DIVERSE VOICES — 3 Artists’ Group Show at City Gallery
Featuring Work by Judy Atlas, Robert Jacoby, and Tom Peterson
New Haven’s City Gallery is an artist-run gallery featuring exhibitions of contemporary art by its 15 members throughout the year. DIVERSE VOICES showcases the distinct and varied work of three of its members: Judy Atlas, Robert Jacoby, and Tom Peterson. The group show will be on view from July 5 - July 27. The Opening Reception on Sunday, July 13, 2 p.m. - 4 p.m. is free and open to the public.
“I was never interested in portraying realism,” says Judy Atlas. “Instead I turned to abstraction; feeling, movement, light, dark, color, shape, my own story. Not all abstract artists paint this way. My process can be described as an improvisation, each mark is a response to the last one made. I may not have a specific image in mind, but, it is an incremental process, step by step. I experiment, explore and hope the result pleases and enlightens the viewer.”
Unlike Atlas, painter Rob Jacoby started with representational drawing and painting, and transition to abstraction later in his career. This reset, he explains, “was prompted to express my interpretation of flamenco, as a seminal reflection of the human spirit. Over the past 15 years, my work has broadened to explore various aspects of that creative spirit through spontaneous, unpredictable dialogues between artist and canvas as each painting progresses. The outcomes are frequently, and gratefully, diverse.”
Photographer Tom Peterson’s work takes the concept of abstraction in a different direction. In a folio called No Place Like Home, he imagines a dystopian future caused by global warming. “I sought to create bold color by digitally inverting modern architectural images to portray a world turned inside out. The results represent a voyage from familiar cityscapes to the stillness and strangeness of the otherworldly.”
“In this show,” Atlas explains, “Rob, Tom and I display diverse voices and stories to entertain and inform the viewers, to present the world in a variety of bold, new ways.”
DIVERSE VOICES 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.
