Art At Fussy Gets Messy

Above tables where people sip lattes, eat lunch, do work, and chat with friends, there’s a person with a large head whose body is made entirely of other heads. Next to that person is another person who has just one head for a body; that person’s legs emerge from the smiling mouth of the body-head. Unsettling? Maybe. But in the context of Marcella Kurowski-Cavaliere​‘s artwork, it’s also a lot of fun.

Kurowski-Cavaliere is the latest artist to be featured on the walls of Fussy Coffee on Winchester Avenue, which has been featuring an artist each month for several months now and is currently booked through October. Kurowski-Cavaliere’s show runs through Aug. 3.

“’Fun’ is a good word to describe it, because I have the most fun painting out of anything I do in life, and I feel like that shows through. I just let myself do whatever I want, and whatever happens, happens,” the Bridgeport-based artist said.

Kurowski-Cavaliere meant that in a more precise way that it might initially appear. ​“It’s all imagination and it all starts improvisationally,” she said. ​“It starts a mess, and then I start to see forms and I bring it out. I often build it up and then break it down again.”

Kurowski-Cavaliere started painting as a kid; unlike most kids, she just kept doing it, with greater and greater seriousness. Upon graduating high school, she enrolled in the art program at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport and continued her education later at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. ​“I’ve been painting to show my work since I was 21,” she said (she’s now 39).

She arrived at her way of making paintings when she was about 19. She had initially been taught to paint on tightly stretched canvases. Then she tried something else. ​“I had started to paint a lot on loose canvases, so I was able to put a lot of wet paint on them.” While the paint was still wet, she could fold the canvas and peel it apart again, create a lot of randomness. She was ​“able to mess with it so much more,” she said.

But out of these abstractions, she saw forms — often faces. ​“I think that part of the fun for me is just staring at an abstract piece that I’ve created and then finding things in it. It’s like staring at a cloud and seeing things in it. It’s entertainment for myself — whatever happens to pop out of the abstract form, it amazes me. It’s there already — it’s just there for me to find.”

Sometimes, she said, that would start with an eye, maybe large and bulbous, in one part of the canvas. Then she might see another eye, but out of proportion with the first eye — a lot smaller, not quite in the right spot. That didn’t matter. She would construct the face anyway from what the abstractions already on the canvas suggested to her.

She learned to move her brush quickly when she was in front of the canvas. ​“I’m always painting fast, even when it comes down to the details — I don’t want it to be self-conscious, or too thought out. It’s got to be fast,” she said.

But in other ways, she learned to take her time. ​“If I don’t see anything, I’ll keep going or put it aside, and come back to it a couple days later, or even a week later, and then see what it is,” she said. ​“I never work on one painting at a time — I’m working on two, or three, or four. It’s easier to make a mess and let it dry when I can go on to the next one.”

Why do so many of the canvases become faces? ​“It’s all characters because maybe that’s what I relate to the best,” Kurowski-Cavaliere said. ​“You find people, human beings — they’re really fun and entertaining, but they’re also terrifying. The face is what we can most relate to as a form of consciousness. A person with a face — you see them as alive, you can relate to them. Even when I view other people’s art, I can look at an abstract, abstract, abstract … it doesn’t really entertain me until I see one with the slightest face in there, a form, and I think, ​‘I get it.’”

She thought of herself sometimes as ​“illustrating someone’s personality or emotional quirk,” she said, though was also quick to add that the whole idea was to be not too self-conscious about it. ​“I don’t do it purposefully, though I’m sure it’s just reflecting whatever thoughts or feelings are going on in my own head.”

She connected with David Negreiro, who runs Fussy Coffee with his brother-in-law and business partner Joe Ballaro, through tattoo artist George Perham, who runs FTS Gallery in Stratford. FTS Gallery showcases the (non-tattoo) artwork of Perham and other tattoo artists, and had an earlier show at Fussy Coffee. Perham mentioned Kurowski-Cavaliere’s work to Negreiro, who was enthusiastic about bringing her to New Haven.

“When George first introduced me, David said ​‘let’s do it!,’” Kurowski-Cavaliere said. ​“When I finally started emailing, he was still into it.”

So for another week, patrons of Fussy Coffee can get to know the denizens of Kurowski-Cavaliere’s artwork, one character at a time.

“I’ve tried other things, like a photorealistic portrait,” Kurowski-Cavaliere said. ​“I’ve dabbled in it, but it’s not what I enjoy doing the most. So I spoil myself, and stick to what I enjoy.”

Kurowski-Cavaliere’s work is on display at Fussy Coffee, 290 Winchester Ave., through Aug. 3. Visit the coffee shop’s website for hours and more information about this and other upcoming exhibits. Visit the artist’s website here.