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Brian Slattery |
Nov 21, 2023 9:07 am
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Dishawn Harris, a.k.a Farmer D., at Saturday's workshop.
Putting your hands to soil to plant garlic. Chewing on a leaf of fresh oregano. Noticing the sun on your face. At “Rooted Youth,” a collaborative event between the Dixwell art center NXTHVN and the garden-creation outfit Root Life, held at the Goffe Street Armory Garden, participants learned about how these simple experiences can open up broader pathways to understanding more about our relationship to our environment, and how we can adapt to climate change.
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Brian Slattery |
Nov 17, 2023 9:17 am
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Hyunsuk Erickson
Thingumabob Tribe #3
Hyunsuk Erickson’s Thingumabob Tribe #3 spreads out across one of the first-floor galleries of the Ely Center of Contemporary Art. Their sinuous shapes and bright colors might carry, for some viewers, suggestions of meaning. They could be seen as chess pieces, or as rock formations on an alien planet. Or perhaps they’re microscopic shapes brought to the human scale. On the other hand, are they really asking to be understood, to be perceived in that way? They can be taken as is, simply as shapes, forms, colors. Or anything in between, an apprehension of form, the content arising in the viewer.
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Karen Ponzio |
Nov 13, 2023 9:02 am
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Making zines at The New Haven Zine Club.
Tiny Ghosts Haunting Small Things, The Band Plays in Front of a Big Audience, and Cars Go Too Fast (and our road design encourages it) are not titles you might find on the bestseller list or at your local news stand. But you can find them in the zine library making its way through the city as part of the New Haven Zine Scene, a group of creatives that meet up once a month to make, read, and talk about zines and share everything and anything zine related. This past Saturday, the group met for the first time at Possible Futures on Edgewood Avenue, where it will continue to trade off monthly meeting dates with Witch Bitch Black Box on Whitney.
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Karen Ponzio |
Nov 9, 2023 9:25 am
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Map sketching and nature journaling in East Rock.
East Rock Park on a sunny November Saturday was an idyllic setting for the most recent New Haven Nature Journal Club meet-up. The biweekly event focuses on gathering in natural settings to witness, observe, and document the surroundings through drawings and writings, with a bit of guidance and a bunch of support.
The group, led by Madelyn Neufeld, meets on Saturday mornings twice a month: once in East Rock Park and two weeks later at another location that changes each time. Neufeld started this club back in August after researching the Wild Wonder Foundation — which provides free nature journal resources — and finding no groups in Connecticut.
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Brian Slattery |
Nov 8, 2023 11:14 am
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Cal Bocicault
It's Gotta Be the Shoes.
The two men in Cal Bocicault’s painting are, first and foremost, stylish, and they know it. Peering askance at the viewer, colors coordinated with themselves and each other, together they open the shoeboxes on their laps. The shoeboxes themselves become classic MacGuffins. We have no idea what’s in the boxes. For all we know, the boxes are empty. But maybe they’re not. Maybe they contain the most stylish sneakers we’ve ever seen, footwear that elevates all the clothes around it. The important thing is that the two men can see what we can’t. They know what’s in the boxes. They’re just not telling us.
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Brian Slattery |
Nov 3, 2023 8:52 am
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Joan Fitzsimmons
The Woods.
Joan Fitzsimmons’s images both beckon viewers and warn them about what’s in store in the Institute Library’s upstairs gallery. The hands, in part because of their visual treatment, feel iconic, perhaps from an old horror movie. But what are they doing? Are they trapped? Are they casting a spell? Are these the hands of a prisoner, or is the owner of those hands doing the manipulating?
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Brian Slattery |
Nov 1, 2023 8:13 am
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Marjorie Gillette Wolfe
Alhambra Hedge.
Two photographs by Marjorie Gillette Wolfe hang in the front of Kehler Liddell Gallery, at 873 Whalley Ave. in Westville. They’re both of hedges, and the way Wolfe composes the image, the eye is drawn to the plant life, without worrying too much about where it is. We can see the similarities in the forms of the plants, the spacing between them. It’s only in looking at the titles that the true humor comes out, as one photograph is taken in front of a diner somewhere, and the other is taken at the Alhambra, one of the great architectural wonders of the world. Both locations are almost entirely absent from the images.
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Karen Ponzio |
Oct 30, 2023 9:33 am
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Karen Ponzio Photo
David Sepulveda at work in his Westville studio.
The last weekend of October finally gifted the city a warm and sunny Saturday, but nowhere was it hotter than Westville, where a two-day neighborhood event — part of the artist-led City-Wide Open Studios — encompassed everything from galleries, creative collectives, and private residences to Edgewood Park and even pods on Central Avenue.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 27, 2023 8:39 am
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Cynthia Beth Rubin
Orange Interplay with Diatoms, Salt, and Seaweed.
