65 Artists Contemplate What They’ve ​“Lost And Found” In KLG Exhibition

Susan Clinard’s sculptures are an exercise in extreme empathy, even as Missing the Mark represents something more complex as well. It’s hard not to feel the pull of judgment in the juxtaposition of the crying face of the baby, who just needs some attention, with the blank faces of everyone else, staring at their screens. But in a broader sense, they’re all victims, of a specific mode of modernity we’re told we want. Clinard’s pieces forces us to look at ourselves, too. Are you reading these words on your phone right now? What are you missing around you?

“The fundamental question this sculpture installation asks us is, what have we lost?” Clinard writes. ​“We have become overly dependent and addicted to screens. Ironically, we seek connection using social media platforms but instead we’ve become more disconnected, isolated and absent to ourselves and those around us. The theme of lost and found fits this sculpture well as it asks the viewer to find the solution to the many connections we have lost along the way.”

Missing the Mark is Clinard’s contribution to ​“Lost/Found,” an exhibit of over 65 artists’ works running now at Kehler Liddell Gallery in Westville through July 31. ​“For this year’s juried show, the artists at KLG asked their colleagues to consider the following: Let’s just say there’s a vast shelf somewhere, lined with lost and found boxes, one for each person in the world,” the jurors write in an accompanying statement. ​“What would be in yours? What have you memorably lost in your life, and what have you found? Share what you’ve lost and found with us, in the box or outside of it. Please lose your inhibitions and interpret as you will.”

Those instructions seem to have yielded one of the most affecting shows Kehler Liddell has held in a long time, not only for the riotous collision of ideas on display from wall to wall, but the depth of feeling — the way many of the artists use the theme to grapple with memory, identity, our current political situation, and finding ways to move through in an uncertain world with measures of strength and grace.

For artist Allen Camp, that strength is found in a wry (or is it rye?) sense of humor. Camp writes that his works ​“tend to be structured like jokes or simple gags, relying upon a deadpan delivery and pivoting upon the mechanisms of metaphoric displacement or metonymic condensation… I make no attempt to relay any sort of moralistic or didactic message.” This impulse is in full effect in his specific piece for the show. ​“The marker is, obviously, the memorial of a loss. However, it has for some mysterious reason become the site of a calamitous turn of fate for an unfortunate sandwich. Is the viewer witnessing a loss upon another loss? Is it a defacement? Does it represent its maker’s attempt to find a way to laugh about his fate? I myself am not decided.”

Next to Camp’s piece is a painting by Dawn Bisharat that shares the humor and adds a keen sense of productive hedonism. Bisharat writes that the painting is ​“a reflection of how I lost my self control during the pandemic and gave into complete pleasure without concern for tomorrow or the next day. I found the joy of letting go and exploring. I rediscovered my passion for painting as well as cooking and enjoying delicious treats. Art became another doorway to discovery. I let go and fearlessly pursued my dreams.” 

Bisharat’s explicit mention of our current situation is something she holds in common with many of the artists in the show, who react to the world with humor and acceptance, yes, but also sadness and anger. Those seemingly opposed stances, however, in the context of this show, are forms of energy, reaction, engagement. In neither case are the artists giving up. 

Lisa Toto uses her grief at school shootings to create works of affecting sincerity. Toto is an art teacher, and was teaching in an elementary school in Ansonia when the Sandy Hook shootings happened. ​“Teaching, which felt impossible, continued but no one was allowed outside. While doing lunch duty one of the kindergarteners asked me why they couldn’t go outside for recess. This child was the same age as the victims. It was one of the hardest questions I have ever had to answer. I lied to him and said that I didn’t know why,” she writes. ​“The loss of these 26 souls have caused their families to create a push for change in gun control laws. Unfortunately the loss in school shootings continues to happen. These pieces of art them alive for me and keep fighting for their immortality.”

