KLG Exhibit Lets Artists Make Themselves

A cluster of heads floating like balloons on stalks. An oil painting of a woman eating a hoagie. A connection with a goddess. All these and more are part of ​“I Am…,” the latest riotous exhibition at Kehler Liddell Gallery, which is now open by appointment and for limited weekend hours.

The exhibition runs through Aug. 31.

The 71 artists in the juried exhibition, hailing from New Haven and across the region, were asked to respond to a series of prompts based on the title of the show’s title: ​“How do you see yourself? How do others see you? What makes you, you? From selfies to personal branding to the complexities of identity politics, our carefully crafted personas are routinely broadcast to the world via the internet. The modern world revels in the revelation of a semblance of self, allowing us to conceal as much as we reveal. In this age of unprecedented exposure, how can an artist offer some fresh statement of self?”

The artists’ answers to these questions ranged wildly, from the humorous to the sublime to the strange and surreal, all to great effect. That so many of the works appear to have been made recently also speaks to the fact that many artists’ practices are still going strong, even during the pandemic. ​“I Am…” is thus not simply a statement of identity, but of hope and resilience.

A few of the artists make self-portraits using time-honored techniques, with results that elicit a smile along with admiration for the artists’ technique. By making a selfie into an oil painting, artist Dina Belyayeva also reminds us of the way portraits have grown increasingly commonplace and to some extent disposable over the centuries, from paint to photographs to pixels. Should we be so careless with our images? Isn’t there a case for preserving them, and for lavishing the same attention on them that humans did before photography was invented?

Courtney Silivia’s portrait, meanwhile, brings out its life-affirming humor through its combination of irreverence and expert skill. The artist’s smirk in the picture would tell us everything we need to know about how seriously she takes herself, even if she weren’t holding an enormous sandwich as well. At the same time, there’s no denying the serious craft deployed in the service of that irreverence. She has the old-school painting skills necessary to make a thoroughly modern painting, one that suggests that perhaps lightheartedness should be exalted just as much as the gravity inherent in so many older portraits.

Shamain A. Hardy takes Silvia’s idea a step further, incorporating even the choice of frame into her playful and elegantly rendered piece.

Ezra Gott then uses collage to let his portrait take a turn toward the invitingly surreal.

And Christina Jones uses her portrait to connect, in an elemental way, to the power of ancestry.

For every artist who seeks to capture the self in full, there are others who deliver only piece. Jackie Haitchue’s photograph is literally self-effacing, the title suggesting a certain fragile certainty borne out in the image. Are the hands strong, embracing the tree’s trunk, or are they hanging on for dear life? Or somehow a bit of both?

Mark Grindell, meanwhile, plays with the idea that the art is perhaps the fullest expression of the artist — that for him, the products of his hands and his tools are the best way express self-identity.

Marsha Borden, meanwhile, lets her art playfully express the anxieties so many artists feel. Written on the fabric of her piece are a series of questions many artists can surely relate to: ​“Is it really art? I am faking it,” one sleeve reads. Down the chest are three increasingly uncomfortable questions: ​“What if they laugh at my work? If they think I don’t know what I’m doing? What if I don’t know what I’m doing?” Borden ponders these thoughts and still produces art; after all her queries, the existence of the piece is perhaps the answer.

Kelley Griffin’s piece, meanwhile, eschews addressing a broader sense of self to focus instead on what appears to have been a drawn-out and taxing experience of in vitro fertilization, which — as the title suggests — the artist is already able to regard with a certain wry wit.

Jeffrey Gangwisch, meanwhile, makes an engrossing technical marvel out of an overhead projector and a couple of phones. Using the project, one can impose a series of blurry black and white images on the nearby wall. Haunting in themselves, the real heart of the piece lies in one of the phones one can pick up near the projector.

Pointing the phone at the image on the wall produces a 3D moving image on the phone’s screen, usually involving a tank and either a person or a person’s disembodied legs. The tank appears on the phone as if it were jutting from the wall. Moving closer reveals more details. Moving away lets the viewer take in the entire animation, some of which involve fish that appear to swim outside the tank and through the air of the gallery.

How is this ingenious piece a self-portrait? Who’s to say? But included among all the other pieces, it suggests (as do a few others) that a self-portrait need not be definitive or even affirmative. It can be slippery and elusive — and no less true for it.

Participating artists in ​“I Am” are Ioana Barac, Dee Rose Barba, Andrew Baris, Mark Battista, Dina Belyayeva, Megan Bent, Robert Bienstock, Marsha Borden, Trae Brooks, Amira Brown, Frank Bruckmann, Christine Chiocchio, Alexander Churchill, Jeanette Compton, Rod Cook, Lisa Davis Rucinski, Bobby Dileo, Anne Doris-Eisner, Rodd Dryfoos, Amanda Duchen, Beth Edwards, Joe Fekieta, Barbara Fenton, Brian Flinn, Julie Fraenkel, Jeffrey Gangwisch, Warda Geismar, Ellen Gordon, Ezra Gott, Karl Goulet, Allan Greenier, Kelley Griffin, Mark F. Grindell, Keri Halloran, Shamain A Hardy, Jackie Heitchue, Kate Henderson, Aude Jomini, Christina Jones, James Kaiser, Eben Kling, Lucas Lazarre, Whitney Lorenze, Marta Machabeli, Andrea Lawl Manning, Eric March, Mark St. Mary, Brian McClear, Fethi Meghelli, Christian Miller, Roy Money, Michael Moore, Hank Paper, Jennifer Rae, Taylor Nicole Richards, Jill Sarver, Victoria Selbach, Bob Silverstein, Courtney Silvia, Geoffrey Stein, Lisa Toto, Lisa Trotta, Anthony Videira, Maya Vulinovic, Kim Weston, Holly Whiting, Brian Williams, R.F. Wilton, Marjorie Gillette Wolfe, Amanda Walker, and Gar Waterman.

The gallery at 873 Whalley Ave. will be open by appointment and is also holding open hours on Aug. 7 and 8 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Visit Kehler Liddell’s website for more information.