APRIL EXHIBIT

Featuring Work by Photographer Phyllis Crowley

Photographer Phyllis Crowley asks CAN YOU FREE A MIND? in this new exhibit at City Gallery. Her latest collection of work will be on view from April 4 - April 27, with a Reception and Artist Talk on Sunday, April 6, 2 p.m. - 4 p.m. The artist will also be in the Gallery on Sunday, April 27 to meet with visitors and answer questions.

During her husband’s recent health crisis, Crowley, a well-known New Haven photographer, says she had neither the physical space nor the mental state to photograph as usual. Instead, she followed her visual instincts and shot what was around her, wherever she was, with her iPhone.

The result and the “story” is a visual essay, told through black and white images, with very high contrast and a lot of black. The connections are visual and emotional, the subject matter jumps around, and the images go from representational to abstract and even surreal. “The cell phone enabled quick, spontaneous responses to any moment; that would not have happened with a regular single-lens reflex camera,” she says. By combining images and grouping them, Crowley moves the viewer beyond focusing on a single subject, and encourages them to form their own concepts of experience and memory.

“The disconnects, the upside down and sideways, the range from particular to enigmatic, the references to hiding and disruption, are simply one reflection of the chaotic, irrational and unpredictable world in which we now find ourselves,” she says.

A photographer from a very young age, Crowley has more than 40 years of professional and fine art experience. She taught photography at Norwalk Community College and the University of Bridgeport, and now teaches at Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven. She has exhibited across the country and has twice been awarded an Artist Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts.

CAN YOU FREE A MIND? is free and open to the public. City Gallery is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Gallery hours are Friday - Sunday, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m., or by appointment. For further information please contact City Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org.

FEBRUARY EXHIBIT

Alone: A Contemporary Photography Exhibit at City Gallery
Featuring Joy Bush and Tom Peterson

Two of City Gallery’s contemporary photographers — Joy Bush and Tom Peterson — will be featured in ALONE, a new photography exhibit at City Gallery, on view from January 31 - March 2. There will be an Artists Reception on Sunday, February 23, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

With two distinct interpretations of the concept “alone,” Bush and Peterson present a collection of images that define the solitude of objects and individuals. “I like to think of each photograph in this series as a short visual poem,” says Bush. “Each stands on its own. And yet, being part of a series, each does occasionally flirt with one nearby.”

Peterson’s series “Just Me” had its beginnings during trips to New York City. “I would walk up and down Fifth Avenue and along Central Park, and began to notice individuals who sought spaces of solitude.” His photographs illustrate their makeshift sanctuaries, and speak to a longing of private spaces within a crowded world.

Peterson is a documentary and abstract fine art’s photographer from Hamden, Connecticut. His most recent work explores both quiet, peaceful imagery and architectural images of intense color. He has received numerous awards, including twice winning First Honors at Shoreline Arts Alliance. 2019 exhibits included a solo exhibition at The Kohn Joseloff Gallery at Cheshire Academy and the New Haven Lawn Club. Tom has been a member of City Gallery since 2009.

Bush is a photographer based in Connecticut. Her work was recently featured in Unbeatable Women at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, CT (2022) as well as solo shows Waiting (2023) at City Gallery, Home Views: Places In Never Lived (2021) at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts, and A Holy Land In Ruins (2013) at Mattatuck Museum. Her photographs have appeared in Fraction Magazine, The Village Voice, The New York Times, Connecticut Review, and many other publications. She has exhibited in solo and group exhibits nationally including the International Center for Photography (NYC), Mattatuck Museum (CT), Lyman Allyn Art Museum (CT), Five Points Art Gallery (CT), Griffin Museum of Photography (MA), Copley Society (Boston, MA), Garrison Art Center (NY), and Umbrella Arts (NYC). Bush is represented in the permanent collections of the Cincinnati Art Museum, Mattatuck Museum, Montefiore Hospital (Bronx, NY), the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Yale Medical Group Art Place, and private collections.

The ALONE exhibit is free and open to the public. City Gallery is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Gallery hours are Friday - Sunday, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m., or by appointment. For further information please contact City Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org or newhavencity-gallery.org.

MARCH EXHIBIT

Inspired by Susan Simard’s Finding the Mother Tree, Rita Hannafin presents WHISPERING FOREST AND OTHER CONVERSATIONS, an exhibit of art quilts. The show will be on view at City Gallery from March 7 - March 30, with a Reception on Sunday, March 23 from 2 p.m. - 4 p.m.

