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.

CIRCLING LEV: The Art and Life of K. Levni Sinanoglu
through the lens of friends, colleagues, students, mentors and collectors

April 15–May 24, 2018
Reception: Saturday, April 21, 4–7 pm

“Levni Sinanoglu…created a world and lived in it. The rest of us visited.” stated David Pease, Yale Professor Emeritus of Painting

The Ely Center of Contemporary Art will showcase the artwork of Levni Sinanoglu (Yale MFA 96) alongside works by his friends, colleagues, students and mentors. The exhibition will include numerous works by the artist presented in dialogue with paintings, drawings and video works by William Bailey, Gideon Bok, Turner Brooks, Paul Clabby, Denzil Hurley, Clint Jukkala, Joshua Marsh, David Pease, Katy Schneider, Gina Ruggeri, Joel Werring, and Pawel Wojtasik. 

Levni was an influential artist, teacher and community member who had an enormous impact through his own work and his generosity as a mentor and collaborator. A New Haven native, Sinanoglu was and is a significant figure in the New Haven and Yale art communities. In addition to maintaining a thriving artistic practice of his own, Sinangolu, curated exhibitions, wrote essays and press releases for other artists, and worked at the John Slade Ely House Galleries now Ely Center of Contemporary Art where the exhibition will take place. A true collaborative spirit, he maintained an ongoing critical dialogue with countless artists, providing vital feedback and support. Sinanoglu was an important teacher to many and taught studio art and art history at Hampshire College, Gateway Community College, Quinnipiac University, and the Yale School of Art, where he taught a summer drawing class in 2006.

Circling Lev presents work that spans time from Sinanoglu’s days as a student at Hampshire and Yale, up until 2016, the year Sinanoglu passed away. Throughout his career, Sinanoglu made paintings that offer a distinctive and visionary space. Both of the physical world and a spiritual realm, Sinanoglu’s paintings conjure a timeless place for thought, meditation and imagination.

The exhibition highlights Sinanoglu’s approach to art making as that of a spiritual traveler, and explores important themes that reoccurred in his work throughout his life. These include his use of imagery such as ancient temples and symbols, inspired by his travels through the Middle East; artistic influences including Philip Guston, Paul Klee, Metaphysical painting and Persian miniatures; and painting as a thought practice, manifest in Sinanoglu’s “thinking table,” a table of objects, akin to a rock garden, that Sinanoglu would continually curate and keep in his studio for inspiration. These symbolic relics will be on view re-contextualized as studio space within the exhibition.

Close friend and Yale classmate Clint Jukkala put it best: “Part of Sinanoglu’s gift as an artist and teacher was his uncanny ability to make connections between art, literature, philosophy, religion and everyday life. In a single conversation, he could deftly travel through space, time and belief systems, illuminating new relationships and insights. Through pictorial means, Sinanoglu’s paintings have this same ability to illuminate, connect and reveal. His visionary worlds offer an experiential space for viewers to travel and explore.

The exhibition, curated by Debbie Hesse, Clint Jukkala and Pawel Wojtasik, runs from April 15–May 24 with a reception on Saturday, April 21 from 4–7 pm.

An unjuried exhibition in collaboration with Nasty Women Connecticut

This year, Ely Center of Contemporary Art is collaborating with Nasty Women Connecticut for the group exhibition Silence Breakers. We invite artists working across disciplines, to create artwork that addresses issues of abuse, consent, and identity as well as themes of domesticity and home. The show will look at the often-blurred line between security and insecurity in the home, providing room to explore ideas around gender, equity, sexuality, individuality and domestic life.

Each year during Women’s History Month, the Ely Center of Contemporary Art (ECOCA) showcases In Grace We Trust, an annual exhibition that commemorates the philanthropic work of Grace Taylor Ely.  During her lifetime, Grace transformed her home at 51 Trumbull Street into a space for local watercolorists and ceramicists to gather and show their work.  Since her passing, the Ely Estate and Friends of John Slade Ely House of Contemporary Art have carried on this tradition, stewarding the building as a nurturing pillar of New Haven’s artist communities. In Grace We Trust addresses ideas of tradition and change — a nod to the past as we confront current societal challenges, and rise together to create our future narratives.

Throughout the month of March, the Ely Center will host a series of programs related to this year’s theme, including a panel discussion moderated by Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, performances, film screenings, nights, workshops, and artists talks. 

About In Grace We Trust

The John Slade Ely House is an English Elizabethan style house built in 1905 by S. G. Taylor. It was home to John Slade Ely (1860–1906) and Grace Taylor Ely, who came to New Haven in 1897. From 1897 up until his tragic death in 1906, he held the Theory and Practice of Medicine chair at Yale School of Medicine. Grace, an active community member and supporter of the arts, left the house in Trust as a public art center after her death in 1960. The first exhibition opened in April 1961 with works from New Haven Paint & Clay Club.

Founded in 1961, the John Slade Ely House is New Haven's first major arts center curating and hosting many regional arts organizations.

EXTENDED TO MARCH 5

NIGHTLY UNTIL FEB 25

Lili Chin's night time video diptych will be most luminous once night falls and will continue until daybreak. Her commissioned video project is a partnership between Ely Center and Yale-China Association in celebration of Lunarfest18.  

Laelaps is inspired by the Greek mythological dog that was placed amongst the stars as the constellation Canis Major. The video will be screening nightly until February 25, 2018.

Renowned New Haven artist and ECA alumni Katro Storm will present 21 Paintings in 21 Days, an evolving painting installation that will allow viewers to experience his unique painting style in process.  Storm will be working with ACES Aspire middle school students to create a mural that will correspond to his paintings.

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. Here, in conjunction with CWOS 2017, Storm premieres several of his celebrated portraits, each created as a commission.

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.

Opening Reception
Sunday, January 21, 2018, from 2–4 pm

Artist talks and a panel discussion
Sunday, February 18 from 1–4 pm

Transfigured Elements

Material elements shift, repeat and transform in this exhibition by New York based artist Lili Chin. The works in this show venture into transitional states to reveal layered and textured surfaces through drawing, video and abstraction. Glacial erratics and the ocean allude to time and metamorphosis, blending permanence with temporality to express nature in a constant flux of stasis and change. 

In addition, Chin will project a night time 2-channel video work titled Laelaps, inspired by the Greek mythological dog that was placed amongst the stars as the constellation Canis Major. The video diptych will be most luminous once night falls and will continue until daybreak. Her commissioned video project is a partnership between Ely Center and Yale-China Association in celebration of Lunarfest18 on February 17.  Join the artist for hot tea and rice wine February 17, 4:30 – 5:30 pm for its premiere. The video will be screening until February 25.

An Anthropogenic World ll

An Anthropogenic World ll, featuring works by Meg Bloom, Robert Datum, Susan McCaslin and Joseph Saccio, will explore human interaction with the environment. This show, originally created by Art Space Management students at Albertus Magnus College, has been expanded and reconfigured for this exhibition. The show, curated by recent Albertus College Arts Management graduate, Emily Whalen, was inspired by her paintings of the Dakota Access Pipeline and its impact on pollution.

In 1961, the New Haven Paint & Clay Club found a home for its exhibitions at the John Slade Ely House Galleries, where it now sponsors two exhibitions yearly.

In 1900 a group of Connecticut artists met and formed NHPCC, now one of New England’s oldest, and still active, arts organizations. New Haven was chosen primarily because of the Yale School of the Fine Arts, where many of the artists had studied. Many of the important American artists of the 1900s were represented in the Club’s early exhibitions.

Public Reception:  Sunday, December 3, 1 – 3 pm