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Brian Slattery |
Oct 23, 2024 9:52 am
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Edwin Austin Abbey
Compositional Study for The Hours in the House of Representatives Chamber of the Pennsylvania State Capitol, Harrisburg.
It’s a painting of time, but it’s portrayed as a celebration, a dance, a whirl of energy. The artist, Edwin Austin Abbey, focused on “the dynamics among the figures and their movements,” an accompanying note states. “The transition from day to night remains unresolved, but the exuberant movement of the daylight hours is described with great clarity.” It’s a 24-hour party — a perhaps surprising way to render the ceiling of the legislative chamber of the Pennsylvania State Capitol.
These days, legislative bodies, state and national, are usually described as slow at best and dysfunctional, even dystopian, at worst. But the mood among public artists in Pennsylvania was different at the beginning of the 20th century, as it was, apparently, in several places across the country.
If an artist were asked to paint the ceiling of a legislative chamber now, what would they be inclined to depict?
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 22, 2024 9:57 am
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Eddie Hall
Contuse and Reflex.
Eddie Hall’s artwork at first glance comes across as a high-gloss study of bold geometric shapes, akin to the forms produced by fiber artists or, in some cases, older video games. But the reflective surfaces also give something away: look again and you see that the glass isn’t in front of the canvas; it is the canvas, and part of it is transparent, revealing the wall behind it. Even bolder, sometimes the surface is a mirror. Stand in front of it, and you become part of the image.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 21, 2024 9:39 am
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Amelia Ingraham artwork
Hey, Erector Square! Who you calling "meat face?"
Erector Square was full of people and art, as the second year of the fully artist-run New Haven Open Studios packed the building complex — so much so that, in addition to the many artists who had flung open their studio doors to visitors, many more had set up displays in entryways, intersections, and hallways, giving the sense that everywhere one went, there was art on the walls, and conversation happening.
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Karen Ponzio |
Oct 21, 2024 9:28 am
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Karen Ponzio Photos
Linda Lindroth.
Old boxes that offered a new perspective, companion paintings that presented an alternate version of freedom, glass beads that each seemed to encase their own miniature world, and a model of a home you could fit in the palm of your hand: all of this and more were available for viewing in the artists’ studios at Marlin Works on Willow Street this past weekend as they opened to the public once again as part of New Haven Open Studios.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 16, 2024 9:40 am
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Allan Greenier
Untitled (Karloff).
It’s a transfixing stare, made more intense by the medium. A woodcut hearkens back to an earlier time — and, in German Expressionism, an earlier mode of expressing anxiety. But Allan Greenier’s much more modern piece makes a strong case for the old medium’s abiding ability to create arresting art. He also gives it an interesting spin, in that the face in the picture is that of Boris Karloff, best known as the monster in 1931’s Frankenstein.
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Karen Ponzio |
Oct 14, 2024 8:54 am
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Karen Ponzio photos
Jasmine Nikole's art ...
... and Redemption, by Linda Mickens, at Amplify the Arts.
A multicolored fabric sculpture created by Kat Wiese seemed to float between the trees that framed one entrance to the Eli Whitney Barn. At the other entrance, visitors were greeted by the vibrant bodies and faces painted in vivid colors by artists Jasmine Nikole on the left and Darnell “Saint” Phifer on the right.
The music of R&B legends, courtesy of DJ Q‑Boogie, could be heard from everywhere, boosting the vibe of each and every artistic creation as Amplify The Arts entered its second year at the storied Hamden location and third year in total, continuing its mission — as reiterated on Sunday by organizer Karimah Mickens — of presenting a space for especially BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and young artists.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 14, 2024 8:46 am
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Brian Slattery photos
Sculptor Susan Clinard, as New Haven Open Studios comes to West Haven.
Victor Smith: "If my heart had not been broken, if I had not been in so great distress, if I had not decided to express my hurts through my paintings, I probably would never have been discovered."
Inside Susan Clinard’s Gilbert Street studio on Sunday afternoon, the West Haven space was full of New Haven faces.
People chatted in the corners among the sculptures. One viewer shared a long moment with a figure in a boat. People exchanged waves and hugs. It was all part of New Haven Open Studios’s second weekend, which encompassed Amplify the Arts in East Rock, but reached to the Gilbert Street studios in West Haven as well, where artists threw open their doors — as they will again next weekend, Oct. 19 and 20, in Erector Square and MarlinWorks, and in Westville, NXTHVN, and elsewhere the weekend after that, Oct. 26 and 27.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 10, 2024 9:35 am
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Rita Hannafin
Rita Hannafin's Float, on display for Open Studios.
