installation at A-Space Gallery; plus Three paintings by Tony Kosloski

West Cove Studio Gallery
30 Elm St., West Haven, (203) 627-8030
Insook Hwang: Best Wishes from the Magic Temple
Bright Logic: Three Paintings by Tony Kosloski Through Jan. 5, 2013.

New forms within old forms: that was my first thought in trying to process Insook Hwang's Best Wishes from the Magic Temple, currently on display at A-Space Gallery.

Hwang's playfully modular approach to design and installation melds contemporary references to science—primarily cellular biology—and digital technology with an irony-free New Age sunniness. This show grows one mega-installation out of numerous smaller—although not necessarily small—related installations, drawings and paintings.

Insook Hwang: "Jubilation" detail

These works—this work—is situated within the old form of a 20th Century industrial space: well-worn hardwood floors, brick walls and intersecting lines and diagonals of steel. Compared to the geometric precision of the space, Hwang's forms are amorphous, blob-like, suggestive of evolution and single-cell organisms. She uses repeated imagery—most notably in this show a couple of pictograms that evoke two figures dancing—to mimic the self-replication of cells.

But Hwang isn't just commenting on biological processes. She also creates fanciful living creatures—dinosaurs, a unicorn—and structures—a tower, a spaceship—out of linear forms loosely derived from computer monitors (at least, the old pre-flat screen type of monitors). What is "growing" is not just life but life informed by digital interconnectedness.

Insook Hwang: "Blue Dino"

Plenty of others have seen this developing social network in dark, dystopic ways but not Hwang. With her affection for pastel colors, glitter, suspended glass balls, hearts, flowers and lenticular overlays querying, "How are you?" and spelling out "love" in different languages, Hwang radiates buoyant, positive energy.

•••

Also on display in the room behind the main gallery are three large, geometric abstract paintings by Tony Kosloski (Web), dating back to the late 1980's and early 1990's. These works completely defy the usual rectangular space of the painted composition. In fact, defiance of perceived space is the operative principle of these compositions.

Tony Kosloski: "to look at the center of things and find the illusion of difference" detail

The irregular panels struggle to contain the lines of force, bright colors and Escher-meets-psychedelia designs. All three paintings have a giddy, disorienting energy, as if the built environment is in a pell-mell rush to turn itself inside out.

CWOS Alternative Space weekend

Artspace
City-Wide Open Studios
50 Orange St, New Haven, (203) 772-2709
City-Wide Open Studios 2012
Through Oct. 21, 2012.
Weekend 3 Report: Sunday

Finally getting to wrap up my coverage of this year's "Crystal Anniversary" City-Wide Open Studios. (I missed the middle weekend, focusing on artists in Erector Square, because I was laid up with a cold.)

It was a trip to wander through the former New Haven Register building, getting a little lost in the maze of hallways and in the presence of the mammoth—and now silent—presses. There were too many artists for me to comment on more than a few who grabbed my attention. My silence on so many of them should not be construed as critical judgment.

•••

It was New Canaan artist Camille Eskell's first time participating in City-Wide Open Studios. Her sculptures of the female torso were attention-grabbers and I stopped to chat with her about her work. She said her work "is all about emotional states of being. It's been the core of my work for 20-something years."

"Tattooed Lady: Coming Up Roses" was especially striking, seeing as how the softly curved nude female form—emblazoned with a floral tattoo drape—was rent from collarbone to lower abdomen with a gaping wound studded with yellowing teeth.

Camille Eskell: "Tattooed Lady: Coming Up Roses"

It is powerful sculptural imagery, the beauty of the female form and the decorative roses—Eskell says she uses "a lot of florals and botanicals to represent irrepressible life"—juxtaposed with the torn opening lined with teeth. The sculpture was cast in aqua resin and fiberglas from her original wax sculpture. The "sub-subtext" of the work, according to Eskell, was her sister's struggle at the time with terminal cancer. Eskell said that her sister's battle with cancer wasn't consciously in her mind as she made the work. It was only afterward that she saw intimations of her sister's pain in the mutilated body.

Regarding the teeth, which Eskell told me symbolized a "gnawing anxiety," Eskell said they were leftover dentures given to her some ten years prior by a dentist she knew. Eskell says she hoards lots of outré materials: "You know when you're going to have to use something and just wait until the moment is right." She mixes media but usually tries to incorporate drawing, which she describes as her greatest strength.

•••

Graham D. Honaker II described his mixed media paintings as "Pop Art with a sentimental flourish." By the word "sentimental," Honaker means to convey affection rather than irony toward the imagery he incorporates into his works.

Honaker suspends collage, latex paint, artist-grade paint and found objects between layers of polymer emulsion epoxy. Each layer of epoxy, he told me, is equivalent to approximately 50 layers of varnish. Honaker uses old magazine imagery, consumer product ephemera and labels and his own hand-cut stencils of iconic faces past and present: 1960's model Twiggy, Black radical George Jackson, Che Guevara, Charles Manson, Al Sharpton and James Brown's mug shot, to name a few.

"My pieces were very textural. People wanted to touch them and I wanted to find a way to make the surface level so the textural surface would be denied to the viewer," Honaker told me. Was he trying to protect the surface?

"It was a little bit of both. I wanted it to be that forbidden fruit kind of thing. Your mind tells you that you can feel this object but when you go to touch it, it's smooth," Honaker explained.

