Kehler Liddell Show Celebrates 20 Years

Frank Bruckman’s paintings of the highways around the state have been a thread running through Kehler Liddell Gallery’s programming for years. The technical ability and attention to detail brought to such a mundane subject has layers of meaning attached to it. On one level, no one said that paintings can’t be funny, and there’s humor in every brushstroke. But there’s also the message built into the skill and hours brought to the canvas: driving in traffic on the interstate may seem like something to get through, something to forget. But we all spend hours of our lives doing it. Maybe it’s important for that reason alone — as important, in its own way, as a naval battle, or a visitation from a saint.

Bruckmann’s painting is part of ​“KLG@20,” running now through July 30 at Kehler Liddell Gallery at 873 Whalley Ave. As the title suggests, the group show, which features the work of 44 artists, commemorates the 20th anniversary of the gallery’s opening and the way it has become one of the anchors of the Westville arts community and a mainstay for New Haven arts. ​“Founded by eight artists in 2003, as the Westville-based arts renaissance was just forming, KLG is one of New Haven’s longest running retail galleries to date,” an accompanying note from KLG director Kate Henderson reads. ​“As initially proposed, exhibitions of members’ work, as well as invited artists, are presented throughout the year offering monthly openings — free and open to all.” The note also relates that ​“over the decades, KLG has expanded beyond being the gallery space,” partnering with ​“local nonprofit organizations, such as WVRA and ArtEcon Initiative, to provide creative programming for adults and families, which serves not only to broaden KLG’s mission but to provide unique artist-led enrichment for the Westville-New Haven community.” Assistant Director Muffy Pendergast describes the gallery’s online programming during the COVID pandemic and its starting of Date Night, which allowed people to visit the gallery in small groups. ​“Additionally, KLG became available as a rental space,” she adds. ​“Many have chosen our venue for creative endeavors such as fashion shows and personal celebrations, book readings, baby showers.”

The show isn’t a retrospective, but in a sense it might as well be, as it serves as a reminder of the diversity of artistic perspectives the gallery has housed in the past two decades. Bruckmann’s painting isn’t alone in the representational painting category. Josephine S. Robinson’s painting of a New York City buildingscape, and Chris Ferguson’s depiction of Wooster Square during cherry blossom season, are among those that join him. But KLG has also made plenty of room for abstract painters, whether it’s Blinn Jacobs’s color-blocked geometric pieces or Corina S. Alvarezdelugo’s half-abstract, half-concrete piece, Path to Freedom. Alvarezdelugo’s use of abstraction gets heavy fast; the image shows how the freedom in question remains formless, inchoate, while the sharp barriers to attaining it are all too clearly defined — and that’s part of the difficulty of the struggle.

The show contains several works of sculpture, from a moving piece by Susan Clinard, to the animated creatures of Amanda Duchen, to the nature-inspired forms of Gar Waterman. Terrence Lavin’s ​“prototype” fires the imagination of anyone futuristically inclined. Is it a weapon? A spacecraft? A medical instrument? The form of the piece is enough to make a viewer imagine new functions.

The plethora of photographs in the show amply reminds the viewer of KLG’s deep bench of camera people. Rod Cook’s half-nude model is shown in a way that gives the model much of the power. Penrhyn Cook’s First Dance is a caring, engrossing, yet unsentimental look at a couple’s rite of passage into marriage. In show after show at KLG, Sven Martson has demonstrated his commitment to documentary-style realism, yet with an eye for a striking image. His photographs have the sense of being almost accidental, of capturing a moment of composed art that nonetheless came together by chance. His Blind Man, Herald Square, NYC is no exception. Its many details, from its coloration to the style of the street signs behind the man, pinpoint its place in time and space: it’s New York City, but the city of decades ago, before Herald Square was cleaned up and redesigned, making it perhaps more pedestrian-friendly but also unwelcome to people like the subject of the photo. But as in all of his photos, Martson gives his subject his dignity. He’s a man on the street not to be pitied, but to be helped. 

The wide variety of work on display makes the show, above all, fun, as the artists’ lively voices are placed in close proximity to one another, almost as if they’re conversing. (This kind of conversation will likely happen among the artists themselves at a closing reception, open to the public, on July 30, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.) Julie Fraenkel’s piece embodies that liveliness in a few different ways, from the vivid colors to the playfulness with which she renders the subject. It’s playfulness with an edge, and with depth. It’s inviting, and also has much to say.

“KLG@20” runs at Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Ave., through July 30. The artists participating are Joseph Adolphe, Corina Alvarezdelugo, Liz Antle O’Donnell, Laura Barr, Robert Bienstock, Amy Browning, Frank Bruckmann, William C.Butcher, Susan Clinard, Penrhyn Cook, Rod Cook, Amanda Duchen, Tom Edwards, Chris Ferguson, Dean Fisher, Brian Flinn, Julie Fraenkel, Sean Gallagher, Matthew Garrett, Eddie Hall, John Harris, Kate Henderson, Ana Henriques, Lisa Hess Hesselgrave, Blinn Jacobs, Sheldon Krevit, Terry Lavin, Gigi Liverant, Sven Martson, William McCarthy, Fethi Meghelli, Roy Money, Hank Paper, Michael Pressman, Josephine Robinson, Gerry Saladgya, Mark St. Mary, Amanda Walker, Gar Waterman, Kim Weston, R. F. Wilton, Marjorie Wolfe, Joan Jacobson-Zamore, Kathleen Zimmerman. Visit the gallery’s website for more information.