"What Surrounds" coming to Ely Center of Contemporary Art

Julie Ward

Julie Ward

What Surrounds

Ely Center of Contemporary Art

51 Trumbull St, New Haven, CT

October 13th - November 10th, 2019

Reception Sunday Oct 13th, 1-3pm

Work by Rita Bard, Wendy Copp, Aimee Hertog, Maureen O’Leary, Fay Stanford, and Julie Ward.

What is environment? It is wild and cultivated, imaginary and concrete, volatile and protected. It is simply: what surrounds. What Surrounds is the assembled works of six female contemporary Art Shape Mammoth artists. Through painting, found-object sculpture, photography, and printmaking, they explore the multi-faceted concept of our Environment and the many ways we experience its influence on our lives. Curated by Heather Fortin Rubald.

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RITA BARD - Santa Fe, NM

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In my work I use ambiguity as a way to reframe the relationship to what we see and what it means. Growing up in a German/American family, that was poor in resources but rich in exposure to art and culture, I developed an affinity for a wild mix of visual influences. I soon learned that things are not always what they seem to be. Castles in Florida’s Disneyland were also like the “real” castles on the Rhine River. Lines made of feathers and the background of a colorful children’s cereal box are as intriguing to me as images rendered in oils or acrylics. To fully express my particular vision I combine traditional media and techniques with a plethora of lowbrow media and techniques, including readymade objects. My use of a large variety of visual and material sources is a language of discovery. Ideas are developed from memory and reality and are a way for me to frame our and ponder our particular time history.

 
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WENDY COPP - Burlington, VT

At the center of my artistic explorations are questions about Time and the ephemeral nature of existence, usually rendered with humor and a touch of the theatrical.

Dwelling in the northeast, it is impossible to be unaffected by the cycle of the seasons. The arc of life happens before our eyes, as vegetation hurtles out of the ground, puts forth flowers and seeds, changes colors, and falls away again. My current work is created using natural materials- leaves, bark, grasses- at various stages in their development. Viewed as a medium for the making of art, these materials are perfect metaphors for Time, as well as containers for endless layers of meaning. They are right outside my door, and collecting them in my locale connects me to my spot on earth.

 
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AIMEE HERTOG - Monclair, NJ

With an emphasis on female identity, my work challenges the myth of domestic bliss. Embracing diverse media, my work includes sculpture, installation, collage and photography.

Found objects are integral to my work - discarded clothing, kitchenware, dead flowers, and broken glass. Some of these materials are transformed, others left in their raw state, forming grotesque female figures. Distended, entangled, sometimes literally left hanging, these pieces reflect the struggle women face in constructing and guarding their identities.

 
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MAUREEN O'LEARY - Mount Sinai, NY

Maureen O'Leary's work examines the ordinariness and the oddities of how we assemble and disassemble the things and beings around us.  She is interested in scrutinizing reality for its humor, awkwardness, and charm, and exploring how wild things are constrained. Maureen O’Leary is a painter and photographer who makes work about nature, ordinariness, daydream and the idiosyncratic way people create their surroundings.


 
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FAY STANFORD - Narberth, Pennsylvania

It’s hard to be a grownup and that’s what my work is about. I tell stories using my own grown up life as the central narrative. Surely I’m not the only one who has bailed out teenagers arrested for underage drinking. Not the only one to have gone through cancer treatment, or hung laundry out on a sunny day, or watched her parents age and die, or rescued an orphaned baby squirrel. These are just some of the compelling, communal adventures which elevate the commonplace to the extraordinary because they’re recognizably ours - all of ours.

 

JULIE WARD - Tamarac, Florida

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My work embraces the shift from the physically laborious raw materiality of an iron sculptor to the contemporary technologies of the cool blue screen. In addition to material shifts, I risk exploring collaborative making by inclusion of a variety of art forms and artists, such as musicians, to trace experience beyond the visual. Conceptually, my work folds in the remnants of vanishing industrial practices. The fading past and rapidly evolving present occupy the striated spaces of history giving us glimpses of the spaces between parallel worlds: between past and present, between old and new, between traditional and contemporary, between the material and the ephemeral.

"Ready Familiar" at Ely Center of Contemporary Art

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Ready Familiar

New work by Cori Champagne

Ely Center of Contemporary Art

51 Trumbull St, New Haven, CT

October 13 - November 10

Opening Reception Oct 13th, 1-3pm

elycenter.org

Clothing is our first home. 

It begins identity, produces comfort, offers protection.  As the world imposes more and constant change, the garments I create imagine that sudden circumstances could somehow be thought through and prepared for, solutions developed, confronted. Crossing borders, fleeing climate extremes, transitioning to a new life - my work responds using the apparel in the most direct relationship with the body that wears and transports it. Based on collected narratives and research, and with an emphasis on the female participant, I create hand-made apparel, from readily available materials.

Ready Familiar considers climate situations where clothing must evolve to better address day-to-day individual needs. “Gulf/PR” is apparel designed for immediate response to flooding, and the subsequent struggle of rebuild and repair.  It layers halter top and shorts for comfort in hot weather, with additional clothing for sun protection and comfort.  A simple harness on the upper arms allows the user to carry a personal raft that also doubles as a sleeping mat. “Shishmaref” is a fully insulated coat, helmet, and snow pants, designed for individual hiking across snow and ice.  “Shishmaref Shelter Model” proposes a reversible sled with individual sleeping shelter based on snow pulks.  As locations shift their potential for habitation, the clothing I create assumes the user could be anyone, anywhere. 

The work in Ready Familiar is developed and tested for its intended use, as well as for the particulars of exhibition.  Along with the complete ensembles exhibited, a limited series is available for purchase which benefits charitable organizations in affected communities.  For Ready Familiar, a series of only ten “Shishmaref” helmets will be available to benefit Indigenous Climate Action.  

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Traces: a path toward understanding Caribbean bodies

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The paintings in Douglas Degges' intimate series "Props for Pictures" have an innate organic appeal that make them winsome exercises in form that you want to spend time with.  A broad color range flickers through the earthy and good-humored personae of these small works.  United by an ambitious impasto that recalls poorly-stirred pancake batter, the paintings have only a rough compositional geometry - with rectangles, triangles and edges coming and going...

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