The paper houses are perched on the ragged edges of foam cliffs. There are places in the world like it, where people have built actual houses in unlikely places, on rocks all too close to the water, on stilts over surging marshes, on the sides of mountains. But the houses in this art exhibition push it all just a little further. Upon closer examination, some of the structures are more improbable than real houses could be. Others are built high overhead; you’d have to have wings to live there. Finally, there are the houses built on a wall’s vertical face, oriented sideways. To live there, you’d have to defy gravity.
The engrossing, surreal landscape is the centerpiece of Small small world, running now at the Susan B. Hilles Gallery and the Tiny Gallery at Creative Arts Workshop through June 30, with a reception at the gallery on June 8 from 5 to 7 p.m. Small small world “explores the inventive possibilities of scale and context through abstract, narrative and representational artworks,” according to an accompanying statement. “3D analog and 4D digital media/fabricated work was created by ECA students as part of an interdisciplinary class taught by ECA artist faculty Willie Stewart and Johanna Bresnick. Digital photography work was produced by ECA students in a foundation/advanced photo course taught by ECA artist faculty Kevin Van Aelst. Small small world is a student-driven, collaborative curatorial show which will evolve over the duration of the exhibition.”
The show came about thanks to ECA students working in Creative Arts Workshop during their class time; at CAW’s invitation, ECA mounted a show there, with students creating the pieces in the gallery space over time. That process contributes to the quality of the artwork. The space has the feel of having been slowly populated. The homes that keep appearing there feel lived in.
The photographic part of the show, meanwhile, is a kaleidoscope of color that is overtly playful but also vivid with feeling, disarming in its directness. The subjects of the photos — snacks, toys, other knick knacks — only adds to the sense that each of the photographers is telling a story, something about themselves and the small things they hold dear.
The gallery on the first floor next to the main gallery has similarly miniature sculptures on display, and here the fun lies in the way they play with scale. Most of the pieces are small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, but up close they don’t seem that way. In some cases the level of detail makes them seem like they’re much larger objects. Other pieces give the sense of being monumental outdoor sculptures that have somehow been shrunk. Small pieces can contain a lot.
The second floor of the gallery is given over to ECA’s senior showcase, “a student-curated and installed exhibition of work featuring video, drawing, painting, 4D digital and experimental media, printmaking, collage, sculpture, darkroom and digital photography made by ECA’s high school seniors,” an accompanying note explains. “Seniors selected works created over the course of their four years of study at ECA that demonstrate their wide range of creative exploration and growth.” The first floor gave a sense of tightly coiled energy. The second floor sees that energy released.
The pieces are all unlabeled, giving the viewer more of sense of the way all the pieces by all the artists flow together rather than considering them as individual pieces. Many of them brim with keen feelings of celebration, strength, and weariness.
One piece even offers a recipe for a de-stressing tea alongside the actual ingredients needed to make it. In the lovingly handmade texture around the notes and capsules of ingredents, it’s easy to imagine the artist finding their own solace and relaxation in the making of the piece itself.
Several of the pieces burst from their conventional frames, seeking new rules, new guidelines for making pieces that speak to viewers.
A handmade book gives voice to the feelings coursing through each of the artworks. “I’m 17 again,” one piece reads. “I am not scared of death.” Especially as accompanied by illustrations, that’s a statement of hope, bravado, and knowing contradiction. Through the show, the visual artists at ECA show themselves as young creative minds with a lot to work with already, and they’re just getting started.
ECA students are incredibly talented and having their art on display for the public to see is a wonderful thing, I hope that ECA can once again be open to all New Haven students and to the suburbs as well, and expand their mission of educating students in the arts so more students can participate.