Allan Appel Photo
John Harris and Laura Barr beside Debbie Hesse’s “Alcove,” plexi, color gels, mylar.
Eighteen of New Haven’s most newly married couples are not only getting along great — they’re also willing to open up and tell you the secret of their happy pairings.
Artist Photograph
“Wall No. 69,” photo by Joy Bush.
All you have to do is drop by Kehler Liddell Gallery on Whalley Avenue where the couples are all on display — not the people themselves, but works of art by 18 fellow artists selected by 18 of the cooperative Westville gallery’s members who show their own work side by side in visual bliss.
Well, maybe not all bliss, but all of enjoyable interest as member artists like John Harris and Laura Barr get a chance to put on a curator’s hat and pick instead of be picked, as Harris said, with a wink of irony.
The show, titled Artist as Curator III, runs through Aug. 21 during regular gallery hours, which are Thursday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Harris said he asked Mark Ferguson to show “because I love black and white photography and rock formations. I always wanted to go to the Southwest but I haven’t.”
Bush beside her work; over her shoulder is “Sepiessa Winter,” photo by Marjorie Wolfe, who chose her.
As he and Barr were putting the finishing touches on the handsome installation in the run-up to last week’s opening reception, Harris called a reporter’s attention to the rock formations in Ferguson’s work and said, “they look like stage sets.”
Their dramatic verisimilitude is in stark contrast to Harris’s own oil on linen “Field Day,” which was precisely the point of his choice in pairing.
“I think it’s better to choose something in a different medium. I want it to be complementary,” he said.
Harris marvels at one rock caught in Ferguson’s image.
This is the third year that the gallery has mounted such an invitational show, and the first in which the selecting artist is showing his or her own work beside the artist chosen.
Both Harris and Barr said they thought the change made the show more intriguing. In fact the curatorial introductions by the gallery members explaining why the choice was made comprise one of the most intriguing aspects of the show.
Artist Photo
“Underwater2,” oil and pastel, by Barr.
In many instances, like Laura Barr’s choice of Debbie Hess, the artists are selecting colleagues who may be friends and whom they admire, but that would not be sufficient.
They also appear to hold the same or similar artistic values or interests or goals but are approaching or pursuing those goals by different media, by different means.
“He Said, She Said,” by sculptor Joe Saccio in foreground, with “Wheel,” painting by his choice, Megan Craig on wall behind.
For example, Barr said that she and Hesse both have a fascination for the ocean and the sea environment: “I work in more traditional media. Debbie is very innovative with [her] material. I admire her creativity while were’ both working with color, translucency, light.”
They also both admired the way Hesse, while installing her wall sculpture, positioned it, and even added another element, in part to catch the shadows provided by the gallery’s ceiling lighting.
Artist Photo
“A Cast of Shadows,” photo by Mark Ferguson.
Not all the gallery members were in favor of showing their own works beside their selectees’.
Photographer Marjorie Wolfe, for example, reluctantly acceded to the gallery’s executive committee decision because she thinks, as she wrote in an email, “the invitee should get the honors.”
Allan Appel Photo
Detail of Hesse’s “Alcove.”
She wrote that she particularly admires Joy Bush‘s sense of humor and irony, and that her work always “fills me with questions, I always want to see more of what’s in front of me.”
That was my reaction too to one of Bush’s offerings in the show, “Wall No. 69.” It struck me as almost a construction, concentration camp with air conditioner.
Bush said a friend of hers, who had seen it, called it a kind of architect’s model.
In fact it is an actual view of New York city rooftops as seen from Manhattan’s High Line, Bush said.
Bush said the Artist as Curator III invitation helps dispel a “mythology” about the incessant competition among artists. She said when she started out as a photographer decades ago people were genuinely helpful. “Now this is an extension.”
Other invitee artists showing in Artist as Curator III include William Chickillo, Vincent Edwards, Nancy Eisenfeld, Allan Greenier, Kenneth Hanson, Jackie Heitchue, Sheldon Krevit, Dru Nadler, Peter Nuhn, Liz Pagano, Jaclyn Podlaski, Mark Savola, Paul Theriault, and Peter Ziou.