Honaker says a process of evolution led him to thicker and thicker pieces as he got interested in exploring the perception of depth and the way he could play with the light and shadows he was creating in the layers. Honaker has been meshing the collage, abstract mark-making and stencil work for about four years but says it has just been during the past two years that he has added the use of epoxy as a key element in his compositions.

Graham D. Honaker II

"There's so many possibilities, so many objects I can collect and little pieces of ephemera that can be put into a painting," Honaker said. "It's blurring the edge of 3-D to 2-D and I'm really fascinated by that." Honaker's works evoke box assemblages while remaining paintings.

Honaker continues his experimentation. He told me has dabbled in installing lighting sources in his paintings. In one of the works he had on display at the Register building, Honaker implanted LED lights in the painting, which can be turned on by being plugged into a wall outlet. And there are "interactive elements" in some of the works, too. To demonstrate, Honaker took "Redwood Reliever" off the wall and tilted it so that the soy sauce in a little packet buried in the yellowed epoxy swirled around.

•••

Artist Rita Valley didn't take it personally when she was told that her location in the Register alternative space was in a cage of sorts. It was a perfect fit with her anarchic sense of humor. Valley's installation, "(Show Us the Way) Out of Our Darkness," played off the wire fencing.

The sculptural work employed about ¼-mile of electric fencing (not plugged in for this show although Valley said she might do that in the future), rope lighting, 200 feet of clothesline covered in clear tape, fluorescent light tubes, a plastic security mirror and the lights she uses in her studio to photograph art. And piled around the base of the work was snow drifts of salt (chosen over sugar because salt "has so many historic references").

Rita Valley: "(Show Us the Way) Out of Our Darkness"

Valley said "It became like a drawing." In particular, she noted, that she had artist Cy Twombly's line work in mind when stringing the electric fence wire around the steel armature built by her husband, sculptor Bob Keating.

Friday evening opening event at The Lot in New Haven

Artspace
50 Orange St, New Haven, (203) 772-2709
Leeza Meksin: Flossing the Lot at The Lot, located in the outdoor park space at 812 Chapel St.
June 15—Sept. 15, 2012.
Opening: Fri., June 15, 5—8 p.m., with a musical performance by Mira Stroika.

Artspace press release

Interdisciplinary artist Leeza Meksin installs Flossing the Lot, a new site-specific outdoor installation, and the last in a series of public works all employing custom-designed, printed spandex of huge metallic gold chains on a gleaming white background. The chain link pattern symbolizes many—at times contradictory—ideas such as community building, wealth, adornment, incarceration and continuity. When placed in a new geographic context, the print transforms itself and the location, creating a playful urban space for new connections, associations and encounters.

The New Haven installation will be comprised of large abstract forms, stretching across the surrounding walls of The Lot, referencing New Haven's Historic Corset Factory as well as jewelry displays, ceremonial garb, and bondage. The billowing spandex banners will be “chained” to the exterior walls of The Lot, and weighed down with sand bags in flashy cozies. The gold and brightly colored "balls" will evoke the ways bags are displayed in stores, as well as the more literal "ball & chain" of imprisonment. The gold link motif re-used at the busy corner of Orange and Chapel St. will fit almost seamlessly into the lively intersection flanked by businesses and stores ranging from Sassy to thrift and dollar stores.

Meksin’s personal history of migration and cultural dysphoria made her keenly aware of the magical potential of carnival and role-reversal in creating a forum for meaningful interactions between members of any community. As a gay woman and an immigrant, Meksin dresses up buildings and public spaces in entertaining and voluptuous outfits, implementing drag as a symbol of marginalized cultures, marked with struggle, transformation and ostentatiousness. The masquerade aesthetic of Drag embodies the playful and irreverent spirit of Meksin’s public art works.

Meksin’s previous public art installations with the chain motif included House Coat in 2011 where she transformed a quaint, two-story row house on an inner-city street of St. Louis, MO by giving it a new spandex outfit; and Sad Side of the Street, an installation in the former NY Public Library, the Donnell, across the street from the MOMA that took place before the building’s demolition. With the final installment in New Haven, Meksin explores how "Flossing," "Fabulousness," "Drag," and "Bling" in marginalized communities relate to the history of bondage, slavery and spiritual freedom.

Meksin’s installations invite people to explore urban spaces in new and playful ways. A videographer will be present during the installation and opening party to record the neighborhood’s impressions and opinions. People are invited to stop by during the installation process (June 12-15) to ask questions, discuss the project, and provide feedback which will become part of the project itself. The opening night will feature a performance by the stunning cabaret singer Mira Stroika, and visitors are invited to don a costume in exchange for a free drink. The event will be free and open to the public.

BIOS

Elizaveta (Leeza) Meksin is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist who makes paintings, installations, public art and multiples. Born and raised in the Soviet Union, Leeza immigrated to the United States in 1989. She received a BA’99 in Comparative Literature and MA'00 in the Humanities, both from the University of Chicago; a BFA'05 from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a MFA'07 in Painting from the Yale School of Art. Meksin, recipient of the Robert Schoelkopf Fellowship and the Soros Foundation Grant, has exhibited her work in numerous venues throughout the United States, and has been teaching at Tyler School of Art since 2007. Currently, Meksin is an artist-in-residence at Chashama’s Brooklyn Army Terminal, and holds a Visiting Faculty position at Ohio State University where she will be mounting a solo show of recent work in August, 2012.

