Art New England: Focus On New Haven

FOCUS ON: New Haven, CT

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Work by Clint Jukkala at Giampietro Gallery.

eyond its role as a home for Yale University, enduring historical significance, and unrivaled cultural offerings, New Haven is an astonishingly beautiful and welcoming city. Whether it is the stunning gothic revival architecture

or its world-class galleries, New Haven is an ideal locale for any artistic sojourn with a surprising number of exhibitions and museums.

Concretizing New Haven’s role as a premier creative hub, the Arts Council of New Haven serves a region of fifteen towns through its well-regarded arts programs. Through the Greater New Haven Arts Stabilization Project, the Arts Council has directly served eight other member organizations and currently serves over 100 regional arts organizations and 500 individual artists. Each December, the Council hosts the Art Awards to honor the artistic excellence and outstanding achievements of visual, performing, and literary artists, as well as arts organizations, art educators, architects, advocates, and administrators whose contributions enable the

New Haven’s Community Art School

Through Dec 24: Shop for unique gifts at the Celebration of American Crafts 80 Audubon Street, New Haven, CT 203.562.4927 | creativeartsworkshop.org

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Seton Art Gallery Exhibiting contemporary art and diverse interdisciplinary projects

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300 Boston Post Road West Haven, CT 06516 www.newhaven.edu/setongallery

arts to thrive in the region.

Near the border between New Haven and Fairhaven sits an edgy, artist-run gallery known for its avant-garde pieces and vibrant atmosphere. Established in 2003, City Gallery serves as a showcase for seventeen artists and photographers, many of whom have won numerous awards and secured notable solo exhibitions. The frenetic wire sculptures of Shelby Head, the celebrated paper work of Jennifer Davies and Karen Wheeler, as well as the mixed media pieces of Jane Harris can all be perused here.

At the very center of Westville, a scenic township just north of the city, stands a small gallery that is very big on fine art. The DaSilva Gallery offers an array of cross-cultural works. The fun, surrealist works of Chris McLoughlan mix religion and current events with an eye to renaissance masterpieces of the late fourteenth century. This eclectic show will be followed in 2012 by a series of 12/12/12 exhibitions featuring twelve shows from twelve different Latin American artists hailing from twelve separate countries. All of the artists involved examine their shared cultural heritage through diverse media.

After perusing the calmer environs of Westville, take a short ride to the energetic New Haven green, an expansive park in the heart of the city, adjacent to the campus of Yale University. A short and scenic walk from the green’s towering Trinity Church is the Institute Library. This New Haven landmark

New Haven

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was founded in 1826 and is Connecticut’s oldest standing independent literary institution.

Make sure to see its Out of Nature exhibition, featuring work by Amy Jean Porter and Paul Daukas who record and revise the natural world through their entrancing prints and paintings. Elegant photographs of rural libraries, created by Meredith Mill and Rob Rocke, also adorn this calming space.

Just a short walk northeast of the New Haven green sits a spectacular Elizabethanstyle manner house and a favorite of New Haven’s famed Audubon Arts District. Built in 1905, the John Slade Ely House is the city’s very first dedicated arts center, and boasts an always engaging selection of rotating contemporary exhibitions. The Ely House is now cele-

brating its fiftieth anniversary with a special exhibition comprised of artists who have shown at the museum in the past. This anniversary exhibition includes James Montford, an African American artist widely known for his collage and performance art; Pawel Wojtasik, a celebrated photographer and videographer; and Colleen Coleman, noted installation and performance artist.

Also to be found amid New Haven’s Audubon Arts District is the Creative Arts Workshop, a nonprofit regional center operating since 1961 and also housing the lauded Hiles Gallery. Over the month of December, the Workshop will hold an exhibition and sale of pieces from more than 300 craftspeople, and on November 20, it will hold its Fifteenth

Annual Bowl-A-Thon in which attendees can choose a handmade bowl or mug and fill it with soup donated by local restaurants. All money raised will go to support the community soup kitchen.

Those overwhelmed by such a concentration of galleries might like to take a rest at Temple Plaza behind the Shubert Theatre.

Look up. The stabs of vibrant red paint above are part of a recent installation curated by Site Projects, a local nonprofit organization that commissions world renowned artists to create site-specific projects in public spaces. Nearby, also take in a new media installation by Amaranth Borsuk and Brad Bouse that actually travels on a portable platform. This exhibition, also organized by Site Projects, is titled

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bitions from the Seton Art Gallery.

Focusing on works with a social or multicultural bent, this gallery never fails to invigorate its visitors and spur them on to effect positive change. Both Marion Belanger and Anna Broell Bresnick will be on show. Belanger’s sensitive photographs document the ravages the earth is facing due to human development, while Bresnick, in a similar vein, produces evocative drawings and sculptures illustrating the depletion of the earth’s ecological health.

Just a few minutes’ drive west on Peck Street sits one of the finest galleries of American folk art and contemporary art, the Giampietro Gallery. For more than twenty-five years, Fred Giampietro has been honing his collection and craft by dealing in folk art greats and up-andcoming contemporaries. This winter is absolutely no exception, evidenced by a strong show of Keith Sklar’s celebrated maximalist paintings in oil, acrylic, and thread. Sklar refers to his art as "reverse trompe l'oeil," a feeling elicited in his Felice Varini, Three Black Circles in Air. At the New Haven Free Public Library, commissioned by Site Projects. transformation of everyday objects (such as a gurney, a sunset, and a fish) into active, abstract meditations.

Whispering Galleries, and uses interactive video And no matter where you find yourself in to dissolve the boundaries between artist and New Haven this season, you will likely come viewer. across one of the striking establishments by On the University of New Haven’s sprawlProject Storefronts, a program created by the ing, tranquil campus, Dodge Hall attracts art City of New Haven Department of Cultural aficionados to a shifting kaleidoscope of exhi-

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Affairs to populate formerly empty retail spaces with innovative arts-related businesses.

After negotiating with property owners for a ninety-day window of access, Project Storefronts provides a competitive application process for creative entrepreneurs to make their dreams a reality. With a worldwide response to the program’s successful revitalization of neglected urban spaces, Project Storefronts has inspired a number of sister programs and has recently entered its second phase, in which more successful storefronts will become fixtures of the city’s thriving arts scene.

At once elegant and charming, socially conscious and culturally elite, New Haven is a nexus of artistic activity.

—Paul Adler