by | Jan 14, 2025 9:30 am | Comments (0)
The tower is made of small wooden pieces. But as assembled on the floor of Kehler Liddell Gallery, it echoes natural forms, created by ants or bees. Not far away, an abstract piece reveals itself to involve not just pigment, but mirrors, so that the piece changes from every angle you look at it. Not far away, a small sculpture of a figurine in a sled is made, partly, from the shape of a gas mask.
by | Jan 7, 2025 9:47 am | Comments (0)
William Frucht
Packard Plant, Series 2 #18.
On the day this reporter visited “Making and Unmaking” — a group show running now at City Gallery on Upper State Street through Jan. 26 — artist Barbara Harder’s installation intentionally drew attention to its incompleteness. Three pieces of decorated and textured paper, Harder’s chosen medium for decades, were artfully arranged into a collage of soft colors and jagged edges. But on it was also a sign, written on a piece of scrap paper: “In progress as usual!”
by | Jan 3, 2025 2:27 pm | Comments (8)
Contributed
Competition co-hosts Thompson and Smith: "The world is a better place if more people are involved in design."
Want to wear your love for the Elm City on your sleeve?
A new T‑shirt design competition is now accepting submissions for apparel that fosters community pride in New Haven.
by | Dec 23, 2024 4:12 pm | Comments (3)
Santana Brightly's “You Have The Power To Determine Who You Are."
A camera, held by a man in a hoodie, dominates a scene of seeming chaos. Two more hands help hold it up. Someone else’s finger rests on the shutter button. Still another hand shifts the lens. Look more closely and virtually everyone in the crowd is shooting pictures.
The piece, “You Have The Power To Determine Who You Are” by Santana Brightly, was among the works spotlighted at the opening of an exhibit on Saturday at Stetson Library. Santana, a seventh-grade student at Hamden’s Sahge Academy, produced the piece while taking part in a month-long graphic arts workshop in AI Art this summer at Stetson.
Continue reading ‘Stetson AI Art Exhibit Beams Light On Future’
by | Dec 18, 2024 9:45 am | Comments (0)
Constance LaPalombara
New Haven 1 (Harbor).
It’s a misty day and there aren’t a lot of details to go on — no buildings or inland rock formations as landmarks. But because of painter Constance LaPalombara’s eye for including the right and necessary details, the scene is recognizable if you’ve ever been along the shore in, say, Morris Cove, and looked northward into the mouth of New Haven Harbor. With the defined sense of place comes a deeper appreciation for what LaPalombara is doing. She’s not capturing every detail, but she gets the details that matter. She grounds the viewer in a specific spot and then doesn’t just paint what the viewer might see through a camera lens. You could say she paints the atmosphere itself, the feeling of the air; if you concentrate enough, you can almost feel it.
by | Dec 16, 2024 7:15 am | Comments (0)
Hartford Has It! Tree by the Hartford Business Improvement District
Festival of Trees and Traditions
Wadsworth Atheneum
Hartford
Dec. 13, 2024
It’s Christmas time, so that means that it’s time for the annual Festival of Trees and Traditions at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford.
by | Dec 13, 2024 9:21 am | Comments (0)
Altered Futures.
This month there’s a small stretch of forest in City Gallery on Upper State Street — evergreens, ferns, moss — surrounded by a patch of dirt. It might take a moment to see that the plants aren’t rooted in the dirt, however. Rather, they’re planted in a woven aluminum boat, redolent of an ark. It will allow them to leave the gallery alive; maybe it will protect them from what’s coming.
Continue reading ‘Artists Widen The Frame On Climate Change’
by | Dec 12, 2024 9:47 am | Comments (0)
Merik Goma
As I Wait, Untitled 6.
A man stands in front of the bathroom mirror in a towel. He’s just getting in the shower, or just getting out. At first glance it might appear he’s shaving, or putting on cologne. But the object in his hand isn’t a razor or a bottle. It’s something else. And maybe that’s when you also notice the sink is overflowing with fruit. “Some people may not recognize it as an old fire extinguisher,” artist Merik Goma said of the object the man is holding, or “they may be drawn to the fruit.”
“Where is he going? What is that thing supposed to be? Is it a symbol? Is it literal?” Goma said. “It can mean a lot of things.” And that’s part of the point. Goma starts the story. It’s up to us to finish it.
by | Dec 4, 2024 9:23 am | Comments (0)
Craig Frederick
Breath.
