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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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Brian Slattery Photos
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?
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 20, 2023 12:07 pm
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One wall of the gallery is a long stack of lively faces, the energetic style matching the animation in the faces. They match their subject, a clown in the old-school sense, more Charlie Chaplin than Ronald McDonald. The artist, Brian Flinn, has numbered the series under the title Auditions. It’s an entertainer looking for a gig. But for Flinn, it’s a sly double meaning, because it’s also a test run for new way for making art. Does it pass?
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Karen Ponzio |
Sep 20, 2023 9:05 am
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Karen Ponzio Photos
MINIPNG.
Audubon Street is a promenade of institutions that ignite creativity and keep it alight. For the past year that street has also housed the storefront of artist/designer MINIPNG (a.k.a. Eiress Hammond), who has made a home away from home for fans of her original handmade clothing as well as lovers of vintage pieces and accessories from the late ’90s and early ’00s. This Saturday, Sept. 23, she is co-presenting an event that will be bringing an even larger creative crew to the street from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 19, 2023 9:08 am
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Roberta Friedman
Aglow.
Aglow has been given the right name. It’s an abstract of shapes and colors, but the vibrant yellow in the background suffuses it with sun, with life, as if the viewer is looking upward through something — the slide of a single cell, or a lattice of bridges — into a summer sky. The way the colors keep separate, yet flow together, makes the effect possible, and that is the result of the technique the artist uses. That technique, it turns out, is the focus of the show.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 7, 2023 8:30 am
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Brian Slattery photo
Artists at work on City-Wide's return.
In artist Oi Fortin’s studio in Erector Square, seven artists were taking old signs for City-Wide Open Studios, salvaged from Artspace’s basement before it closed, and rearranging and redecorating them for a new purpose: the return of City-Wide Open Studios to the Fair Haven arts complex on the weekend of Oct. 21 and 22.
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 30, 2023 9:10 am
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Brian Slattery photo
Tea Montgomery’s installation greets the visitor who enters the art show at the Lab at ConnCORP for 6th Dimension, an Afrofuturist festival running in New Haven and Hamden now through Oct. 21.
Its choice of materials, its structure, and its placement in the space create a combination of moods that clash against one another, whether it’s the soft drapery versus the raw pipes in the ceiling, the gauzy light from the windows versus the ripped fabric crawling across the floor, or the rattan chair, redolent of the famous photograph of Huey Newton, but empty now. Is it waiting for the next Huey? Who might that be? What future might they lead us into?
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Eleanor Polak |
Aug 25, 2023 9:08 am
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Yale University Art Gallery
In a New Light: Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art.
While the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) undergoes renovations, the Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) has volunteered to host a selection of their paintings in an exhibition entitled “In a New Light: Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art.” The show — running now through Dec. 3 — houses over 50 paintings, mainly from the 18th and 19th centuries, that attempt to capture the scope and breadth of British life at the time through a series of intimate glances into another country’s art and culture. “In a New Light” offers a glimpse into British painting with little explanation and few qualifiers, allowing viewers to simply view the artwork and draw their own conclusions.
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Eleanor Polak |
Aug 23, 2023 8:24 am
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Eleanor Polak photo
Christina Duan, Jess X. Snow, Sheri, Sonja John, Aaron Jafferis, Sarah "TW" Tracy-Wanck, and Rheo June painting Possible Futures.
The outside wall of Possible Futures, the bookstore located at 318 Edgewood Ave., stood blank and dull against the street, devoid of inspiration and creativity. That was about to change.
Tuesday marked the beginning of a 10-day-long painting project to design a mural, a tribute to New Haven local and celebrated prison abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore. The blank wall became a canvas, as muralists and community volunteers worked together to explore all the possible futures the space could hold.
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Eleanor Polak |
Aug 17, 2023 8:35 am
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Rushnyky.
