Painters Find The Point In The Abstract

Esmeilyn Tejeda’s Herterochromia Iridium is the portrait of a man and an exercise in style. Tejeda’s attention to the details of her subject’s face and the abstractions she introduces work together to reveal something of the subject, his strength and his vulnerability. The painting is part of a series of Tejeda’s, and the aim of that series — ​“an exploration of how facial expressions give way to deeper personal insights, the challenges of removing our masks to reveal who we are when confronted with public scrutiny, and the juxtaposition between the facade we display versus the emotions we attempt to subdue” — shines through.

Herterochromia Iridium is also part of the New Haven Paint and Clay Club​’s 122nd annual juried exhibition, running now at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art and closing May 27. ​“Showcasing the work of its members and regional artists through annual exhibitions, the New Haven Paint & Clay Club actively supports, encourages, and promotes exploration of and involvement with the visual arts in the Greater New Haven area and beyond,” an accompanying note states. ​“The club further engages local communities by sharing loaned artworks from its permanent collection, offering merit awards, scholarships, free programs and lectures, and other art related activities.” 

The show features work from 89 artists and a handful of students at area high schools. Like few other exhibitions in the Elm City, the Paint and Clay Club’s annual show offers a vast array of what New Haven’s painters are working on, and the results run the gamut, from highly representational to entirely abstract, and everything expressively in between.

At the near-photorealistic end is Nikki Travaglino’s Tangerine Chrome, which revels in the color and surface texture of its subject. The details are so lovingly rendered that it’s tempting to imagine that the car’s owner is important to the artist. Of course, it’s also possible that the car is object of affection enough.

In the same gallery is Molly McDonald’s Seven Years Later, which, in the best tradition of abstract painting, creates a deep emotional resonance through the juxtaposition of vivid color fields. As with all such paintings, photographs of them don’t do them justice.

Len Swec’s Barcelona Balconies plays with the light just enough to direct our eye and give us a sense of the narrow street’s atmosphere. The details, somehow homey and mysterious at the same time, make it possible to imagine a soundtrack to the painting, of voices filtering through the windows into the air, or distant music from a record playing somewhere.

Jessica Ziegler’s painting is, at first glance, readable as an entirely abstract piece, until the rivets of the girders she has painted come into focus, and after that, the details of the plant life finding a way through the industrial space.

And like Tejada, Sandra Kensler’s Nature’s Last Stand deploys the right amount of abstraction to bring out the starkness in her subject. Her sharp angles and burned-out details let us miss the forest and the trees.

New Haven Paint and Clay Club 122nd Annual Juried Exhibition runs at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art, 51 Trumbull St., through May 27. Visit the center’s website for hours and more information. A virtual version of the exhibition is also available at the website of the New Haven Paint and Clay Club.