October 2 – December 13, 2008

CONNcentric: A special exhibition of the 2008 City-Wide Open Studios, highlighting exemplary contemporary artists in CT in Galleries 1–7.

An exhibition of works by more than sixty of Connecticut’s most interesting and innovative visual artists, CONNcentric is a juried show presented at Artspace in conjunction with the 11th annual City-Wide Open Studios Festival. Artspace is committed to fostering the talents of emerging and established Connecticut– and regionally-based artists. Recognizing the vital roles that artists and curators play in the development of an artist’s practice through their commitment, encouragement, and critical feedback, Artspace asked three jurors—two visual artists and one curator—to organize an exhibition based on the submissions of over 100 artists participating in City-Wide Open Studios. The works displayed in the Artspace galleries are both a reflection of the jury’s selection process as well as an indicator of the divergent perspectives, styles, means, and subjects that Connecticut artists are exploring today.

October 2 – 5, 2008
2008 City-Wide Open Studios
www.cwos.org

August 14 – September 20, 2008

GALLERY 1: HAWAII: 2008 Summer Apprenticeship Program
Through a three-week residency, Master Artist William Downs shared his artmaking process and concepts with fifteen high school artist apprentices. They collected paper, old books, magazines, and typewriters, experimented with collage, paint, ink, and various drawing tools. Withe these materials, the group assembled a combination of many kinds of images and text through which they each strove to express a personal narrative. Together, seperate narratives weave into one unified and multifaceted investigation in communal storytelling in the form of a gallery installation. Featuring the 2008 Summer Apprentices: Annette Anderson, Kadeem Boothe, Chris Daniels, Simeon Durham, Max Duenkel, Tashuan Fair, Anessa Jackson, Terrencia Lee, James Manley, Marisol Muniz, Terell Palmer, Margie Roman, DaQuaya Scott, Louie Tafuto, and Geeta Talpade.

GALLERY 3: FLY AWAY FLY AWAY
An installation and new work by William Downs.
William Downs' work often takes the form of large-scale installations of many small drawings and paintings; involving elements of autobiography, narrative, collage, and text. Verging on the surreal or abstract, the work finds its subject in "fear, worries, memories, dreams, fantasies, secrets, and feelings," and in Downs' interest in "the balance of conscious and unconscious states." During his residency in New Haven, Downs created new work, which premiers with this installation.

GALLERIES 4 & 5: ART: SCSU
Through our Community Partner Program, Artspace collaborates with the Art Department of Southern Connecticut State University to present the extraordinary work of their art faculty. Representing a wide range of media including sculpture, painting, drawing, photography, and ceramics, Art: SCSU offers a look at the cutting-edge trends coming out of today's fine art programs. Featuring: Yolanda del Amo, Mia Brownell, Wiley Carr, Greg Cochenet, Arthur Guagliumi, Keith Hatcher, Terry Lavin, Bill Phelan, Jeff Slomba, Thuan Vu, Rachael Vaters-Carr, and Jessie Whitehead.

GALLERY 6: THE BEST AROUND
The Best Around features work by Caitlin Foster and Juliana Sabinson, who weave found source material into humorous narratives featuring personal stories and absurd situations. Featuring Caitlin Foster and Juliana Sabinson.

GALLERY 7: DOWN PARADISE WAY
Down Paradise Way features four artists represented in the Flatfile who draw our attention to often ignored details in everyday spaces. Asa Chibas photographs details in the landscape, coloring and accentuating using thread and stitching. Ilana Cohen pays attention to street architecture and infuses portraits of parking meters and metal grates with blooming wild flora. Suzanne Siegel's watercolor drawings of big-box store parking lots empasize overlooked islands, lights and rooflines. Ann Toebbe's drawings turn cluttered functional living space into shattered forms, drawing attention to objects in the rooms.

May 15 – August 9, 2008

GALLERIES 1 & 2: PRETTY THINGS: Confronting Sensuousness
This exhibition explores the role of sensuousness in contemporary art. Ten artists employ diverse materials in innovative ways to entice us with artworks that project a seductive allure. While exploring the potential of rich colors, patterns, and surfaces, these works also promote unexpected encounters with subject matter that ranges from the attractions of consumer products to the realms of biography, science, and geopolitcs.Featuring: Kelly Bigelow Becerra, Phyllis Bramson, Mia Brownell, Oliver Herring, Grant Lincoln Johnston, Joyce Kozloff, Jane Rainwater, Cristi Rinklin, Benjamin Weiner and Cheryl Yun. Curated by Joy Pepe.