Stepping into the “Rushnyky: Sacred Ukrainian Textiles” exhibit at the Blessed Michael McGivney Pilgrimage Center feels like stepping into a particularly cozy little house. Faux-stone columns and archways line the walls, framing display cases made to look like wooden cabinets. Lying within the cases and draped over the walls, the rushnyky — long, decorative or ritual clothes — draw the eye with their bright patterns and delicate lacework, transforming a sterile, unlived-in museum space into a warm and welcoming abode. In the words of the Ukrainian proverb printed on the wall, “a house without a rushnyk is not a home.”
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 15, 2023 8:36 am
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Linda Mickens
Unclaimed.
Linda Mickens’s sculpture Unclaimed stands at the back of City Gallery like an altar, a centerpiece. “This piece gives voice to the countless victims who died, isolated and alone, to a disease that devastated the world,” Mickens’s accompanying statement reads. “Their angels claim them, forever ensuring that their souls do not languish, nameless and faceless in mass graves for eternity.” The note clarifies what Unclaimed is about. But it’s not necessary to bring home the work’s emotional message. The pile of shoes, the tattered wings, the angel’s sad, caring expression are more than enough to bring out the artist’s concern for suffering, and her call for compassion and understanding.
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Eleanor Polak |
Aug 11, 2023 8:58 am
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Shelley Stoehr-McCarthy and son Luca McCarthy make collages.
Inside the upstairs gallery at The Institute Library at 847 Chapel St. sat a table littered with paper, magazines, paintbrushes, glitter, scissors, stickers, and a giant jug of glue. Outside it was rainy and humid, but the room — set aside for a collage workshop entitled “A Time To Breathe: an Oasis Workshop” — formed a little oasis itself. Not just a refuge from the weather, but a safe space for creativity to roam free.
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Eleanor Polak |
Jul 31, 2023 9:07 am
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Eleanor Polak Photos
Zines, zines, and more zines, at Bike Co-Op-hosted fair.
The Bradley Street Bike Co-Op overflowed with glossy prints, eye-catching artwork, and colorful personalities for a Zine Fair that offered an opportunity for connection and collaboration, as well as a meeting ground for artists of all different mediums.
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Karen Ponzio |
Jul 28, 2023 8:46 am
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Zoe Jensen Photo
Issue 11 cover featuring coeditor Mar Pelaez.
Connectic*nt, a bimonthly zine that has created a space for artists and writers from across the state to experiment with words and visuals — as well as an ever-growing community that thrives on sharing with and uplifting each other — turns two years old this month. The anniversary issue, the zine’s 11th, will be released this Saturday, July 29, complete with celebratory events including a DJ-centric dance party (now famously known as Club C*nt) at Diesel Lounge on Friday night and a zine fair at Bradley Street Bike Co-op on Sunday.
Under the helm of current coeditors Zoe Jensen and Mar Pelaez, the publication has come a long way from Jensen’s original plan of publishing a single zine that included the art and writing of friends who had been distanced from each other during Covid shutdowns. The public demand for more, and the fun being had by everyone involved, was too much to not let it become a regular and permanent part of the new normal.
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Brian Slattery |
Jul 27, 2023 8:54 am
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Autumn Nelson
Self-Indulgence.
Autumn Nelson’s canvas is the first piece in “The Past Pushes Forward” — an art show installed in the top floor of the Blake Hotel at 9 High St., now until August 31 — to greet viewers as they exit the elevator. It’s hung in just the right spot so that the canvas functions as a double of the subject matter. The mirror that reflects the painter is held up to the viewer as well. Do we love ourselves as much as Nelson loves herself? How much are we allowed to love ourselves? Why is it fraught to even ask that question?
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Eleanor Polak |
Jul 21, 2023 9:51 am
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Eleanor Polak Photos
Ruth McInton Cogswell's silhouettes of New Haven characters.
“Profiles: Ruth McInton Cogswell and Dorothy Cogswell” — the latest exhibition at the New Haven Museum at 144 Whitney Ave. — highlights the lives and work of two women who played an important role in the Elm City’s early 20th-century local art scene. The mother-daughter duo of artists used watercolors, pencil drawings, and silhouettes to pay tribute to the people of New Haven and commemorate their history. Through the Cogswells’ work, the show provides a tour of the city’s past, where viewers can recognize familiar figures and learn new aspects of their history.
