Kehler Liddell Gallery

Sunday

Nov302008

InsideOutside

INSIDE / OUTSIDE

Lisa Hess Hesselgrave, mixed media, works on paper

Scott Paterson, painting

Opening Reception: Sunday, December 7, 3- 6 p.m.

December 4 – January 11

Gallery hours: Thursday - Sunday 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Also by Appointment 203.389.9555

Lisa Hess Hesselgrave brings a new body of work to Kehler Liddell, exploring a variety of media on paper alongside her better known work in painting. Her long history with oils and portraiture gives way to works done in pastel, pencil and collage. The medium changes allow her to “reaffirm and continue my love of color, line, gesture, and luminosity.” and to renegotiate the boundaries of her craft. Lisa often addresses the human figure or landscape with intentional focus on color and light. Yet the recognizable subjects also have a strong sense of interior emotion. Sometimes it is an interplay of figures on the canvas, other times, it is a subtle interchange between viewer and artist.

Scott Paterson’s work clearly shows his interest in architecture. His fascination with painting houses began as a student in San Francisco, perusing newsprint real estate mailers. He turned the black and white images into color, focusing on the architecture of composition rather then the homes. “I would look for some kind of drama in the structure of dark and lights…between organic and artificial”. For much of the past 30 years, Scott veered toward abstract painting , returning only in 2007 to the house related images. “This time they are my own images, found along the Connecticut shoreline, in northern California, and near Sarasota, Florida. Collectively, they may resemble a real estate catalog in which some of the properties could soon be going into foreclosure”.

Whether the view is ostensibly inside or outside, Scott and Lisa’s work offers a timeless sense of the physical world. Here is a shared reverence - made visible in the artists’ ability to translate and document what surrounds them as beautiful, humble, and often mysterious.

KLG | Comments Off |

Wednesday

Aug272008

In Sheep’s Clothing

Gale Zucker –photography
Laurie Grace – digital and mixed media painting
Julie Fraenkel – mixed media drawing & painting

August 30 – September 28, 2008

Artists Reception: 3 - 6pm, Sunday, September 7, 2008

Click image to enlarge.

Book Signing: Shear Spirit & Knitting at the Gallery
Wednesday, September 17, 7-9 p.m.
Bring your knitting, piecework, embroidery and join author Gale Zucker, artists, Yarn LLC, and friends for an evening of shared inspiration and creativity. Free admission.
Books for sale at gallery in advance or at event, light refreshments available for purchase.
Call to reserve seat and/or book. 203.389.9555

Artists Talks
Thursday, September 25, 7- 9 p.m.
Gale Zucker: location photography - the adventures of working with animals and real people;
Laurie Grace: inspiration and technique – combining digital tools with mixed media painting.
Free admission, light refreshments available for purchase.
Call to reserve seat and/or book. 203.389.9555

More About the Show
Gale Zucker’s photographs are from an ongoing portfolio of work She Shoots Sheep Shots, a wink at finding herself “camera-to-nostril” in up close fuzzy encounters with sheep while on assignment for travel magazine stories. Her appreciation of their human expressions, lumpy shapes and textures kept her entertained while as an avid knitter, there was more: “I loved them for their coats”. This led to her recently released book Shear Spirit: Ten Fiber Farms, Twenty Patterns and Miles of Yarn (Random House/ Clarkson Potter) and another portfolio of work as she stayed on sheep, goat, and alpaca farms, sharing and documenting the lives of ranchers, farmers, fiber artist and their varied flocks across the country .
    Laurie Grace’s artwork is inspired by the animals that continuously amaze her. With an appreciation for their innate beauty, grace and athleticism, her images of sheep, dogs, rabbits, not to mention a few roosters, function as a type of emotional mask or mirror of who we are as emotional beings. “Fear, loss, grief, terror, and joy are universal emotions and the line between human and animal becomes blurred as I try to articulate this common reality.”
    Julie Fraenkel uses a variety of media and styles to explore certain ideas and principles. With an “abiding interest in the physical embodiment of psychological states” her drawings and paintings include many animals, or combine people with sheep, wolves, rabbits, and chickens in both familiar and provocative narrative images. Her work is portrait and metaphor at once.
    Shown together, these three Connecticut artists present a lively dialogue and engaging exhibition of photographs and paintings, where our experience of the animal world becomes alternately empathic, humorous, thought-provoking, and simply beautiful to look at.