Peter Konsterlie
Lung, 2007
mixed media on canvas
Courtesy of the artist
Westport Arts Center (WAC) announces the winners of its 2009 Juried Members Solos Show. This year, the works include photographs by Karen Barto, prints by Roxanne Faber Savage, mixed media sculptures by Franc Palaia and paintings by James Napoleon and Pete Konsterlie. The exhibition is on view from Friday, June 12 through Sunday, July 12, with an opening reception on Friday, June 12 from 6:30 - 8:30 pm. The artists will give a talk on Thursday, June 25 at 7:00 pm.
The 2009 Juried Members Show co-chairs are Mary Jo Lombardo and Jane Lubin. Describing her experience after visiting the artists’ studios, Lubin said, “It was a pleasure working with artists whose creative impulses tilt the ordinary in unexpected directions; who mix a concrete visual base with a strong sense of the conceptual.”
WAC’s Director of Visual Arts, Terri C. Smith adds, “This year’s exhibition has a variety of styles, materials and themes. But there is some overlap, including portraiture, documentary practices, landscapes and the negotiation of nostalgia.”
Amy Mackie, Curatorial Assistant at the New Museum, was this year's juror. “When selecting work for juried shows I always look for the artists who take risks,” said Mackie, “Whether this is addressed conceptually or in a choice of materials, it is refreshing to see work that captures a unique voice. These five artists present work that is particularly challenging, embracing subject matter that is not easily digestible or disposable. Nostalgia, spirituality, and the fragile nature of the human condition are just a few of the many concerns explored in the work presented this year.”
In the 2009 Solos Show, photography, sculpture, and painting cohabitate and present visitors with images that range from kitsch to melancholic. The black and white photographs of Karen Barto are moody and surreal. While unique to Barto, they conjure Sally Mann’s frank family portraits and Ralph Eugene Meatyard’s southern gothic photographs. Roxanne Faber Savage juxtaposes sky and land with the tilted telephone poles and aerially strewn wires. In an age of cell phones and the internet, the landscape and the technology could be seen as equally threatened by the perpetual thrust of modernization. Franc Palaia converts objects, such as antique suitcases, into light boxes that illuminate photographs of landscapes, architecture, and politically charged images and texts.
James Napoleon takes nostalgia head-on, literally. Painting dozens of school portraits from the seventies, he uses the graphic grid of yearbook portraits and an acrid palette reminiscent of the 1970s as a platform for exploring how the meaning of even the most ordinary image can change over time. Pete Konsterlie’s work also incorporates documentation in paintings that resemble the studies of a scientist exploring the layers and compartments of the human body. In Konsterlie’s work, the artist’s process is intentionally transparent – which he mirrors in his compositions through visible transparent washes of the paint and dissected layers in his presentation of the human body.
The Westport Arts Center is a visual and performing arts organization dedicated to creating arts experiences that enrich the lives of area residents and the entire community. The Westport Arts Center is supported with funds from the Artur and Heida Hermanns Holde Foundation, Inc., Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, Fairfield County Bank, Gault, Inc., U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management, Westport Sunrise Rotary Young Voices Program, and Xerox Foundation.
For information contact Westport Arts Center at 203-222-7070 or go to the website at www.westportartscenter.org. Gallery hours are M-F, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sat. and Sun. from noon to 4 p.m., at 51 Riverside Avenue, Westport.
