Artists Portray The People In Full

The pieces, by Carol Boynton, Frank Bruckmann, Todd Lyon, and Diane Chandler, are hung side by side by side by side in the gallery. Even though the subjects are looking in the same general direction, in their animation and expression, they could be talking with one another. Each subject — women, men, Black, Brown, White — has been filtered through the eye and mind of the artist. Each artist has rendered the subject with the same care and attention, the same eye toward humanity, toward capturing something like the truth.

The portraits are four among many in ​“Figures and Faces: Recent Works by the Brush & Palette Club,” running now at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art through Feb. 19 and featuring work by painters Carol Boynton, Frank Bruckmann, Eoin Burke, Diane Chandler, Elena Gerard, Heidi Harrington, Ruth Johnson, Candace Klein, and Todd Lyon. 

Taken as individual pieces, the paintings throughout the show are evidence of the artists’ dedication to the venerable craft of rendering a subject’s likeness on canvas, while also infusing the work with something of the artists’ worldview. Taken as a collection of pieces, the show makes a quietly powerful statement about how we might see the world and each other.

Part of the fun of the show is to see instances in which the artists use the same model, possibly during the same painting session. Seth, the leftmost subject in the painting, by Carol Boynton, in the first photo above, is also the subject of a painting by Heidi Harrington, in which he’s wearing the same clothes. Putting them side by side, it’s possible to appreciate how the artist’s eye changes the tone, as Boynton’s smoother lines contrast with Harrington’s more textured brushwork. In Boynton’s piece, he appears maybe more contemplative, while in Harrington’s he’s more animated. Is it a function of what the subject was doing, or the way the artists saw him? Likewise, a model called ​“the designer” in one painting, by Diane Chandler, and ​“The Magnificent Mr. Carter” in another, by Todd Lyon, comes to vivid life in both cases. But Chandler sets him in a harder, more stoic atmosphere, while Lyon’s is more festive. The juxtaposition brings out more of the subject; with both pictures, we have a fuller picture of the man.

But the show, spanning a couple dozen pieces, also manages to capture a wide diversity of subjects, creating in its entirely what looks like a snapshot of the Elm City, the panoply of faces one might see over five minutes on a busy downtown street corner, or sitting on a bench at noon on the New Haven Green while pedestrians stroll by on their lunch break. 

This quiet celebration of ordinary diversity matters. Contemporary art often has an overtly political edge; two of the concurrent shows running at ECOCA directly take on issues of queer acceptance and ecological disaster, in one case almost more like a documentary or news report. This tilt toward pointed social commentary isn’t new to art, but it has intensified somewhat in the past several years, concurrently with the more fraught political climate we find ourselves in. While not overtly political, the Brush & Palette Club can be seen in this light. While some art shows point out the ways inequality is still all too much with us, this portrait show offers a glimpse of how the world might be if the challenge of equality is met. Because, though the artists’ styles differ, they are united in the way they all treat their subjects with attention and care. They try to represent those faces accurately, try to let the viewer see something of their subjects’ lives and personalities. Everyone gets their humanity; everyone gets their dignity. Everyone is treated equally. Imagine if the world outside the frames of the portraits looked a little more like that?

“Figures and Faces: Recent Works by the Brush & Palette Club” runs at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art, 51 Trumbull St., through Feb. 19. Visit the gallery’s website for hours and more information.