Chanteuse-songwriter Mira Stroika is a fixture in New York's neo-cabaret and indie music scene. Armed with a flirtatious wit, a riveting voice, and a soulfulness one normally associates with performers of yesteryears, Stroika offers up jaw-dropping interpretations of the classics and original and infectious pop songwriting on subjects as far ranging as Reality TV, UFO's and mortality. A classically trained vocalist, pianist, composer and accordionist, Stroika's highly theatrical performances fuse Western pop sensibilities with Eastern European folk, and French and German cabaret influences. The daughter of immigrants, Stroika graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University and holds a masters from Tisch in interactive media and performance.

In memoriam: installation commemorates victims of Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

A-Space Gallery at West Cove Studios
30 Elm St., West Haven, (203) 627-8030
Cate Bourke: Crewel Linen—Unfinished Business
Through Mar. 25, 2012.
Panel discussion: Sat., Mar. 24, 2—3 p.m. at the People's Center, 137 Howe St., New Haven.
Reception: Sat., Mar. 24, 4—6 p.m. at West Cove Studios in West Haven.

Orderly ghosts.

That is my first impression gleaned from entering the West Cove Studios gallery where artist Cate Bourke has installed Crewel Linen: Unfinished Business, a remembrance of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of March 25, 1911.

From the gallery's industrial ceiling, Bourke has suspended four rows of eight-foot banners—made of shirtwaist cloth—more than 30 deep each. Sewn near the bottom of each banner is a rectangle of heavier beige linen bearing the name of one of the victims, mostly but not all women. There is a banner for each of the 146 victims of the fire.

The fire is the deadliest industrial disaster in New York City history and one of the deadliest industrial accidents in U.S. history. Because managers had locked the doors to stairwells and exits—ostensibly to prevent unauthorized breaks and theft—workers were trapped in the sweatshop, which was located on floors 8—10 of the Asch Building near Washington Square Park. Dozens of workers died jumping from the windows to the street in vain attempts to save their lives.

The names are a roll call of the striving industrial immigrant working class of early 20th century New York, predominantly Jewish and Italian: Annie Colletti, Sarah Brodsky, Morris Bernstein, Josephine Cammarata. Most of the victims were between 16 and 23 years old.

The edges of each banner are frayed, untidy. Long, loose threads hang from many—the loose threads of lives unfinished. A visitor can walk between the rows of banners like a supervisor walking the aisles between work stations, inspecting them. Or imagine oneself in a wraith-like cemetery.

At one end of the gallery, in contrast to the orderliness of the rows of banners, lies a pile of thread and cloth trimmings. It was scraps like this that are alleged to have caught fire, sparking the blaze. The pile evokes the chaos of the fire. But even more, it suggests the notion that these workers—these people—were themselves discards of an oppressive industrial system, as disposable as fabric trimmings.

Crewel Linen—"crewel" is a form of embroidery and, obviously, a wordplay on "cruel"—is a memorial, filled with the meditative silence of the dead. The subtle breezes endemic to a drafty factory building cause many of the banners to sway softly.

History, yes. In the terms of contemporary argot, "ancient history."

And yet, of course, it's not. One need only read the reports of the horrific—if gleaming with high-tech sheen—exploitation of workers in the Apple supply chain to know that abuse of workers remains a contemporary phenomenon. Too often, a reader can catch a glimpse of a one-paragraph wire services story in the newspaper of dozens of workers killed in an industrial accident—usually an accident that was completely preventable if a decent concern for human life took precedence over naked lust for profits.

The other contemporary resonance echoes from the names of the victims—probably all first or second-generation immigrants eking out a living (if that) without control over the conditions of their toil. Today the names are more likely to be Spanish or Asian. But the dangers of living a marginalized existence on the edges of the economy—compounded by the repressive crackdown on undocumented workers—remain.

Crewel Linen will be on view through Mar. 25, 2012, the 101st anniversary of the fire. There will be a panel discussion on the installation on Sat., Mar. 24, from 2—3 p.m. at the People's Center at 37 Howe St. in New Haven. Moderated by Henry Lowendorf, chair of the New Haven Peace Commission, the panel will feature artist Cate Bourke, Megan Fountain of the community organization Unidad Latina en Accion and Jennifer Klein, professor of history at Yale University.

The panel will be followed by a reception at the gallery (30 Elm St. in West Haven) from 4—6 p.m.

"Exploded Views" now on display at John Slade Ely House in New Haven

John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art
51 Trumbull Street, New Haven, (203) 624-8055
Going the Distance
Through Feb. 26, 2011

Press release

The John Slade Ely House is pleased to announce the first exhibit of 2012 Exploded Views which runs from Jan. 15 through Feb. 26. Participating artists are Aimée Burg (Web), Geoffrey Detrani (Web), Martha W. Lewis (Web), and Mark Wilson (Web). Exploded Views includes drawing, painting, installation, sculpture, video, and digital printing.

Exploded Views refers to the practice in technical drawing of representing the parts of a whole in exploded or diagrammatic form for the purpose of clarity, instruction, and to make visible the relationship of scale, position, orientation. The artists in Exploded Views utilize this mode of representation to address a variety of issues from the interaction of planning and nature, the aesthetic quality of technical and scientific instrumentation, and as metaphor for insight and understanding.

Exploded Views will be on view through Feb. 26.

Opening and Gallery Talk Wednesday for "Deliquescence" at New Haven Museum

New Haven Museum
114 Whitney Ave., New Haven, (203) 562-4183
Colin Burke: Deliquescence
Dec. 7, 2011—Jan. 28, 2012.
Opening and Gallery Talk: Wed., Dec. 7, 5:30 p.m.