Rita Hannafin’s Float hangs in the midst of City Gallery’s latest show on Upper State Street, a quilt of bright, shifting colors, surprising shapes, dynamic contrasts, and ultimately, cohesion.
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Karen Ponzio |
Oct 7, 2024 8:18 am
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Karen Ponzio Photos
Luca McCarthy at work: “I’m very anti-garbage. Nothing is garbage.”
One view of the CAW exhibit, featuring pieces by Simmons, Giroux, McCarthy, and Brantley.
You know October is here when New Haven sidewalks are dotted with fallen leaves, and art studios and galleries are open for all to see. Open Studios 2024 began on Saturday with a variety of locations ready and waiting to share art in a variety of media, including City Gallery, The Institute Library, the Ely Center of Contemporary Art, and Creative Arts Workshop (CAW).
CAW, however, had a unique set up offered to the public. While an exhibit by eight artists from the Ely Center’s 2024 open call was on view on the first floor of the Hilles Gallery at CAW on Audubon Street, those same eight artists were on the second floor, creating new pieces and greeting visitors who wanted to engage them in discussion about their work.
“Beautiful!” a passing motorist called out while heading downtown Monday on Chapel Street.
“Thank you!” Jessie Unterhalter said for the tenth? 20th? time of the day.
Unterhalter didn’t want to be rude. People passing by the once-blank warehouse wall at Chapel and East Streets have brightened to see the swirling bright colors Jessie Unterhalter and Katey Truhn have been painting there for the past three weeks. Unterhalter appreciated their appreciation.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 26, 2024 9:23 am
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In the short film Dendrostalkers, the view is from the driver’s seat of a car curving along a dirt road through a forest at night. The trees are thick and dark, then give way to a clearing, a pile of fresh lumber. The narration speaks of foreboding. The car stops, and something springs from the pile of dead trees, a new limb, animated, making shapes in the air. It’s the next step in evolution, maybe a dispatch from the future. It’s an art project that has something to say about our relationship to the forest now.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 25, 2024 11:47 am
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Brian Slattery photo
One of the many artworks on display at the first ever show hosted by a Legion Avenue mental health, addiction, and homelessness services nonprofit.
The pill bottles hang suspended in the air, a testament to their ubiquity and the damage they cause. Behind them are arrayed a series of facts and statistics about drug overdoses. Over 1,000 people die from them in Connecticut every year. Since 1999, almost 1 million have died nationwide, with opioids accounting for two-thirds of those deaths.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 24, 2024 9:22 am
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Carol Strause FitzSimonds
Flora and Fauna #23.
“My art is a living thing, a labor of birth, exasperation, growth, change, and joy. Printmaking has always been my primary passion, from exploring traditional Old World techniques to new 21st-century materials and technologies. Wanting to expand my art into a more sculptural tactile experience led me to experiment with altering published books and to crafting one-of-a-kind books from my original prints and drawings. I find my image inspiration in the everyday of nature, ordinary places and things, and the human form.”
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 18, 2024 9:20 am
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Judy Atlas images
Mykonos 2 and Mykonos 3.
They’re abstractions, but still connected to something in the real world. Even without knowing the original inspiration, the signs are there. The blue the artist, Judy Atlas, has chosen is one that occurs in nature, in the sky and water. The pristine white a common color in manmade structures around the world. Then there are the architectural features, the arches and doorways, that suggest something of a maze, but one you might want to get lost in.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 17, 2024 8:59 am
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Sven Martson Photos
Rochester Truck Door.
The profile, of a cartoon crone, is easy to see — easier than seeing what it really is. Keep looking and you might see other faces as well. But keep looking, and you see that it’s all something else, that your mind is finding patterns, meaning, in a chance encounter. “I was walking around in Rochester one day, and before crossing a street, I looked to the right, and down at the end of the alley was a shiny truck door reflecting the distorted image of the building across the street,” Sven Martson notes. “My point of view was all important. Just a few inches to the right or left and the image broke up and disappeared.” It’s only a reflection of a building. But it also reflects something else, in the way we find so much else in it.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 12, 2024 8:53 am
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Liah Sinq
For a split second, the kid is in the hands of gravity, but you just know he’s going to be all right. Maybe it’s the matching pajamas that give it away. It’s Christmas morning, perhaps, and the kids want to play with a father, or an uncle. But what really seals the deal on the tone of the piece is the quality of the sunlight, streaming through the window behind them. It lets us see the care the adult is putting into it, lets us see the way the kid is enjoying the ride. He may be falling, but the landing will be safe.