Cynthia Beth Rubin’s collage crackles with energy, as colors vibrate off one another and forms within forms, textures within textures, rub against each other. Keen senses of both aesthetic freedom and control of technique suffuse the piece — which, it turns out, hearken back to a famous artistic ancestor.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 23, 2023 8:35 am
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Chelsea M. Rowe
Chelsea Rowe's Symposium-inspired art.
Artist Chelsea M. Rowe marries festive colors to a violent act in her art, a contrast that opens up the possibilities for interpretation. There’s no getting away from the pain, the blood spilling from both figures as they split from one another. But it’s not just a portrait of torture. It suggests a form of creation and change, too: the chance to survive, make something different.
The sense of energy, connection, and a little bit of revolution in Rowe’s piece was in the air at the artist-organized City-Wide Open Studios’ Erector Square weekend.
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Karen Ponzio |
Oct 23, 2023 8:21 am
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Jo Kremer.
The top floor of the Marlinworks Eagle building in East Rock was the setting for the opening of the studios of a small but dazzling array of artists on Saturday afternoon, with a display of works as eye-grabbing as the foliage of East Rock Park right outside their windows. The five artists — Linda Lindroth, Nancy Karpel, Craig Newick, David Margolis and Jo Kremer — were participating in the artist-organized City-Wide Open Studios weekend this past Saturday and Sunday, which also included events in Erector Square and City Gallery.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 20, 2023 8:55 am
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Sarah Goodridge
Rose Prentice (1771-1852).
Prentice looks like a no-nonsense woman. The depiction of her is simple, but it appears to capture some of her essential nature. Prentice looks smart, curious, and strong. But she also looks a little tired, like she’s been carrying a lot of weight. That she can bear it doesn’t make it any less heavy.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 19, 2023 9:34 am
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Among the digital video detritus of Kit Young’s installation at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art is a cracked screen with a sign rarely seen in a gallery: “Please touch.” With the first hesitant brush of a finger, there’s almost no effect. But press a little harder, and the cracks bloom with almost bioluminescent patterns. Whether this effect is something Young designed or discovered is beside the point. In pressing into the screen, the viewer has helped make the art happen —even if, just as quickly, it starts to fade.
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Karen Ponzio |
Oct 16, 2023 8:49 am
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Karen Ponzio Photos
Karimah Mickens admires Jasmine Nikole's work at this weekend's Amplify the Arts festival at Eli Whitney Barn.
Susan Clinard's sculptures on display, for Amplify the Arts.
The soul-stirring sculptures of Linda Mickens, both large and small, anchored one corner of the Eli Whitney Barn. Across the room, Michael Jackson’s iconic Off the Wall album cover in the style of Saint Phifer faced portraits of women dancing and laughing as seen through the eyes of Jasmine Nikole.
Those neighbored the dazzling array of faces created by Shaunda Holloway, while between them lay stairs leading to the open studio of Susan Clinard, where a seemingly endless number of her own sculptures that one could see themselves and just about anyone else in the world in stood, sat, and hung from the rafters.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 13, 2023 9:00 am
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Linda Mickens.
If the works of artist Linda Mickens — one of the recipients this year, along with fellow artist Jeff Ostergren, of a grant from the Bitsie Clark Fund for Artists — were to all appear in one gallery at the same time, you could line one wall with a choir of angels, in various poses, heads tilted toward the sky or downward, wings folded or unfurled.
On the other side of the gallery, though, would be a woman with nails for hair, screaming, a machine gun in her lap; faceless statues in hoodies, the victims of police shootings. Light and darkness, held in suspension, with the artist always moving from one to the other and back again. And maybe, with the piece she’s about to create, finding just the right balance between them.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 13, 2023 9:00 am
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Jeff Ostergren
Redpilled/Bluepilled (Stamford, Connecticut; Rainy Day - After Caillebotte).
It’s a street scene in psychedelic colors, pointilism with an extra point, as though you’re walking down an urban street with your mind thoroughly altered. But If the overall composition of the painting looks familiar, that’s because it’s explicitly taken from Gustave Caillebotte’s 1877 painting Paris Street; Rainy Day. The figures in that painting, however, are replaced with figures from contemporary pharmaceutical ads. The building in the background is the former Purdue Pharma building in Stamford. It’s the beginning of unpacking what artist Jeff Ostergren’s project is about.
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Maya McFadden |
Oct 10, 2023 10:18 am
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Maya McFadden photos
Emonie Jackson, mastering pop art with Hillhouse art teacher Rebecca LeQuire.