Press release

What do you do with half a million feet of microfilm destined for the dump? "Make art, of course," says New Haven artist Colin Burke, one of seven local artists commissioned by Artspace New Haven to create site-specific art for Library Science, an art exhibition running until January 28, 2012.

Deliquescence, Burke’s site-specific installation at the New Haven Museum, includes microfilm from the New York Times collection. Burke repurposes media from Connecticut libraries to create a connection between the past, the present, and the future of how we experience the library. On Wed., Dec. 7 at 5:30 p.m., Burke will present a gallery talk about his newest installation.

Thousands of feet of microfilm envelope two of the museum’s columns in the entrance rotunda. This sculpture illustrates the celebrated landmark pair of elm trees planted in New Haven more than 300 years ago. Between the columns is a transparent pedestal supporting a vintage six-drawer wooden card catalog. Visitors are invited to explore the contents of the catalog drawers, where they will find printed cards allowing digital access to more information about the project, the library and museum collections via QR codes designed for smartphones.

Part of the project included a research residency. Burke spent several weeks mining the collections of both the Whitney Library and the New Haven Museum online and onsite. Through primary source materials, including thousands of illustrations and photographs of New Haven, he found the basis of what would become the theme of his artwork—The Elm City.

"I’m still relatively new to the area and still exploring New Haven. I’ve been wondering about the 'Elm City' and the lack of elm trees for a while now—how this ties in to the identity of a place and the way we perceive and preserve the history of our surroundings," explains Burke.

Deliquescence has several definitions, Burke says. “In botany, it describes the branch patterns of trees, including the elm. As metaphor, deliquescence means to vanish into thin air, which also works in describing the demise of the elms and the usefulness of materials like microfilm. I found the word through my research which brings it all together. I also just love the sound of the word."

Library Science is an exhibition curated by Rachel Gugelberger, Senior Curator at Exit Art, New York. Bringing together a selection of work by 17 international artists, and seven artists from the New Haven area, Library Science contemplates our personal, intellectual and physical relationship to the library as this venerable institution—and the information it contains—is being radically transformed by the digital era.

Colin Burke is a visual artist creating work featuring analog, antique photographic processes and methods. Through this work, he explores the themes of liminal space, time and proximity. He is currently the Artist-in-Residence at Artspace New Haven, where he has a dedicated studio space to further explore his analog photography practice.

Deliquescence is on view at the New Haven Museum, located at 114 Whitney Ave. The New Haven Museum, founded in 1862 as the New Haven Colony Historical Society, continues its tradition of preservation with a collection that includes folk, decorative and fine arts, an extensive photographic archive, and a unique manuscript collection and research capabilities in the Whitney Library. Open Tues.—Fri. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sat 12—5 p.m. Free on the First Sunday of the month, 1—4 p.m.

Library Science is generously supported with funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the David T. Langrock Foundation and a Strategic Initiative Grant from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism.

Artspace is New Haven’s largest independent visual arts venue, showcasing a mix of local and national artists in a downtown corner storefront in the historic Ninth Square district. Our mission is to catalyze artistic efforts; to connect artists, audiences and resources; and to redefine art spaces.

(Photo by Mia Orsatti, Courtesy of Artspace New Haven.)

Opening reception for "Slipstreams" at Franklin Street Works in Stamford tonight

Franklin Street Works
41 Franklin St., Stamford, 06901, (203) 253-0404
Slipstreams: Contemporary Artistic Practice and the Shaping of Time
Dec. 1, 2011—Jan. 21, 2012.
Opening Reception: Thurs., Dec. 1 5—8 p.m.
Other events:
Fri., Dec. 2, 12—5 p.m., Anna Lundh Interactive Art Project
Sat., Dec. 3, 12—3 p.m., Anna Lundh Interactive Art Project
Sat., Dec. 3, 4 p.m., Anna Lundh performance

Press release

The perception, measurement, and manipulation of time in our everyday lives is a performance, both personal and shared. We agree on the indications of clocks and calendars, yet often disagree on the length of collective experiences, such as prayer or a television program. Language also influences how we “feel” a moment’s passage. Phrases such as “running out of time,” “wasting time,” and “on time,” cause us to feel hurried or relaxed, even responsible or irresponsible. Rituals, both societal and self-made, do the same.

Exploring these ideas through contemporary artworks made between 1964 and today, Franklin Street Works presents Slipstreams: Contemporary Artistic Practice and the Shaping of Time, curated by Terri C. Smith and Joseph Whitt. This group exhibition features artists who consider how time is shaped and made visible through performed acts, unique measuring systems, and other uncommon means. Artists include: Pierre Bismuth, Tehching Hsieh, Tara Kelton, Anna Lundh, Samuel Rousseau, Stephen Sollins, Conrad Ventur and Andy Warhol. The exhibition is on view from Dec. 1—Jan. 21, with an opening reception on Thurs., Dec. 1 from 5—8 p.m.

With support by iaspis, the Swedish Arts Grants Committee's International Programme for Visual Artists, an interactive art project and performance by Anna Lundh will also be part of the exhibition’s opening weekend. From 12—5 p.m. on Fri., Dec. 2 and from 12—3 p.m. on Sat., Dec. 3, Lundh will reside in the gallery and ask visitors about how they visualize time as part of her ongoing artwork "The Year is a Python that swallowed an Elephant." She will give a subtly humorous, 40-minute performance that is informed by that ongoing project on Sat., Dec. 3 at 4 p.m. in the Franklin Street Works downstairs gallery. The exhibition, interactive activities with Lundh, and performance are all free and open to the public.

