WestConn student artists to present thesis exhibition
DANBURY, CONN. — Graduate students in the Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) in Visual Arts program at Western Connecticut State University are busily preparing for their upcoming thesis exhibition, which will open with a reception from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 3, and continue through Friday, April 18, in the Higgins Gallery in Higgins Hall on the university’s Midtown campus, 181 White St. in Danbury. Exhibit hours will be noon to 4:30 p.m. weekdays.
The exhibition is the capstone element in a two-year period of intensive study highlighted by bi-weekly visits from nationally recognized artists and field trips to major museums and galleries. The work depicts students’ personal visual statements in their chosen concentration of painting or illustration.
The painters include DeAnne Matheny and Kevin Dwyer, of New Milford; Carla Lindsey, of Torrington; Michel Belknap, of Newtown; Phil Lique, of New Haven; and J.D. Richey, of Danbury. The illustrators are Anna Myers, of Danbury; and Sarah Mahan, of Oswego, N.Y.
Matheny, Richey, Myers and Mahan came to WestConn from out-of-state because of the reputation of the university’s M.F.A. program.
Matheny and Richey both hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) from the University of Tulsa and are the recipients of Hancock Fellowship Awards and Anonymous Donor scholarships. The two artists also were accepted into the competitive summer program at the Chautauqua Institution School of Art in 2007, with mentors such as highly recognized artists Glen Goldberg and Stanley Lewis. They both received Anne Sippi O’Connor awards to support their studies at WestConn.
Both artists’ work was chosen from among a nationwide pool by well-known artist John Walker for inclusion in a show at Bowery Gallery in Chelsea, N.Y. Works by Matheny and Richey also were included in the “Small Works Show” at Blue Mountain Gallery and the Soho 20 “Small Works” show, also in New York.
Matheny has exhibited her sensitive studies of trees in a number of competitive exhibitions during her time at WestConn.
She said, “When working I become connected to something I cannot name and my self disappears.”
Richey heard about WestConn’s program from M.F.A. Advisory Board member Ruth Miller, who was a visiting artist at his university. His work has gone through several stages during his time at WCSU, ranging from rural to urban landscapes to provocative groups of almost life-size figures.
“Paint is merely a crude tool to communicate the visual experience of the subtleties of nature,” Richey said.
Meyers, a graduate of Bard College at Simons Rock, moved to Danbury from Massachusetts. She received a grant from the M.F.A. Fund in September 2007.
“I sincerely believe I would never have learned how to read if I had not been drawn to the illustrations in children’s books,” Meyers said. “I strive to bring a multicultural approach to my illustrations because I feel it is important to show children that they should not be afraid of people because they are different from themselves. Although I have this serious purpose in mind, I still want to instill a sense of magic and wonder in my paintings.”
Mahan, who received a double degree in art and zoology from SUNY Oswego, is an active environmentalist. She spent the summer prior to her entry into the program rehabilitating baby seals for reentry in to the wild, and worked as an intern at WestConn’s branch of the Jane Goodall Foundation. Her haunting paintings of primates enliven the show along with her portraits of women leaders. She also is working on an illustrated primate book for youths. Mahan is the recipient of a Jason & Ellen Hancock Student Scholarship.
Dwyer has an undergraduate degree in studio art from St. Michael’s College in Vermont and has helped to pay for his studies with mural commissions. He also was accepted by the Chautauqua School of Art and received a Scholarship from the M.F.A. Fund.
Of his powerful black-and-white work, he said, “In pursuit of finding truth and beauty, my work is an immediate reaction to what I’m seeing.”
Lique, an experimental painter, has worked as a studio assistant to James Grashow, Max Toth and Eric Davis, and as an installation assistant at Art Space in New Haven. He was the recipient of an Anonymous Donor Grant and a grant from the WCSU Foundation. Lique exhibited in the Citywide Open Studios at Art Space in New Haven in 2007, and was commissioned by 116 Crown Street, a New Haven restaurant, to do an installation on site. He has a B.F.A. in graphic design from Paier College of Art, and does freelance design for a music promoter.
He says his mixed media creations are informed by “Collage and sculpture; reflections on nature and the animal kingdom, stages of construction and deconstruction, media sources, allowing a viewer to see themselves in the work.”
Lindsey exhibited at Artwell in Torrington in 2007, and has been working on an upcoming PBS documentary on her great great grandfather, the highly respected African-American painter Ellis Ruley. Lindsey has a B.F.A. in painting from the Hartford School of Art at the University of Hartford. For the past academic year she has been teaching art to primary and secondary students at Escape to the Arts in Danbury. She was the recipient of an Anonymous Donor Foundation fellowship and the Connecticut Scholarship Foundation.
Lindsey says of her mystical paintings of the woods, “I see my trees as people with different personalities and characteristics. The wooded areas in which they stand are captured with spirituality and emotion; whatever is affecting my life is represented in these scenes. The Bible verses in the paintings also relate to these events.”
Belknap has an associate in applied science degree from Parsons and a B.F.A. from Tulane University. Her works are small, painterly and complex, poised between observation and abstraction. She continues to sell her work through a gallery in New Orleans. In 2007 she received a grant from the M.F.A. Fund to support her studies.
“Light is illusive and magical,” Belknap said. “Painting is a balance between experience and expression, where it is possible for imagination to become real.”
This event reception and exhibit will be free and open to the public. For more information, call the Office of University Relations at (203) 837-8486.
