ECoCA is proud to introduce its second A.I.R. workspace program which reinforces our mission to reaffirm Grace Ely’s testamentary wishes for an art center where artists, arts organizations and the public assemble, exchange, learn, and engage through exhibitions, performances, and emerging contemporary practice.
Artists and collectives each occupy a room in the John Slade Ely House Galleries, a 1905 English Elizabethan style house, to produce work that includes film, painting, illustration, video and social practice. Special programming will be announced throughout the month—studio visits, workshops, panels, conversations, screenings, and other pubic events—all driven by the artists-in-residence.
Austin Thomas is a cultural producer and artist who is interested in making connections between current art-making practices and art historical ideas. Thomas views the world around her as a creative space and utilizes her sketchbook as a portable studio that she fills with drawings and collages.
Adam Malec is a multimedia and visual artist. Through his work creating his Uber “art car,” he has learned that art is a great conduit to help build deep and meaningful connections between people from all walks of life.
He hopes that this residency will help him meet more artists in the New Haven area and share ideas, discuss artistic philosophies and methods, and learn as much as he can about the experiences of other emerging artists. He would also like the opportunity to display his art to more people in the artistic community and get feedback and advice from a wider audience.
Artist Katro Storm is a true son of New Haven and a force of positivity. His style has been called “full frontal figuratism;” his unmistakable technique employs layers of drips and tonal modifications, creating an active surface in which figures seem to emerge.
Katro Storm’s formal art education began at New Haven’s Educational Center for the Arts (ECA). His work earned him a full scholarship to the Arts Institute of Boston; he then migrated to Boston’s Museum School, where, as a final project, he painted seven oversized black and white paintings in seven days, each a powerful portrait of an influential black figure. These were highlighted at the school’s Black History Month exhibition and provided the basis for Storm’s future body of work.
Having caught the attention of artist Paul Goodnight, Storm was invited to exhibit at the National Council for the Arts at Howard University. The show was followed by private commissions, exhibits in Boston-based galleries, and finally a move to New York City. There, in 1993, he created the Subway Exhibition in what he calls “the largest underground gallery in the world.” The project was met with acclaim, and Storm and his work were featured in a piece in Time.
Storm never lost touch with New Haven. Even in his New York Years, he taught at ECA; ever since his full-time return to our city, he has been dedicated to inspiring people from all walks of life. His 2009 READ Mural, featuring images of local heroes and community leaders, sparked an outpouring of support. As he continues his own development as an artist, painting on canvas, on board and in public spaces, Storm remains an educator with an affinity for “tough kids with an edge,” and currently teaches fine arts at the Lincoln-Bassett Elementary School.
He created a series of workshops in response to the book, Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine. Participants were invited to create their own hoodie, in reference to the cover art of the book, as well as the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012.
Caroline Tisdale’s works can be expanded or condensed based on the environment in which it is created because of the flexible nature of my materials. She works with found objects, fabrics, text, and garments.
In the past few months, she has begun a series of participatory works in which she asks friends, strangers, and collaborators to enter a social game or situation that she has set up, bounded by some sort of physical constraint due to objects that she has made in the space, or garments that she asks the participants to wear. She would like to use this framework to pursue a generative making practice that relies on community and collective action to function.
Terrance Regan’s work illustrates a desire to investigate the tie between the virtual and the real world.
“Through technology, I seek to examine the complex capabilities and malfunctions of electronics, using the primary mediums of video and sound as a toolbox to create and express ideas.
Daily, we are surrounded by technology; televisions in every home, laptops we use daily, the internet accessible anywhere. We are so closely tied to this data driven world that it becomes an integral part of our physical one. My work uses these every day functions of technology as a means to express the connection between the virtual and real world.
I am interested in exploring both old and new technology to investigate what machines, such as televisions, computers and sound systems are capable of. Through the manipulation of these technologies I hope to explain the tie between the virtual dimensions and the physical world to help to reflect on our life. Creating experiences and environments for viewers that may never have existed anywhere but digital space and making people wonder by blurring lines between electronic, physical, and spiritual worlds.”
Sue Muskat Knoll lives and works in the Berkshires of Western, Ma. Her paintings are explorations in color theory and design. She runs the Geoffrey Young Gallery in Great Barrington, MA with the artist Philip Knoll, exhibiting artists primarily working in NYC.
Matthew Reiner has spent the past year creating paintings that have become more dense, layers of paint which rub against each other, gestures which clash and cancel -- an accumulation of moves which cohere and fall apart, meaning constantly on the cusp of articulation. His process sometimes involves unstretching and re-stretching his paintings multiple times, through a very physical process.
He hopes to use this residency to find more clarity in the specificity of gestures which he is making.
Robin Green’s quilts are improvised expressions of color and rhythm.
“Discordant colors buzzing alongside each other, a shearing line angling through an otherwise tranquil block: I love the energy that comes from moments of tension in the quilts. My job is to foster these electric moments while maintaining an overall balance to the work.
I do the final quilting by hand, a meditative going-over of the entire piece. I can’t help but consider this “bringing the quilt to life,” and it is vital to my process and how I approach my work. “
David Brensilver studied percussion at the Peabody Conservatory of Music and at The Juilliard School and has performed over the years with such ensembles as the American Symphony Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, and numerous bands working across various musical styles. An accomplished writer, he’s worked as a journalist at The Day (Connecticut) and its string of community weeklies and as the editor of The Arts Paper (a monthly publication of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven). He’s written for New Music Box (an online publication of New Music USA) and Modern Drummer magazine and is a contributing writer for Drum! magazine. He’s also contributed to When Falls the Coliseum: a journal of American culture [or lack thereof]. David is the author of the satirical novel ExecTV (ENC Press, 2005) and the often-irreverent animal-rights blog The Daily Maul. His performance piece Music for the Doomed has had readings at the Compassionfest Vegan Holiday Bazaar, Open Source Gallery, and Best Video Film & Cultural Center. He’s vegan.
Bryan the Girl is a pen and ink artist working in a cross-hatch style to create volume and shadow with monochromatic lines.