In Slipstreams, a myriad of approaches to time weave throughout Franklin Street Works’ three galleries. Performances and documentation address controlled, chronological actions in Tehching Hsieh’s "Time Piece" and Anna Lundh’s "The Year is a Python that swallowed an Elephant." Hsieh’s work exhibits a brutal attention to discipline and endurance as a way of expressing the isolation of his early years as an “alien immigrant”. Curious about how others visualize time, Lundh mimics the systems and appearances of scientific research in her project, which has included more than 150 test subjects so far. Conrad Ventur and Pierre Bismuth (see image) mine pop culture’s recent past, including music and film, for source material. Ventur often collapses his images into immersive, hypnotic video installations, while Bismuth juxtaposes scenes from vintage cinema with the drawn line in his "Following the Right Hand of..." series.

The exhibition also includes works that focus on familiar objects, both everyday and iconic. Stephen Sollins alters daily newspaper TV guides with Liquid Paper and permanent markers in his "Static" series so that text is obscured and only the schedule’s grid is visible. Samuel Rousseau’s minimalist video installation, "Un peu d'éternité (a little eternity)," uses a candle and endless projection of a flame to convey an endlessness that our minds can grasp only speculatively; while Andy Warhol takes a characteristically deadpan approach with his film "Empire," placing a camera in front of the Empire State Building and shooting it for 24 hours. Tara Kelton’s "Time Travel" also relies on a stationary camera, pairing it with her laptop's lens to see a split second into the future. Slipstreams aims to allow its audience a unique exploration of multiple ways in which time can be visualized and reconfigured, prompting questions about how we perceive and maintain our inner imaginings of time.

Franklin Street Works is a new, not-for-profit contemporary art space, café, and social gathering place in Stamford, Connecticut. It produces original on-site and off-site exhibitions, artist projects, and related programming. Located in renovated row houses on Franklin Street, the two- story space includes three galleries and a café. Franklin Street Works embraces innovative art and exhibition practices, a DIY attitude, and a workshop approach to its programming, audiences, and organizational structure. The activities and attitudes of the café reflect and expand on the organization’s mission as a contemporary art venue.

Terri C. Smith is the Creative Director of Franklin Street Works. With approximately fifteen years of curatorial experience, she has created exhibitions and related programming for museums and other not-for-profit art institutions, including award-winning contemporary art programs for Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville, Tennessee. After more than ten years at the Museum, she returned to school, earning an MA from Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies in 2008. Smith has curated exhibitions for venues in Connecticut, Florida, New York, Oregon, and Tennessee. Other projects have included commissioned catalog essays and journalistic projects for print and radio.

Joseph Whitt is the Assistant Curator at Franklin Street Works and a frequent guest curator at several art venues in New York City. As former Assistant Curator at Vanderbilt University’s Fine Arts Gallery in Nashville, he was responsible for solo exhibitions by Harmony Korine and Jules de Balincourt, as well as a group exhibition pairing the Polaroids of Andy Warhol with the works of emerging artists Grant Worth and David Horvitz. His most recent curatorial project, "Magic For Beginners," at P.P.O.W. Gallery (NYC), was a critic’s pick in Time Out New York and garnered a prominent review in The New York Times.

An environment for creating art

Artspace
50 Orange St, New Haven, (203) 772-2709
Marie Celeste
Through Sept. 16, 2011.

Thematically, the works in Marie Celeste, the current show at Artspace, are connected by their engagement with contemporary issues of ecology and the human footprint on the environment. Specifically, Marie Celeste references "colony collapse disorder"—the disappearance of worker bees from their colonies, a phenomenon that threatens key pillars of the food chain.

The works are drawn from a range of media and practices from the traditional (drawing, painting) to the current 21st century moment (installation, interactive art).

Of particular note in the latter category is Mayumi Nishida's (Web) "Introduction to Water." Employing LED lights, monofilament, water, ceramic pot, solar panel, galvanized tank and wooden dippers, "Introduction" invites the viewer to experience directly the human impact on a [constructed] natural world.


In the darkened space, visitors can grab one of the wooden dippers, fill up their cup with water from the steel tub and pour it into the squat ceramic vase situated on a platform in the middle of the tub. The action of pouring the water into the vase activates a series of circuits and sensors—powered by a solar collector in a nearby window—and cause tiny lights hanging overhead to blink in a random fashion.

"Introduction" is powerful on two inter-connected levels. First, it is a visual delight. There is a backyard simplicity to the almost altar-like presence of the water-filled tub with the floating wooden ladles and the earthenware vase on the platform in the middle. When the lights are activated, their pinpoint flashing evokes thoughts of summer fireflies, stars or crystalline drops of rain. The work is deepened on the conceptual level: Human intervention has consequences. In the case of this artificial natural system, human agency is salutary. But that's not always—perhaps isn't even often—the case. "Introduction" reminds us that we are a part of the system whether we consciously recognize it or not.

Nick Lamia's "Cities for our Kids' Kids' Kids' Kids' Kids' Kids'" also invites interaction. This work, which occupies a large corner of the main Artspace gallery, also has an ongoing video component. Lamia's work combines wall drawing, the display of two abstract geometrical paintings on canvas, a framework of parallel lines of yellow string and hundreds of colored wood blocks. Visitors are invited to rearrange the blocks; a camera will record the variations over time to be sequenced into a video when the show is over. In this work, the landscape is an object of both contemplation and interaction. It is a landscape that references the contemporary urban environment in its geometric forms, and the natural environment in its wealth of color. When I visit this afternoon it is an environment in which chaos and randomness are only intermittently broken up by the imposition of order by Lamia's contributions and those of the viewers.