Hannafin tells stories by combining various textiles, stitch, paint, collage, and digital imagery in her art quilts. Their intricate connections become symbolic of the energy that connects all of us. “We are all linked, from the network of electrical pulses in a heartbeat, to an intimate and amazing sunset, to a close-up of a simple flower,” she explains.

Exploring that unseen connection that binds all living things, the centerpiece of Hannafin’s exhibit is Whispering Forest, a tryptic measuring 18"x24" for each piece, that took Hannafin more than a year to create.

“Trees are so much more than silent sentinels that house birds and squirrels. Each tree is part of a complex network through their roots and fungal connections, sharing resources, signals, even warnings. This silent concert inspires me. It embodies the essence of community and collaboration. It speaks to the universal truths of interdependence, resilience, and the delicate balance of life.”

Hannafin discovered the art quilt after moving to Connecticut in 2004, combining a lifelong love of art with her passion for textiles. Since then, her work has explored landscape, climate change, politics, personal stories and abstraction.

She is currently a member of Studio Art Quilt Associates, the Black Rock Art Guild, and City Gallery in New Haven. Her work has been shown in juried exhibitions at the Slater Museum, Norwich, the Whistler House Museum of Art, Lowell, MA, the Bruce S. Kershner Gallery in Fairfield, The Greenwich Art Society 107th Juried Art Exhibition, and was a second-place winner at the Stamford Art Association’s Faber Birren Annual Color Show. Her work is included in the National Registry of Quilts. Studio 2 is her attic studio where the fun, frustration, and sometimes magic happens.

WHISPERING FOREST AND OTHER CONVERSATIONS exhibit is free and open to the public. City Gallery is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Gallery hours are Friday - Sunday, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m., or by appointment. Email:rdhannafin@gmail.com.For further information please contact City Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org.

JANUARY EXHIBIT

Making and Unmaking: A Group Show at City Gallery
Featuring Jennifer Davies, William Frucht, Barbara Harder, Catherine Lavoie

Author Jonathan Swift’s famous quote “everything old is new again” plays out in interesting, creative ways in the January group show at City Gallery. MAKING AND UNMAKING — featuring work by Jennifer Davies, William Frucht, Barbara Harder, and Catherine Lavoie — presents the repurposing of what was into an eclectic exhibit of textiles, fiber art and handmade papers, prints, and photography. The show is on view from January 3 - January 26, with an Opening Reception on Saturday, January 11, 2-4 p.m. (Snow date: Saturday, January 18, 2-4 p.m.)

From Davies’ reuse of “that which is not deemed precious” and Lavoie’s consideration of discarded stories, to Frucht’s photographic exploration of our abandoned past, this mixed-media show explores the “necessary refocusing of the eyes to see things in a different context, when they are no longer trash, but art.”

Jennifer Davies graduated from Rhode Island School of Design and spent a year in Rome as part of the European Honors Program. Trained as a painter and illustrator, she worked for many years in watercolors, drawing, and monotype. Now her work is largely fiber oriented, incorporating paper she makes by hand using both Eastern and Western papermaking traditions. Fiber techniques she uses are pulp dipping, indigo dyeing, and sewing papers together to make large wall hangings.

William Frucht is a photographer living in Danbury, Connecticut, and working in New Haven. His photographs have been shown in juried exhibitions in Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, New York, Lancaster, PA, Greenville, SC, and elsewhere. Locally, he has received awards from the Carriage Barn Annual Photography Show in New Canaan, The Shoreline Arts Alliance Images Show in Old Lyme, and the Parfitt Photography Exhibit of the New Hampshire Art Association, Portsmouth, NH. He has also curated two exhibits of work by the Tibetan photographer Tsering Dorje: "Forbidden Memory" at City Gallery New Haven, and "Flames of My Homeland" (co-curated with Ian Boyden and Andrew Quintman) at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University. He has been a member of City Gallery since 2017.

Barbara Harder is a printmaker with a long history of involvement in New Haven’s arts scene as an artist, organizer, and teacher, including work at Creative Arts Workshop, Artspace, and Quinnipiac University.

Catherine Lavoie is a textile artist who explores human experience and the natural world utilizing repurposed and found objects. Recent work with bridal gowns create new life for garments that are typically worn once. Her handmade paintbrushes from pine needles and other natural elements add wispy marks to the fabric.

The MAKING AND UNMAKING exhibit is free and open to the public. City Gallery is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Gallery hours are Friday - Sunday, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m., or by appointment. For further information please contact City Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org.