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Press Release Spectrum Sustainable Art Show

spectrum2014-yardsignDSC_1464-1"Saint Gabriel, Flight #4", By David Barnett

“Chiara” a 80″h x 40″w x 32″d sculpture by Carole Eisner (caroleeisner.com) created in her Connecticut studio in 2013, will be included in the Spectrum/SustainableArt Show at The Carriage Barn Arts Center in New Canaan, CT (carriagebarn.org). Eisner’s monumental works, made from scrap metal and twisted and curved steel have been seen exhibited on the Broadway Malls of NYC; Normandy, France, Belgium and throughout the east coast. (Photo: Carole Eisner)

“Saint Gabriel, Flight #4” by David Barnett.

Carriage Barn Arts Center Announces

Spectrum / Sustainable Art Show

Sunday, March 23rd – Saturday, April 12th, 2014

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 22nd, 6 – 8 pm (Free and open to the public)
Gallery hours: Wed. – Sat., 10 am – 3 pm; Sun., 1 – 5 pm

From piano keys and album covers to feathers and bird seed, the objects that make up the artworks in this thought-provoking show encompass a broad spectrum of re-purposed man-made and natural materials. The focus of the Carriage Barn Arts Center’s exhibition is on sustainable artwork that incorporates or highlights found, natural or recycled and re-purposed materials. The context for this show is appropriate, since the Carriage Barn is a perfect example of a sustainable space that has been adaptively reused within a landscape (Waveny Park designed by Olmsted) that has also been preserved as open green space. This provides the ideal environment for exhibiting artworks using found materials in novel and experimental ways.

All of the artists in the show give new life to the debris of civilization. The exhibition features many highly creative local artists as well as established New York artists, whose main focus has been on sustainable art. The New York artist David Barnett creates intricate assemblages, which juxtapose natural and mechanical objects that recall the objects of curiosity in Renaissance collections. His sculpture Saint Gabriel is an intricate assemblage composed of various mechanical parts and feathers that looks like a creature that is about to take flight.

Visitors will be greeted in the courtyard by two monumental sculptures, “Marielle” and “Chiara” by Carole Eisner, who is based in New York and Weston. For over 45 years, Eisner has been creating massive elegant abstract forms out of metal scrap and recycled fragments from buildings and bridges. Her work has been exhibited in numerous public spaces (public parks, corporate plazas, cultural centers) and museums throughout the East Coast of the US, as well as in Belgium and France.  Her work is represented in private and public collections including the Guggenheim, and has been written up in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Who’s Who in American Art, Vogue, and New York Newsday.

June Ahrens, another New York artist, who is now based in New Canaan, has also worked with found materials her whole career. Her conceptual work “Staying Afloat” is made of a reclaimed table, a glass bowl, and a bar of soap in water that changes over time. Her description of her work encapsulates the theme of the show: “Artistically, I transform discarded objects to create a visual language that evokes the experiences of impermanence and loss, fragility and vulnerability, pain and most of all healing and survival.”

Another New York artist Joan Giordano rewrites histories and explores popular culture in her sculptural wall collages consisting of corrugated cardboard and twisted and rolled newspaper. A Brooklyn and Pittsburg artist, Michael Lotenero, paints menacing faces on old prints of ships, titled “Dead Sea Captains”, and men with hats on old records titled, “Dead Record Men”. Some local artists in the show include Lubomir Tomaszewski, Lucy Krupenye, Constance Old, Thomas Berntsen, Stephanie Joyce, Amy Schott, Marjorie Tomchuk, Luigi Antonioli, Don Axleroad and Hans Neleman.

The juror is Anne von Stuelpnagel, the Director of Exhibitions at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut. The show is curated by Co-Directors Arianne Faber Kolb and Eleanor Flatow.

 The exhibition is sponsored in part by Baldanza, New Canaan Wine Merchants, Karl Chevrolet, April Kaynor Homes, New Canaan Lions Club, Earth Garden, and New Canaan Foreign Car.

Programs

Saturday, March 29th, 4-6pm. Artist Talk
An informal artists talk. Open to public.

Sunday, April 6th, 2 – 3:30 pm
“Trash + Fashion= TRASHION!”
Children’s Workshop (ages 8-12) led by instructor Karen Siegel
Space is limited and reservations are required call 203 972 1895.
$15 for members, $20 for non-members.

Thursday, April 10th, 7pm.
Mark Robbins lecture on Sustainable Systems
Space is limited and reservations are required call 203 972 1895.
$20 for members, $25 for non-members