Kehler Liddell Takes A Trip

The figures in Kim Weston’s four grouped photographs are in frenzied motion, dancing, traveling. The red prayer bundles laid at their feet — a pinch of cherry tobacco wrapped in red fabric, each one signifying one of the 15,000 murdered and missing indigenous women in Canada and the U.S. — feel both like a border marking a sacred space and a road leading from here to someplace far away. Weston’s photographs have been paired with Frank Bruckmann’s paintings for Kehler Liddell Gallery’s first show since its reopening, ​“Journeying,” which runs until July 12 — and thus will be around for an event KLG is billing as date night.

“Journeying” was supposed to open March 23. The show was mounted in the gallery’s Whalley Avenue space in Westville, but the shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic meant that a traditional art opening wasn’t possible. So KLG kept the show up until the gallery could reopen — which it did as of last week. It is currently open by appointment any time, which has brought in ​“mostly artists and a couple clients,” said Muffy Pendergast, KLG’s assistant director.

Another way to see the exhibit is to participate in the gallery’s Double Date Night, an event that pairs KLG with Manjares, the Westville eatery just down the block on West Rock Avenue. On Friday, July 10 and Saturday, July 11, between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., couples can sign up for slots to first visit the gallery for a half an hour (Pendergast said there will also be ​“a memento” of the gallery visit), then proceed to Manjares for a drink and tapas, where Alex Montes, Manjares’s mixologist, will be waiting with cocktails inspired by the KLG show’s title. The gallery can accommodate two couples at a time. Couples must bring their own masks. The seating at Manjares will observe all social distance protocols. The cost is $30 per couple.

Pendergast said that the idea is about ​“giving permission” to ​“find joy” during the pandemic. The numbers of new cases are rising again in the United States overall and remain stubbornly persistent in the Northeast, where social distancing and wearing masks have become a way of life. We may ​“think it’s trivial” to enjoy a night out, Pendergast said, but ​“we can do both — pursue pleasure and be serious.”

Part of that pleasure lies in Frank Bruckmann​‘s paintings — exquisitely rendered paintings of traffic. At first glance one might ask why a painter would devote so much time and talent to such a subject. For those who have a fair amount of time on the highways around New Haven, the back ends of cars are a sight we might try to avoid when we’re not stuck in traffic.

At the same time, there is humor in treating the scenes on the highway so seriously. And in a deeper sense, Bruckmann is following in the tradition of great realistic landscape painters of the past. He is painting what he sees, and what so many others see, on a regular basis. He’s showing us our world again.

By stopping time, Bruckmann also lets us appreciate the details we might miss when we’re flying by at 65 (or more) m.p.h. There’s the way the trees break the light when it falls onto the road. The glow of headlights. The cool shade under an overpass.

And while the paintings of the highways could be taken just about anywhere in the state, Bruckmann is also skilled at rendering a view New Haven drivers will recognize immediately. It’s meaningful that Bruckmann didn’t pick a part of town that, even from the road, is more conventionally picturesque — say, Temple Street across the Green, or Chapel Street downtown. For Bruckmann, the everyday is worth noticing and preserving. And the view from the car seems a little more poignant now that many of us aren’t driving nearly as much as we used to, and have fewer places we can go.

Kim Weston​‘s photographs, meanwhile, take us on a journey of a different kind. In an artistic statement, she describes herself as ​“a fine art photographer whose diverse background has influenced her definition of art and its connectedness between people, objects, and ceremony. She questions how we perceive the world when illusions surround us. Art promotes presence and an opportunity to observe what’s true in our lives and the discrepancy in our everyday. These layered photographic ideas are not always clear or grounded in reality. But some images leave traces and are seen as abstractions of time and space.”

In particular, she mentions that some of her images are from time spent ​“photographing Native American dancers from various tribes at pow wows on the East Coast.” The images ​“focus on capturing the essence of spirit in movement, while the large scale photographs allow you to become one with the image. My process of taking these photographs stems from my direct connection to my Native heritage. When I shoot, I place myself on the ground near the drum. I shoot in rhythm with the drum, the singers and the dancers. This takes me on a meditation journey and as a result I get to share my experience with the Native American community and you, the viewer with a photograph.”

That sense of rhythm is palpable in Weston’s images, which ably convey the energy pouring from the dancers. Weston’s photographs come from a generosity of spirit, toward both her subjects, the dancers, and the viewers, us. She takes us with her, not just to the pow wows where she takes the pictures, but on the internal journey she goes on when she takes them. For Weston, the internal journey lets her connect more strongly with who she is and where she’s from, which in turn guides her actions in the present. We can take a similar trip for ourselves, possibly without leaving the house.

For more information on Kehler Liddell Gallery’s Double Date night, visit the gallery’s website. To book your date, visit the gallery’s signup page.