Robinson writes that Mar a Logo represents a change in practice as a painter away from landscapes. Many of his works employ abstraction; ​“I no longer need subject matter to be the vehicle for my painting but rather let the color stand alone. I allow the process to dictate the color boundaries and color relationships within the paintings.… The work starts with an idea, but the outcome is more about the feelings that emerge during the process,” he writes. In Mar a Logo, he combines realism and abstraction to create a vivid portrayal of our fractured sense of reality these days, our rampant distrust, our need to find our footing. It’s a painting about defacement; it’s also a painting about lies, and learning to see through those lies to catch a glimpse of the deceiver.

For many of the artists, the prompt of the show — rightfully so — evokes feelings of childhood, of the lost and found boxes in school classes, summer camps, public libraries. For Chris Bordenca, it’s a chance to revel in the joys childhood can bring, and the ways that reveling in those joys can bring strength and hope to adults now. His painting is ​“meant to invoke the feeling of opening a toy box filled with toys I either owned or dreamt of owning as a kid. All of them were lost, broken, or forgotten about as life moved on. They are a return to the feeling of wonder at opening a full toy box.” He goes on to describe how painting old toys allows him to preserve his own memories. ​“Almost nothing gets forgotten anymore. The past exists in the collective memory of the internet, and we can reach in and physically bring those memories into our present. I have been finding long lost objects that were special to me and reconnecting with them and myself through painting.”

Not far away in the show, Barbara Ringer’s pieces act almost as dark twins to Bordenca’s pieces. She describes her artistic practice as using ​“dolls and other vintage toys to create images where trauma either has or is about to happen.” About Hide and Seek, she writes, ​“not all kids’ games are for children. There are memories not found in the family album.” She has re-created ​“the darker moments of childhood: the fears, anxieties, and confusion that become imprinted on our subconscious and impact our adult life.” But Ringer isn’t exhuming these moments to succumb to them. Dragging them into the light is a way to deal with them, to understand how they have affected us, and with that understanding, perhaps develop more compassion for others and ourselves.

Alison Cofrancesco, meanwhile, points out that many adults are in fact living in a kind of lost-and-found bin of their own creation, with all the mixed feelings it engenders. Her paintings ​“focus on all the objects that we live among in a consumer culture, and the ambivalence many people feel towards the things that surround them.” They can be ​“status symbols,” ​“emotional conduits, evoking memory” — as Bordenca suggests — or ​“trash, packaging, or easily acquired and cheaply made consumer goods that we find ourselves guiltily throwing away after little use.” Returning to the theme of the show, she writes, ​“we find ourselves in our objects.… Have you held onto something trashy and old because it reminded you of someone who is longer in your life? Have you felt overwhelmed and disgusted by all the crap that you’ve accumulated in your life but not wanted to get rid of it because so much of it held this meaning? That is what I see in the objects I have chosen to portray — the constant finding and redefining of the self, and the power of finding identity through objects.”

Other artists focus on the more intangible things we have lost in our pasts — time, acquaintances, opportunities, pieces of ourselves — and explore how acknowledging those losses can help us find our footing in the present. Rujuta Paradkar grew up in India and has lived all over the world. ​“As I grew up what I have lost is my childhood and my friends,” the artist writes. ​“The innocence of play time with friends and the bonds that have been lost forever are the ones I cherish. I have tried to capture the innocence of children having fun in my paintings.”

Meanwhile, Alicia Afonso’s piece is a bold statement about moving forward with a clear head and a determined will. For Afonso, the painting ​“depicts the sacrifice women often make for men, historically set in the domestic home. Her headless figure reflects a universal symbol. She can be any of the women in our lives.” She writes that ​“during my recent time in college, I lost my sense of sense amid malignant relationships. As time went on, I eventually discovered just how much better I deserved… I came to understand I had to lose myself to therefore find myself again. This lost and found sense of self has resulted in a stronger person and artist and I wouldn’t change the lessons I’ve learned.” She concludes: ​“I’m trying to become a better person for myself because she hasn’t always treated herself kindly. Yet I’m also on a journey to find growth for my family, friends, and surrounding world and communicate those messages through my paintings.” It’s the kind of mission that many of the artists in ​“Lost/Found” share, and the honesty with which they do so creates a community in and of itself. 

“Lost/Found” runs at Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Ave., through July 31. Visit the gallery’s website for hours and more information.