August 2008
2008:
The Twentieth Anniversary Season
The
Bachelier Cardonsky Gallery in Kent, CT, opens a new
show on Saturday, August 9th. Twenty summers ago, the
gallery had its inaugural exhibition! Four amazing women
now join together with tremendous, unique talent, paying
tribute to the past in their present work.
JANE ARNOLD, speaking of her ceramic
work, seems to also define the gallery’s evolution
over the past 20 years: “What I have discovered
during my many years of working with clay is the spiraling
nature of pursuit. I will often return to a form or
techniques I have used in the past and find that the
new work maintains some of the earlier qualities, but
has gained a new dimension. As a result, the exploration
is one of a constant creative unfolding with a continuous
merging of the old and the new.” Arnold’s
forms are gorgeously fired, vibrant and patterned. They
are sensual and strong, influenced by ancient cultures.
She resides in New York City and upstate as well.
LANI
IRWIN, from her journal, writes, “I love
early Italian and Flemish paintings. I love the implied
drama of gesture held in suspended time, no time. Ambiguity.
Questions. Mystery. Life is full of uncertainty, unexpected
juxtapositions, forms that are magical.” An American
living in Italy, she is a painter of quiet, strange
narratives. Her figures, whether grouped or alone, are
solitary. They are still, even when caught in motion.
Like a dream, they are oddly balanced between the surreal
and the real worlds.
HOLLY
RUSSELL is Jane Arnold’s sister and this
is the first exhibit in which they are wonderfully paired.
Russell’s furniture is daringly inventive, made
with materials found on farms, ranches, and old rail
beds. “All of my work”, she writes, “is
crafted from rusty old pieces of scrap metal. I rarely
know what the pieces I find originally were, but I immediately
know what they will become. A top for a table, a seat
for a bench, a leg for a chair. I weld the old disparate
parts together to create a new unified whole.”
The results are extraordinary! Russell lives in New
York City and Litchfield County, CT.
LAURA
VON ROSK is a landscape painter who lives
in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. Despite the
magnitude of her surroundings, her paintings are small
in scale, most no more than 12 inches square. They are
intimate works of vast space, painted more from memory
than anywhere else. Her earthy tones are layered with
glazes that glow like amber. In an article from Saratoga
Springs, Von Rosk’s work was applauded: “Beneath
all the visual beauty, . . .a stillness pervades each
scene. . the feeling of nostalgia. The pictures tug
at our collective memory. You feel you know these places.”
A
reception for the artists will be held on Saturday,
August 9th, from 3 to 5 pm.
The show will run through September 7th.
The
Bachelier Cardonsky Gallery is located on Main St, Kent,
CT, and is open Saturday and Sunday from 11 to 5 pm,
and during the week by appointment.
For
further information, please call Violaine Bachelier
or Darby Cardonsky at 860-927-3129,
or email: info@bacheliercardonsky.com.
Visit our website: www.BachelierCardonsky.com.