In the same large gallery, there is a wise curatorial juxtaposition: Erika Blumenfeld's photographs of Antarctica with Shari Mendelson's sculptures made out of discarded and reused plastic, aluminum foil and acrylic polymer. The works share a bright transparent luminosity that contrasts with the rich colors of the surrounding works in the room.

Blumenfeld's photos revel in the abstract undulations of layered frozen forms in Antarctica—the play of sunlight and shadow on a glacial surface, the dimpling and striation of ice. But as cold as these images look, they don't look cold enough. The light on the surface of overlapping layers of ice, cracks and fissures, glimpses of almost Caribbean blue—all these things hint at climate stress on the region's delicate eco-system.

Mendelson's works recycle contemporary waste material and antique forms; in the gallery shared with Blumenfeld, there is a sculpture of a supine pig ("Reclining Animal") and a large vase flecked with shiny infusions of aluminum foil ("Silver Vessel"). Mendelson is playing with cross-referencing tropes here—the relics of antiquity being reincarnated in the trash of today. It's a cheeky conceit. After all, the objects she is referencing are what survived hundreds of years in ruins; sometimes they have literally been found in excavated garbage dumps. What cultural signifiers will we be leaving behind? I've got one word for you, Benjamin: Plastics.

Joseph Smolinski's (Web) drawings depict a world in which nature and technology are in conflict. In his stark, draftsman-like imagery, animals like snapping turtles, woodpeckers and blue whales appear to be trying to get us to hang up the phone by disconnecting the cell phone transmitters disguised as tree branches. This is high brow kitsch, streaked with queasy irony.


Stephen Bush's two paintings depict beekeepers in luridly colored environments. Dressed in their protective outfits, they look like members of a haz-mat spill cleanup team. Bush's vistas are pastoral but chemically charged, bringing to mind the line in Don DeLillo's novel White Noise that "ever since the airborne toxic event, the sunsets had become almost unbearably beautiful." Eva Struble's (Web) paintings find anarchic beauty in post-industrial rubble. "Cambridge Iron I" is a veritable cacophony of discarded appliances, metal cables and wires and other refuse.

Artist Alison Williams is also a committed gardener and that passion is reflected in her art practice. "Glasshouse #3" is a ragged, hand-built greenhouse or potting shed, assembled from discarded scrap lumber, door frames and windows. Visitors are invited to enter the structure, which has shelves laden with transparent vials of caramel, amber and burgundy colored fluids.


Williams' back-to-the-land inventiveness extends to The Lot near the corner of Chapel and Orange streets. Williams conceptualized and oversaw the public art installation "Homage to Guerrilla Gardening." (See Wikipedia for info on the "guerrilla gardening" concept.) This project recycles discarded and donated household materials into a quirky and life-affirming community garden that enriches this public space. Planters—some made from old sinks sunk into the ground—overflow with basil, mint, marigolds and ore. A couple of toilets are flush with dirt and find new use as planters. There are artsy benches built from discarded wood and ringed with planters salvaged from old oil drums.


"Homage to Guerrilla Gardening" is a perfect coda to a provocative show—an artistic intervention that the community that brings modern art into everyday life in a way that is thought-provoking, life-affirming and accessible. In fact, the presence of this art park and sculpture garden in downtown New Haven seems almost…natural.

Jeffrey Schiff show opens Tuesday at Zilkha Gallery at Wesleyan

Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University
238 Washington Ter., Middletown, (860) 685-3355
Jeffrey Schiff: Double Vision: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
Jan. 21—Feb. 27, 2011.
Opening reception: Tues., Jan. 25, 5—7 p.m.
Gallery talk at 5:30 p.m.

Press release

Double Vision: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society is a solo exhibition of new work by artist Jeffrey Schiff, which exposes how unconscious projections from America’s colonial past shape perceptions of its current reality.

In 1786, members of the American Philosophical Society, including such luminaries as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Joseph Priestly, published personal accounts of the natural world in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society (subtitled “Useful Knowledge”). Schiff has created a body of work distilling anecdotes from these texts into concrete images: a field of terracotta pots—some smashed to reveal interior organs; an 18th-century painting of a slave girl transformed into a fragmented nautical map; laboratory experiments in purity and contamination; and stereoscopic displays of animal hearts.

Double Vision will be on view in Wesleyan University’s Zilkha Gallery from Fri., Jan. 21 through Sun., Feb. 27, 2011. The public is invited to attend the opening reception on Tues., Jan. 25 from 5–7 p.m., with a gallery talk at 5:30 p.m.

Double Vision is based specifically on three accounts from the Transactions: Two Hearts Found in One Partridge, Account of a Worm in a Horse’s Eye, and Some Account of a Motley Coloured, or Pye Negro Girl and Mulatto Boy. These texts are records of personal observations and explanations of the natural world, which purport to be scientific accounts, yet reveal themselves as wholly subjective descriptions rife with the biases and superstitions of the day. Together, the texts unwittingly reveal the era’s unresolved struggle between rationality and superstition, democratic ideals and cultural traditions of elitism and slavery—struggles we have inherited as we negotiate (sometimes violently) conflicting views of scientific enterprise, globalism, religious and ethnic identity, and the information age. Schiff’s sculptural extrapolations intervene in the historical text, giving physical form to the preoccupations of America’s early conscience. In contrast with a more traditional exhibition format of presenting historical documents and artifacts as time capsules of a particular era, Double Vision abstracts from the text to initiate a dialogue across time and culture.