Carlos Kirklan: Art is "an escape," and a chance to create.
With pop artist Keith Haring in mind, Hillhouse High School junior Emonie Jackson imagined up a chicken leg, to-go cup, and ketchup bottle all with arms and legs — and then penned those images to paper, honing her own creative style and skills amid her classroom’s dive into recent art history.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 10, 2023 8:32 am
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At Friday's "Vol. Boo" art opening.
The Volume Two collective at Never Ending Books threw open its doors Friday night for a seasonal art opening running at the space at 810 State St. through the end of the month — not of fall foliage and decorative gourds, but of ghosts, ghouls, and other visions of the macabre, as New Haven prepares for what is, in some ways, its most celebrated community holiday. The exhibition, called “Vol. Boo,” is a collaborative art show featuring the work of 15 artists who all took the chance, some playfully, some seriously, to explore and illuminate the darker side of life.
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Karen Ponzio |
Oct 9, 2023 8:51 am
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Karen Ponzio Photos.
Bones and more.
Are you in the market for a pair of snake bone earrings or maybe even a lizard wet specimen? Or maybe you’re more into resin earrings or keychains of your favorite pop culture icons, but you still want to check out some taxidermy creatures and gravestone rubbings as well? All that and way more were waiting for you and purveyors of the odd, the weird, and the wonderfully obscure at the third annual New England Antiques and Oddities Exhibition, held this past Sunday afternoon at the Annex YMA Lounge and Hall on Woodward Avenue.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 6, 2023 9:41 am
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BRIAN SLATTERY PHOTO
In ways that photographs can’t capture, the installation of “Impossible Souls” — running now through Oct. 29 on the second floor of the Hilles Gallery of Creative Arts Workshop at 80 Audubon St. — makes moving through the gallery feel almost like swimming. Along with the art on the walls, and the art on large columns, numerous pieces are suspended from the ceiling in such a way that they drift and spin with the climate-controlled air. The overall effect quiets the space. It makes you move through the gallery with extra care, knowing that the art isn’t always where you might expect it to be.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 4, 2023 11:34 am
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Jihyun Lee
Doll Shelf.
The look of Jihyun Lee’s Doll Shelf partakes at once of the past and an imagined future.
The collection of objects has the feel of a cabinet of curiosities, the contents of the shelves of an old house, even maybe a beloved junk shop. But the red tint gives it a science fiction twist. They could be as much artifacts of the future as of the past. Or perhaps that tint transports us into the future, looking back at the fleeting present.
The description online read: “In this ephemeral haven of sonic and poetic delights, the Afrogalactic Tea Party invites you to immerse yourself in a curated experience of taste and culture.”
The Sunday afternoon event at the flower and lifestyle shop Bloom on Central Avenue in Westville was part of the ongoing 6th Dimension Afrofuturism festival, a series of art exhibits, talks, screenings, and other gatherings running now through Oct. 25.
I love a tea party, and coupling one with Afrofuturism intrigued me, so I headed to the festival website to grab a ticket, which was pretty reasonable at $23. I wasn’t sure what to expect.
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Karen Ponzio |
Oct 3, 2023 8:19 am
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Karen Ponzio Photos.
The sketches
Yet another downpour threatened to upset many events planned for Saturday, but not the meet-up for the New Haven Sketchers. The local club of artists, who meet up every week or so, had scheduled to gather at the Yale University Art Gallery to take in and take down the sights of Chapel Street and its surrounding stores and locations — and the weather and other adjustments to the norm did not deter them.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 26, 2023 8:34 am
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Birthing a New Sky (Mira and Sora).
The central figure in Birthing a New Sky (Mira and Sora) has immediate, obvious associations with the Buddha, and with meditation and enlightenment. But it’s not just a generic picture of a spiritual leader. The silhouette is specific; it’s an individual, a real person, alive today. Colors course through the shape of their body, the shadows of multitudes of people. The image buzzes with movement and growth, but also exudes balance and peace, connection with nature and with the self. It points toward the future with a sense of genuine, earned lightness and hope.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 22, 2023 8:33 am
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Pebble Stone
The Prince and the Magic Lake and Fable.
Two narratives are laid out on the wall. They follow at first familiar forms, a plucky young person setting out on a quest. But they quickly take an unusual turn. Within four panels, they’ve ended on cliffhangers that feel, in a strange way, almost existential. “Who is this?” one protagonist asks. “Who are you?” the other says. Laying them out in parallel adds to the fun. It points out the repetition. Are they just iterations of the same story? (Are most stories just iterations of previous stories?) Is there a moment when these story lines might come together? Or is this all there is?
