The Bachelier Cardonsky Gallery in Kent, CT, celebrates the opening of a new exhibition on Saturday, November 18th. “Intimate Works” is a wonderful group show of mixed media, paintings, and sculptures. Ten artists are featured all of whose works are intimate in size or subject, sometimes both. The dynamic group is a great mix of amazing talent:

DIANE BRAWARSKY’s mixed media patchwork paintings of people are inventive and magical. STEPHEN COYLE’s simple subjects of tables and houses are gorgeously sophisticated. The luminous landscapes and old barns by KIRILL DORON are simply beautiful. And each of DEAN FISHER’s textural still lifes of cupboards and pottery is a quiet masterpiece.

The collages of INGRID FREIDENBERGS are abstractions of memories in cloth, threads, paper, etc. KATHRYN FRUND’s painted panels are also collaged from the past, with land deeds, letters, and other documents. The far-reaching landscapes of SUZANNE HOWES-STEVENS are exquisitely detailed in painted layers upon old maps. And the mixed media works of SUZANNE SBARGE in paint and collage are divinely surreal.

Strange dreams are the subjects of the narrative, Renaissance-like paintings of NORA STURGES. For ELISA TENENBAUM, her imagery comes from the natural world in its constant splendor.

There will also be other works by various artists represented by the gallery in paintings and sculptures. The show is extraordinary!

 

Beyond Nature| October 14, 2006 - November 12, 2006

 

The Bachelier Cardonsky Gallery in Kent, CT, celebrates the opening of a new exhibition on Saturday, October 14th. It will feature three painters, Roberto Azank, Eleanor Miller, and Judith Wyer, along with the sculptor Steven Whinfield.

ROBERTO AZANK, originally from Argentina, is a great still life artist whose fruits and flowers are exquisite. His forms are stark and precise, painted with a strong primary palette. In every aspect of color, light and form, his sense of balance is perfect. “Powerful, bold and passionate” were words describing one of Azank’s solo shows, and since 1990, he has had many across the country.

ELEANOR MILLER‘s paintings are beautiful meditations on nature. They blur the distinction between reality and dream with exacting details and broad brushstrokes. Like nature, they are multi-layered in warm earth tones. Fish, birds and flowers, water, earth and sky collide in harmony. Miller is a graduate of Connecticut College and the School of Visual Arts, with many gallery and museum shows since 1984.

JUDITH WYER, a graduate of Brooklyn College, was reviewed as a painter of works “rendered with poignant narrative simplicity”. Museums and subways are her subjects, often filled with figures, alone or in groups. They are “beautifully colored and lighted interiors” with people of “hidden expressions and pure gestures of humanity.” Most of her paintings are intimate in scale, holding a quiet mood and delicate balance.

STEVEN WHINFIELD is a sculptor whose works demand a double-take. At first glance, they seem to be old discarded vessels: rusted paint cans, metal pots, or spouted containers. They are, in fact, extraordinary likenesses, done in raku, a technique using fired clay. Not only are the details perfect, so too are the glazed colors. He is a unique rising talent; one of his first shows was at the Aldrich Museum.

Joy Brown & Kirill Doron| September 9, 2006 - October 8, 2006

 

The Bachelier Cardonsky Gallery in Kent, CT, celebrates the opening on Saturday, September 9th of two great artists from Litchfield County, Ct, JOY BROWN and KIRILL DORON. Both are phenomenal talents whose enduring, unusual works and deep commitment define the very spirit of the gallery since its start in 1988.

The annual arrival of JOY BROWN’s figures is a most enchanting tradition. During the course of a recent week, eight cords of wood were once again burned in her 28 foot kiln, the fire tended day and night. The wood ash, when fused with the clay, gives the figures their gorgeous patina. They emerge from the kiln unique, strong and truly joyous! The gallery will be filled with Brown’s fabulous people, bursting with emotion and delightful humor. There have been many rave reviews, from Kent to NYC, from Paris to Japan, where she lived and trained for many years. “These marvelous pieces convey emotion through simplicity and the perception of movement. Each round face contains only a straight nose and oval cutouts for eyes and mouth, yet each sculpture has a different presence.” Each “transcends art into an art form that one loves and nearly wants to hold. . . as a friend, as a child, as an icon.”

KIRILL DORON is a timeless painter of the most exquisite works. Originally from Moscow, he emigrated to the U.S. is 1981 and has lived in CT for 23 years. He has amazed all who attend his exhibitions, forming a vast group of followers and collectors who wait anxiously for each show. Doron is a master of still lifes and landscapes that glow with amazing warmth. They are aged and weathered on canvas and wood panels with staggering realism. A painter who works in the classic tradition with surprising contemporary touches, Doron describes his subjects as “simple, beautiful, but forgotten”: a tin can, a rusted tool, an old barn. He speaks of his passions: “There has to be a spark between what I see and what’s inside me. I am obsessed with light. Life for me is light, from the very beginning.”

Human Nature | August 5, 2006 - September 3, 2006

 

The Bachelier Cardonsky Gallery in Kent, CT, celebrates the opening of a new exhibition on Saturday, August 5th. It will feature three exceptional painters, Mallory Lake from Vermont, Pamela Moore from New York, and William Thomson from Connecticut. The imagery of each is either nature or the figure, and in some cases both.

MALLORY LAKE’s gorgeous landscapes, often of Italy, are dreamy, seductive and enduring. They are poetic tributes to the places they recall, so alluring to have been reproduced in The New York Times. Working in pastel, Lake builds her images with many layers of color, creating deep, rich tones and a magical sense of light. Since 1990 she has had many exhibitions throughout the U.S. and has received several awards.