The exhibition is curated by Andrea Hill of Seven Hills Advisory.

Jeffrey Schiff is a sculptor/installation artist whose work explores the interplay between order and disorder, rationality and custom, and the uses of information. He has received numerous fellowships and prizes, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, a Senior Scholar Fulbright Fellowship to India, Bogliasco Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio residencies, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Sculpture/installation show opens at Artspace Hartford tomorrow

Artspace Hartford
555 Asylum St. St, Hartford, (860) 548-9975
Tracy Walter Ferry & Anita Gangi Balkun: Rootage
Through Oct. 16, 2010
Opening reception: Thurs., Oct. 7, 5—7 p.m.

Press release

Rootage, featuring the sculptural works of Tracy Walter Ferry and Anita Gangi Balkun, explores the origin or place where something begins and is strengthened, either biologically or emotionally. New work by the artists includes sculptures and installations. Ferry constructs sculptures that reference genetically modified organisms. Balkun combines found objects, textiles, and photographs to examine memories and the gift of lineage. Ferry and Balkun both received MFA's in painting from Hartford Art School and are residents of Conn.

The public is invited to the exhibition's opening reception on Thurs., Oct. 7, 5—7 p.m. This show has a very short run; it will only be up through Sat., Oct. 16.

(Unfortunately, Artspace Hartford’s Web site doesn’t have a page that showcases their current gallery exhibition, which seems very strange to me. However, both artists have Web sites (see links above) with images and artist statements and are worth checking out. HH)

Closing event Sunday at City Gallery for Bloom/el-Yasin show

City Gallery
994 State St., New Haven, (203) 782-2489
Meg Bloom & Howard el-Yasin: Out of Line
Through Sept. 26, 2010.
Closing Event: Sun., Sept. 26, 5:30 p.m.

Press release

Artspace shows open this Thursday evening

Artspace
50 Orange St, New Haven, (203) 772-2709
Patrick Chamberlain: On Your Mark
Christina Gunderson: Pigeon
Mister Never: In Never We Trust
Michelle Levante: Bodies of Trees
Will Holub: Lucky Strike: World War II Army Air Corps Veterans
Eileen Doktorski: Artifacts of Affluence
June 8—July 17, 2010.
On Your Mark will be on display through June 26, 2010.
Public Opening: Thurs., June 10, 6—8 p.m.

Press release

Artspace announces five new solo exhibitions with works by Connecticut, New York, and California-based artists. The five exhibitions of Eileen Doktorski, Christina Gundersen, Will Holub, Michelle Levante, and Mister Never will open on Thurs., June 10 from 6-8 p.m. Common themes that emerge throughout the Artspace galleries are correlations between beauty and decay, viscera and tactility, and memory and sentiment. Patrick Chamberlain's exhibition, On Your Mark, is also on view through June 26, 2010.

Gallery 1 • Patrick Chamberlain's exhibition, On Your Mark, represents the artist's first solo show. Chamberlain's abstract paintings illuminate the gallery with hoppy colors and tangential lines and shapes.

Gallery 3 • Pigeon, by Christina Gundersen, is a site-specific installation of photographic shadows that fill the gallery with an ethereal presence and inquisitive arrangement.

Gallery 4 • In Never We Trust, by Mister Never, comments on the practices of financial institutions to produce negative capital, which is also a solid metaphor for an artist's own struggle to achieve artistic merit.

The Long Wall • Bodies of Trees, by Michelle Levante, is a series of photographic diptych images exploring mans' perverse relationship to nature, beauty, and juxtaposition. The exhibition represents the first showing of this new series of work.

Gallery 5 • Lucky Strike: World War II Army Air Corps Veterans, by Will Holub, is a series of paintings that recount the World War II era from a familial perspective and functions as testaments to the changing face of war and the global economy.

Gallery 7 • Artifacts of Affluence, by Eileen Doktorski, is a series of castings from landfill terrain, bringing the subject of waste into the light for the viewer's closer reflection.

Major public art commission by Felice Varini opens Friday in New Haven

Site Projects
Felice Varini: Square with four circles
June 2—June, 2011
Opening Reception: Fri., June 4, 5 p.m.

Press release
Site Projects Inc is pleased to announce our 2010 public art commission by renowned Swiss artist Felice Varini. A 110 ft tall, multi-dimensional painting, Square with four circles, will be installed in Temple Plaza. This will be Varini's first outdoor public artwork in the United States.

The opening is June 4 at 5 p.m. in Temple Plaza. Join us in celebration with live music, guest speakers, tours and festivities. Events are free and open to the public.

Work on the execution of the artwork will take place both at nighttime and during the day. The installation will be a performance piece in itself offering the public a unique opportunity to observe the artist's process and the evolution of his artwork. Beginning May 23rd at night and using a large-format, high intensity projector, Varini will project the design into the darkened site. Once the outlines are drawn by the artist and his team, the daytime work of painting the mural will begin. Painting will be completed in the following 7—8 days.

The exhibition of the artwork will be on view through June 2011. During that period, Site Projects will offer a series of programs that connect art, architecture, mathematics and technology to the ideas in Varini's art. The site of Square with four circles will include the pedestrian passageway from Chapel Street into Temple Plaza and the exterior surfaces of the sculptural concrete exit ramp of the Crown Street garage. The site of the artwork is contiguous not only to New Haven Green but also to the Shubert Theater and Zinc restaurant.

