Silvermine Galleries will host CT Contemporary 2018, which includes work from a selection of galleries that represent the ever-growing contemporary art gallery scene in Connecticut. Opening simultaneously is printmaker Margot Bittenbender’s solo show, Imagine Alice…. The two exhibitions will run from Oct. 14 to Nov. 10, 2018, and the public is invited to an opening reception on Sun., Oct. 14 from 2-4 pm.

CT Contemporary 2018

Featured in CT Contemporary 2018 are EBK Gallery in Hartford, Fred Giampietro Gallery in New Haven, Melanie Carr Gallery in Essex, and the artists of the Silvermine Guild. Each gallery will show a variety of new work. Some will focus on a single discipline or theme. Joining the event as sponsors, Handwright Gallery and Sorelle Gallery of New Canaan will welcome visitors at their in-town New Canaan locations. Silvermine will have a map available for the public.

“We hope to give the public a chance to see vibrant and surprising works of contemporary art from galleries they might not normally have a chance to visit,” said Roger Mudre, Director of the Silvermine Galleries, “and we’re delighted to have the support of Handwright and Sorelle Galleries here in New Canaan.”

Eric Ben-Kiki of EBK Gallery, located in downtown Hartford, will exhibit sculpture—with an emphasis on material and object. EBK artists include Donna Forma, Peter Kirkiles, Terrence Lavin, Maureen McCabe, Adam Niklewicz, and Peter Waite. Forms include lush, curvilinear wood; organic objects; and works that merge the industrial and the lyrical.

Fred Giampietro Gallery, located in New Haven near the Yale University Art Gallery, will show paintings by Riley Brewster and various works by Jonathan Waters. Brewster writes that his paintings “employ an initiating form, which operates spatially, metaphorically, and structurally as a threshold space.” Waters has worked with sculptors Mark di Suvero, Charles Ginnever, and Richard Serra, and his work includes both sculpture and print collage.

Melanie Carr Gallery of Essex is presenting the artwork of seven exceptional female contemporary artists all working in Connecticut. They include Mary Dwyer, Jennifer Knaus, Janet Passehl, Rachel Hellerich, Sarah Rohlfing, Elizabeth Gourlay, and Ellen Hackl Fagan. All have a dedicated practice and extensive exhibition record. The focus of the work ranges from contemporary figurative to minimalist sculpture. Carr herself is a Connecticut-based artist who began her studies in visual art after serving in the United States Navy as an Operations Specialist onboard the USS Willamette (AO-180) in Pearl Harbor, HI.

CT Contemporary 2018 offers an exciting selection of work from some of Connecticut’s most accomplished contemporary artists and cutting-edge galleries. Silvermine Arts Center is grateful to Handwright and Sorelle Galleries in New Canaan, and to the Co-Chairs of Silvermine Guild, David Dunlop and Roger Mudre, for their help sponsoring the exhibit. The exhibition runs for 4 weeks and will be on view through Nov. 10.

Imagine Alice… Prints by Margot Bittenbender

While she was living in Japan, printmaker Margot Bittenbender was surprised to find Lewis Carroll’s Alice, with the Tenniel illustrations, in Japanese translation in a museum store in Kanazawa. She began to see Alice everywhere—in paintings, in dioramas by children’s book illustrators, in manga cartoons, and even in a café where a costumed waitress served her a drink with a lit sparkler in the glass and wished her a Happy Un-birthday.”

An accomplished artist and teacher who spent 12 years living and working in Asia—in Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Nishinomiya, and Bangkok—Bittenbender wondered what sort of wonderland Alice might have found if the rabbit hole had opened up there instead of in England. Stately mums, origami butterflies, a magical mushroom kimono, a Jabberwock in a bamboo forest, and many other scenes came to life in her prints. “My Alice and I went walking through Japan together, observing and dreaming, seeing the real and the unreal,” said Bittenbender. Her new solo show, Imagine Alice…, reinvents the familiar elements of Alice’s story—rabbits and roses, pocket watches and playing cards and more—in deftly executed intaglio prints.

[Image: Mary Dwyer’s “Lucy” from Melanie Carr Gallery]