PAMELA MOORE is an amazing artist with numerous shows, awards, commissions, and works in public collections, the Smithsonian and Lincoln Center among them. Her unique paintings are serene, expansive landscapes that incorporate diverse methods: painting, etching, photography, and collage. She is a master of all techniques that, in her own words, “help depict personal events giving a path into universal places.”

WILLIAM THOMSON is a great painter whose exhibitions and awards span nearly half a century! A true original, he works with a synthesis of old master and contemporary ideas, brought together in stunning harmony. His subjects, from brooding portraits to glorious views of nature, are painted in various mediums: oil, acrylic, egg tempera, alkyd and wax, or combinations. Thomson is a dynamo, forever pushing the limits of his enormous, creative talent.

 

The Bachelier Cardonsky Gallery in Kent, CT, opens a wonderful new exhibition on Saturday, July 1st. It will feature the works of two magnificent artists, TOMMY SIMPSON and LAURA VON ROSK. Together they will take a delightful journey through the human and natural worlds.

TOMMY SIMPSON is a magical master of many forms. He is a wood carver, sculptor, furniture maker, painter, and mixed-media artist, “acclaimed for his witty and joyous interpretations of Americana – a true original in the art world.” His colorful exuberance and playful spirit are intoxicating! In this comprehensive installation, Simpson will fill the large gallery with an energetic one-of-a-kind show. There are paintings, boxes, sculptures, ladders, chairs, rugs, even a bed. His works are in many prestigious collections, among them the Hirschorn, the American Craft Museum, and the Wadsworth Athenaeum. A recipient of numerous awards, his exhibitions, publications, lectures and commissions since 1963 are extensive.

LAURA VON ROSK is a landscape painter of quiet, quirky views. Surreal and dreamlike, they are “made-up places”, she writes, “combined with images from memory and references to past artists”. Gorgeously colored and tightly detailed, they are small in scale, most just 12 x 12 inches. But they are large in scope with far-reaching vistas, concerned with nature’s light, textures, and patterns. Von Rosk has been exhibiting since 1989 and has received many awards, among them a Pollock-Krasner Grant, and four Yaddo fellowships.

Textural Rhythms | May 27 - June 25, 2006

Marguerite Takvorian-Holmes Sunset at Keith's, 2005 oil on canvas 40" x 44"	Risa Korris Oranges Avenida Rhaina Elizabeth III, 2005 oil on linen 22" x 48'	Michael Rivera Vestige, 2006 welded steel pipes 17" x 22" x 19"	Deborah Zlotsky Alice Neel Poster, 2005 oil on panel 6" x 8'

 

The Bachelier Cardonsky Gallery in Kent, CT, opens a new exhibition on Saturday, May 27th. A dynamic show full of texture and movement, it features four great artists:

Marguerite Takvorian-Holmes, Risa Korris, and Deborah Zlotsky, all painters from New York, and Michael Rivera, a Connecticut sculptor.

MARGUERITE TAKVORIAN-HOLMES paints expressionistic landscapes that glow. A strong play of light and shadow is in all of her works. They are rough and romantic, some with distant views, others more dense and close up. In each, her vibrant brushstrokes are lush in color and spontaneity.

RISA KORRIS is an extraordinary realist. Her canvases of fruits and vegetables are filled to the edges and explode with bright intense color. The photo-realist details of ripe, enlarged, overlapping forms are mesmerizing. Each work is a rhythmic celebration of nature’s bounty.

MICHAEL RIVERA is a strong, rising talent whose steel sculptures are made from hardware: pipes, nuts, bolts, etc. He welds his materials in repetitious patterns that feel much more organic than the metals that form them. In contrast to their raw weight, they are lyrical in movement and delicately balanced.

DEBORAH ZLOTSKY is a gifted, imaginative artist. Her recent works are small paintings of books, catalogues and posters. They depict the covers or pages on various artists from Chardin to Alice Neel. Others draw from novels, with portraits of the authors from book jackets. All of them are wonderfully real and unique.

The Bachelier Cardonsky Gallery in Kent, CT, opens an extraordinary exhibition on Saturday, April 22nd, for the start of its nineteenth season. A dream that began in 1988 with a passionate commitment to the arts, the gallery is now a leading establishment with numerous reviews in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, and other publications. It represents artists throughout the country and has curated shows in NYC and Paris. But its home will always be in Litchfield County. To celebrate this wonderful area enriched by its amazing artists, the gallery presents “45 from Litchfield County”:

Bascove, Alida Berling, Diana Bristol, Lisa Brody, Joy Brown, Cajori, Michael Chelminski, Victoria Chess, Lee Cordon, Robert Cronin, Claudia DeMonte, Kirill Doron, Tom Doyle, Madeline Falk, Ingrid Freidenbergs, Michael Gellatly, Robert Giusti, George-Ann Gowan, Philip Grausman, Clemance Gregory, Margaret Grimes, Barbara Grossman, Elaine Housman, Shirley Howe, Nancy Lasar, Lillian Lovitt, Elizabeth MacDonald, Kathryn McAuliffe, Ed McGowin, Ruth Miller, Patty Mullins, Hugh O’Donnell, Peter Poskas, Peter Poskas III, Tim Prentice, Michael Rivera, Bjorn Runquist, Joe Siegel, Tommy Simpson, David Skora, Missy Stevens, William Thomson, Jane Vern, Judith Wyer, Lauri Zarin

What a stunning surprise to find such a long list of accomplished and unique artists. But editing, in fact, was necessary to fit the space, as the group of great talents is much larger. More installments will surely come!