A second Varini exhibit can be seen across the New Haven Green. Three black circles in air, on view through the end of August 2010, will be a temporary indoor mural at the New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Temple Street. The installation is in partnership with Site Projects and the Patrons of the New Haven Public Library.

Photographs of earlier Varini projects will be exhibited in the Yale University Art Gallery. Related paintings by students at Coop High School who have been studying Varini's work and who will work with the artist during his residency in New Haven will be exhibited at 210 College Street.

Funding for Square with four circles has been awarded by Pro Helvetia, the Arts Council of Switzerland, National Endowment for the Arts, CT Commission for Culture + Tourism, Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, the Seymour L. Lustman Memorial Fund, The David T. Langrock Foundation, as well as numerous local foundations and institutions. The hospitality sponsor for this project is The Study. In addition to support from the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York, Site Projects has received the endorsement of Mayor John DeStefano and New Haven's Office of Cultural Affairs and is working in collaboration with the New Haven Parking Authority.

The exhibition of Square with four circles will be a world-class cultural event and an occasion for inviting the world to New Haven.


About the artist Felice Varini:

Felice Varini was born in Locarno, Switzerland in 1952 and currently lives and works in Paris, France. He defines himself as an abstract painter, and paints on architectural and urban spaces, such as buildings, walls and streets. The paintings are characterized by one vantage point from which the viewer can see the complete painting (usually simple geometric shapes such as circles, squares, lines), while from other view points the viewer will see 'broken' fragmented shapes. Varini explains that the work exists as a whole - with its complete shape as well as the fragments: "My paintings initially appear to the observer in the form of a deconstructed line which recalls nothing known or familiar, whence the effect of perturbation they produce. As one moves through the work, the line progressively appears in its composed form. One is thus under the illusion that the work is creating itself before one's eyes."

Varini's work plays with concepts of scale, proportion, and perception. While abstract and conceptual, Varini's three-dimensional wall paintings are also concrete and material. The viewer experiences them from within; as he/she moves through the architectural space that is the canvas, new discoveries are made at every step. Before making a painting, Felice Varini generally roams through the space noting its architecture, materials, history and function. From this spatial data and in reference to the last piece he produced, he designates a specific vantage point for viewing, from which his intervention takes shape.

The vantage point is carefully chosen: it is generally situated at his eye level and located preferably along a well-traveled route, for instance an opening between one room and another, or a clearing, or a landing... He then projects the form devised for the particular space onto its surfaces from the vantage point, then traces and paints. Varini tends to use simple geometric forms: squares, triangles, ellipses, circles, rectangles, and lines. These forms are usually created in one of the three primary colors: red, blue or yellow, occasionally employing some secondary colors, as well as in black and white. He justifies his choice of simple geometric shapes and basic colors by saying "If you draw a circle on a flat canvas it will always look the same. The drawn circle will retain the flatness of the canvas. This kind of working is very limiting to me, so I project a circle onto spaces, onto walls or mountainsides, and then the circle's shape is altered naturally because the 'canvas' is not flat. A mountainside has curves that affect the circle, and change the circle's geometry. So, I do not need to portray complicated forms in my paintings. I can just use the simplicity of forms, because the reality out there distorts forms in any case, and creates variations on its own accord. The same goes for colors. Usually I use one color only, and the space takes care of altering the color's hue. For example, if I use one type of red on a mountainside, the result is many kinds of red, depending on the mountain's surface and the light conditions. Sunlight will affect the different areas on the surface and the same red color may become stronger or darker or clearer in certain areas, depending on how the sun rays hit the surface. The sky can be bright or dark. And if the surface has its own color or a few colors then that will affect the red that I apply on it. So, I do not need to use sophisticated colors. The reality exists with its own qualities, shapes, colors and light conditions. What I do is simply add another shape and color in response to that."

Unlike the majority of artists, who work within strictly defined limits, Varini uses every dimension. By creating work that is not portable and cannot easily be contained, he sidesteps the temptation to make a cult object of the artwork. For him the "art object" has become a rearguard concept. Indeed he has neither a collection to sell, nor paintings to store. "I'm entirely free from material and logistical constraints. Like a musician performing on stage, I ask for a fee from whoever is commissioning the work, whether a gallery, a collector, a town council or an arts centre. This does not prevent my works from being sold on. Once I make a work it can be removed and remade in a different place, as long a certain guidance is followed. I write a description for each work, describing its specifications, and you can remake it in another space if you follow the exact instructions for the shapes, sizes, relation to each other, and relation to the space. The new space needs to have similar characteristics to the original one. The result will not be a new work, but rather a remake of the same work. I do not make an object and move it, but I move the concept, and can remake it in the new space, in the same way that there is a written play and a theatre company can stage it in a few different theatres."

About Site Projects Inc.:

Site Projects, New Haven's leading presenter of temporary public art, was established in 2004. Site Projects is a community based non-profit organization that commissions site-specific art projects by internationally recognized artists and collaborates with local organizations to present community-wide educational programs related to the artists and their works. The goal is to present visual art that appeals to a broad and diverse audience in New Haven, a community of 125,000 people.

Previous commissions include:
Matej Andraz Vogrincic • [It Used to be My Playground] Erector Set boats in the Farmington Canal, 2007;
Jason Hackenwerth • The Revenge of the Megadon, Great Hall of Dinosaurs, Yale University Peabody Museum of Natural History, 2006;
Leo Villareal • Chasing Rainbows/New Haven, on the New Haven Green, 2004;