GALLERY 3: IN CASE OF LOSS PLEASE RETURN TO PARADISE
An installation by Fredo Conde
In this installation, Conde combines painting, drawing and sculpture to collectively form a narrative. The work is the product of Conde's disillusionment with the excesses of consumerism and subsequent regression into escapism. Conde's mixed meda installation chronicles a fabricated utopia guarded from the advances of consumption and its susceptibility to inevitable fragmentation.

GALLERIES 4, 5 & 7: PUT TOGETHER
Last fall Jeffrey Walkowiak, Director of the Sara Meltzer Gallery in New York, visited over 400 artist studios during Artspace's City-Wide Open Studios Festival 2007. His selection of five artists articulate concurrent and relevant issues. Featuring: Brian Huff, Phil Lique, Kari Britta Lorenson, Drew Nemetz and Dorothy Powers.

GALLERY 6: THINGS I'VE SEEN
Student Curator Simeon Durham, of the Hyde Leadership Academy, selected the work of two artists from the Artpsace Flafile, Robert Knight and Andrew Hogan, for his exhibition, Things I've Seen. Rober Knight's colorful photographs playfully expose the personal space of the bedroom. Andrew Hogan pushes the standards of lighting practices in documentary photography in his series, 12 Images of New Haven at Dusk and After.

April 10 – May 3, 2008

IN ALL GALLERIES:
ARTSPACE SPECTACULAR! BENEFIT AUCTION PREVIEW EXHIBITION
On view throughout the gallery are over 100 works by well-known local and national artists as well as unique experience lots to be auctioned to the highest bidder in our live and silent auctions at our annual Spectacular! Benefit Auction on May 3, 2008.

February 2 – March 29, 2008

GALLERY 1: UNNAMEABLE THINGS
This exhibition highlights seven painters working in an abstract language. While these artists focus on elements of color, shape, and surface, their works allude to structures, figures and things in the world. Their paintings begin to suggest recognizable forms, yet remain abstract and unnameable. Featuring: Matt Connors, Keltie Ferris, Chris Martin, Carrie Moyer, Baker Overstreet, Palma Blank-Rosenblum, Chuck Webster. Curated by Clint Jukkala.

GALLERY 3: MT. GRANDEUR
New paintings by Cham Hendon.
Like Chinese ink and brush paintings, Hendon's large scale poured paint pieces are at the same time fluid in their strokes and inflexible once they are dry. In this series, he reworks typical mountain imagery by mixing California culture with the Far East.

GALLERY 4: UNJOINED UNITY 3
Constructions and new work by Liz Pagano.
Simultaneously pushing the limitations of chance and control, Liz Pagano layers transparent plexiglass marked with stains, swirls, and spots to create assemblages that come alive when placed near light.

GALLERY 5: ANOMALIES AND OTHER ODDITIES
A new installation by Tim Nikiforuk.
Drawing from various aspects of cellular growth and mutation, Nikiforuk's vast wall drawings explode with a flux of mutated abstract organisms that envelop its viewing audience as they virally spread from the nooks and crannies of the room.

GALLERY 6: SUSPENDED ANIMATION 1 & 2
A new installation by John Bent.
In this two-part animation and installation, Bent explores the relationship of time to our bodies and personal identities. Suspended Animation 1 presents a continuous churning mass of abstracted organ-like forms, exposing the rift between the real and perceived time of our internal body. Suspended Animation 2 emerges from within a wax and latex form, examining the continual, largely unnoticed changes and cycles of our external body's appearance.

GALLERY 7: thoughts of you...
An exhibition of photographic works in which the artists use text or titles to conjure stories that accompany the visual image, inviting the viewer to construct a narrative by piecing together the written and visual information presented. These works represent a particular time, place or person as subject without being visibly present. Featuring: Hannah Cole, Judy Gelles, Martin Kruck, Christine Shank. Curated by Jessica Smolinski.

February 2 – August 9, 2008

The Lot: GUIDED MEN
An installation by Baptiste Ibar
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power, we have guided missiles and misguided men." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ibar takes his inspiration for his installation from this quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Placed around The Lot are ghostly soldiers as shadows of the men and women, past and present, who are misguided into war by corrupt leaders. This is a small prayer to those soldiers. This installation grew over the course of three months with new elements added by Ibar.