Craig Frederick’s Breath looks lighter than its materials. If it were a sea creature, it appears like it could be spiraling through the water. If it were in flight, it could seem like it was made of paper, corkscrewing through the air. It makes space for itself in the gallery, as if it’s just passing through, and we happen to be there when it stops for a minute.
by | Nov 26, 2024 8:27 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Parlay Droner, with his "toys."
Music on stage. Art on the walls. Pizza and drinks on the table. Pickles in the corner. The latest installment of Mood Maker Mondays at The Cellar on Treadwell in Hamden featured all of the above, mixed together for a healthy-sized Monday night crowd who came out to hear experimental musician Parlay Droner and veteran surf rockers the Vulture, partake of Jam City Pizza’s Detroit-style pizza, check out the fantastical art of Thomas Drew, and sample the vinegar delights of Mo Piklz.
Continue reading ‘Cellar On Treadwell Mixes It Up On Monday’
by | Nov 22, 2024 7:40 am | Comments (0)
Illusion by Robert Jacoby
FREEWHEELING
City Gallery
New Haven
Nov. 20, 2024
FREEWHEELING is a solo exhibit at City Gallery featuring the artwork of new gallery member Robert Jacoby.
by | Nov 21, 2024 7:30 am | Comments (0)
A piece of pottery by Robin Simpson on display in the Etcetera exhibit
Etcetera Exhibit
Manchester Town Hall
Manchester
Nov. 18, 2024
Art is not just what we can see and hear. It’s also what we can feel.
I was reminded of that by the Etcetera Exhibit located at the Manchester Town Hall. The Manchester Art Association has an ongoing exhibit at the town hall, where for three months they feature a different single medium. This quarter’s medium is “Other,” which includes artwork that doesn’t fit into the other traditional categories of pastel, oil & acrylic, watercolor, and photography. As such, there was some fascinating art on display that catered to the sense of touch (not that I touched them; this is an art exhibit after all).
by | Nov 20, 2024 8:09 am | Comments (1)
Raheem Nelson
The Alchemy of Art.
The small portrait of New Haven arts maven Ann Lehman welding in her studio is instantly recognizable to anyone who visited “The Alchemy of Art,” the show devoted to her work last year at Creative Arts Workshop. But New Haven-based artist Raheem Nelson’s graphic surrounds that portrait with a constellation of ideas that distills much of that complex exhibition and the various reports of it. In less than 10 seconds, we get a snapshot of who Lehman was, what her contributions to Creative Arts Workshop and the city were, and why we continue to celebrate her legacy. And our curiosity, perhaps, is whetted for more.
by | Nov 19, 2024 2:55 pm | Comments (10)
Thomas Breen photo
Whoa!
Lisa Reisman photo
Payton, Ellis, and Anaya with muralists Jessie Unterhalter and Katey Truhn: “This is why we’re doing this.”
The challenge was steep. To scour the globe for a muralist to lend such pizzazz to a 240-foot blank warehouse wall that it would bring life to a faded stretch of town.
In the end, one factor sealed the deal: cartwheels.
by | Nov 19, 2024 8:17 am | Comments (1)
Bill Healy
Self Portrait, King Nothing, Princess Leia.
Bill Healy’s three collages cover three subjects, from the real to the imaginary, but are united by their distinctive personalities, half playful, half unsettling. In each face, there are a few delightfully recontextualized shapes. In Self-Portrait, the grimace is an Amazon smile turned upside down. One of King Nothing’s eyes is a bowl of soup. The middle of Princess Leia’s face is a tire. It’s the kind of lateral thinking that marks the most engaging collage art, and in another place, another space, the artist might be parlaying it into a social media following. But Healy — along with the rest of the artists in the show — isn’t on social media, and the work might not have made it to a gallery wall without a keen eye paying attention.
by | Nov 15, 2024 7:00 am | Comments (0)
An image of a father carrying his children at the Devotion exhibit at the Widener Gallery.
Devotion: Photographs from the Collection of the Watkinson Library at Trinity College
Widener Gallery
Austin Arts Center
Trinity College
Hartford
Nov. 11, 2024
Devotion is an exhibition of 25 images from the collection of the Watkinson Library, developed between 1925 and 1981 by 11 different photographers. The exhibition covers subjects from sexuality to children playing; the images of family caught my attention most.
by | Nov 14, 2024 9:33 am | Comments (0)
Robert Jacoby
Essence 13, Essence 15, Essence 9.