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Karen Ponzio |
Sep 9, 2024 8:45 am
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Karen Ponzio Photo
Michael Pollack and his pizza monument.
The subject of pizza is always on the minds of New Haveners, whether it’s deciding what kind to order and where to order it from or what makes the perfect pie and slice. On Friday night, those pies and slices were unveiled as the theme of a world premiere art exhibit at District NHV. “New Haven Pizza Club: Discover the Art of Pizza” showcased the four-year-long odyssey of artist Michal Pollack to commemorate everyone’s favorite meal as a contemporary symbol representing a local legacy.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 6, 2024 9:29 am
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A deer head with flowers for eyes. Streams of color stretching down from the ceiling. And, on a couple dozen cardboard panels, all manner of people, in all manner of poses. It’s all part of “This Art is Trash,” an exhibition at Never Ending Books on State Street by artist Alice Prael that puts humanity into the things we usually throw away.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 5, 2024 9:29 am
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Manuel Álvarez Bravo
La hija de los danzantes.
It’s a famous picture, of a girl peeking into a window, and seems almost like a happy accident, a case of the photographer being in the right place at the right time. If so, that timing was nearly miraculous, due to the beauty in its formal composition. The circle of the hat echoes the circle of the window, while both offset the relentless diamonds on the wall. It succeeds in feeling like street photography and like an intricately composed image all at once.
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 28, 2024 8:39 am
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Eyes on the Planet.
They’re eyes, but they’re taking in a universe of shifting shapes and colors. The piercing structures of the irises only accentuate how the rest of the eyes are swimming with color. In the middle of each pupil is an astronaut, which throws the scale of the image into question. On one level, it’s all fun and inviting. On another, it’s disorienting. The astronauts could be exploring a colorful new dimension. They may also be in danger.
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Karen Ponzio |
Aug 26, 2024 9:23 am
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Karen Ponzio Photos.
Zine Fest set up inside Bradley Street Bicycle Co-op.
On Saturday afternoon and evening the New Haven Zine Fest expanded beyond its usual Bradley Street Bicycle Co-Op location to the sidewalk outside, as well as other locations around East Rock, for artists and writers to share their zines, prints, creative activities, and more.
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Leo Slattery |
Aug 26, 2024 9:15 am
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Leo Slattery Photos
Thirty vendors in a crescent surrounded a central green area. From the stage, a rotating selection of spoken word, music, and dancing was interspersed with an ongoing set from DJ Tunes. Off to the side of the stage, activities and crafts were available, including free tie-dyeing and a community banner. People of all ages darted around, chatting with vendors or people they recognized.
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 23, 2024 9:47 am
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Howard el-Yasin
My Mother's Hose.
Howard el-Yasin’s My Mother’s Hose hangs at one end of Orchid Gallery in The Lab at ConnCORP, redolent with associations without landing definitively on a single one. From a certain frame of mind, the associations can be literally visceral: with intestines, or for that matter, the products of intestines. It could also be sausages, however, or a balloon animal. Or, abstracted, it could be figures embracing one another. The associations multiply when we learn that the sculpture (as the name reveals) is made from pantyhose, but is stuffed with plastic, burlap, a boa, a cardigan sweater, and a cotton shirt. The sculpture is an act of preservation, but also transformation. There’s no one answer that brings it together.
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 22, 2024 9:28 am
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Ralph Levesque
Match Maker.
Ralph Levesque’s Match Maker, at first glance, looks like religious art, from the halo encircling one of the figures to the positions of the figures in relation to each other. We’ve seen the general idea before, in Christian medieval art. But the first glance proves deceiving, an overt meaning elusive. Who or what is the visage in the background? And why the faces on sticks? Are they mirrors? Portals? The title suggests that a transaction of some kind is taking place. But what? We don’t know what’s going on, but the sense of meaning, a belief system being enacted, remains.