The three paintings are a celebration of abstraction, and abstraction of a particularly kinetic variety. The canvases convey the energy of a brush moving fast, decisions made at speed, less like deliberation and more like reaction, like a skier weaving through the woods. But the painter’s experience shows in the overall decisions made about the painting. The color choices set them off from one another, making each hue vibrate just a little more intensely. Most important is the decision of when to stop; even moving fast, the artist kept an eye on the whole, and in this case, let all that white space speak for itself.
by | Nov 13, 2024 8:33 am | Comments (0)
Red Deb by Deborah Kass
A Jewish Perspective on Deborah Kass’s Single Red Yentl with Rachel Spiegel Gerstein
Wadsworth Atheneum
Hartford
Dec. 12, 2024
How much does identity matter when it comes to art?
Continue reading ‘How "Triple Elvis" Spawned Quadruple Barbra’
by | Nov 12, 2024 8:15 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery photo
The first floor of the Ely Center of Contemporary Art was full of bright colors and bold shapes, the sounds of insects and cartoons, even a few smells. Melanie Carr’s installation exemplified the first category, with its simple geometry, friendly colors, and a shape that conveyed its pillowy texture. Touch this, the piece all but screamed — a message spelled out with notes on the wall, inviting visitors to use their hands.
But this was an art exhibition at a gallery space, a place where, as children, we learn not to touch anything, ever. That’s why I hesitated for a comically long time, pushing against decades of learned behavior to navigate museums without bumping into anything, let alone reaching out to make contact with something. Finally, feeling a little like I did when I first jumped off a diving board as a kid, I put out my hand and touched the art. The material itself felt like I expected. The act of touching the art felt like hitting cool water on a hot day.
by | Nov 7, 2024 3:36 pm | Comments (0)
In My Cell by Elmer Saenz
Prison Arts Annual Show 2024
CT State Community College
Manchester
Nov. 6, 2024
When I was 8 years old, my father went to prison. I remember going to see him during the nearly two years he spent incarcerated. The cold gray walls were contrasted against different activities that the guards allowed my brothers and me to take part in with our father. And at the end of the day, regardless of how normal everyone tried to make it seem, we were still all in prison for a few hours.
by | Nov 7, 2024 7:45 am | Comments (0)
One of the pieces on exhibit in Past Curfew by John Guzman.
Past Curfew
Real Art Ways
Hartford
Nov. 4, 2024
When I took a look at the artwork in John Guzman’s Past Curfew, my first thought was: This is the world that existed once human beings retreated to the dream world.
by | Nov 1, 2024 8:49 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery photo
It’s two photos of people engaged in the same act — one a child and one an adult — practicing a custom centuries old. For the viewer, it’s a glimpse into a space usually not seen outside the community.
The label below the photo on the left quotes an Afghan woman named Seema: “Prayer is very important for us and our children. We start teaching our children to pray when they are about 5 years old; mainly mothers are the ones who teach them at home. When bad things happen, Afghan women go to Allah and ask for help. My husband had an accident, and this is my 5‑year-old daughter; after prayer, she is saying her du’as and asking for help for her dad. Here she is holding a tasbih and wearing the hijab, at this age they only wear the hijab for prayers. I’m so happy when I see them praying to God — to Allah.” As Aryana, quoted at the bottom of the photo to the right, says, “Afghan women love their religion and trust God.”
Continue reading ‘The Lives Of Afghan Women, Through Their Own Lens’
by | Oct 31, 2024 10:09 am | Comments (0)
Without knowing anything about them, on viewing Windy Day, Summer by Vivaldi, and the series of paintings that surround them, it’s possible to imagine that they’re all the work of a singular, bold hand, unafraid of the canvas, expressing a singular vision. In fact, those paintings are the result of a group effort.
by | Oct 29, 2024 2:21 pm | Comments (10)
Lisa Reisman photos
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy and Honda Smith with firefighters from Engine 15 who work with kids at The Shack ...
... as artist David Coardes stands before mural of Alder Smith painted by Imani Roberts.
In the midst of a spirited game of Bingo among a group of senior citizens at The Shack, there was an interruption. It was U.S. Senator Chris Murphy stopping by — to get an up-close look at what makes the West Hills community center work so well.
Continue reading ‘Shack Teaches Senator Community "Formula"’
by | Oct 28, 2024 8:57 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery photos
Awilda Sterling-Duprey in "...blindfolded" ...
... soundtracked live by Jesse Hameen II, Morris Trent, and Johnathan Moore, at NXTHVN.
In the large common area at NXTHVN on Henry Street, a temporary, two-segment wall was erected, mounted with black paper. Artist Awilda Sterling-Duprey moved in that small space, a blindfold over her eyes, large pastels in her hands — improvisational jazz helping guide her way, during the last weekend of New Haven Open Studios.
Continue reading ‘A Month Of Art Ends "Blindfolded," Sublime’