MR Projects

June Ahrens and Chris Joy

August 26- October 7, 2005 at Branchville Gallery Ridgefield, CT.

June Ahrens created a site specific installation titled "The Loudness of Silenece".She cut directly into the walls of the gallery and also added elements to the walls.

Chris Joy exhibited minimalistic paintings on panel, as well as, sculptures built out of pink insulation.

In The Stamford Advocate, Stamford, CT on Sept.18, 2005, reviewer L.P. Streitfeld had this to say about the exhibit,

"How approppriate that in an exhibit that opened the weekend of the fourth anniversaryof 9/11, curator Margaret Roleke establishes a dialogue illuminating the American penchant for safety - at any cost. Security is precisely what is being undermined at Branchville Gallery, evident immediately upon entry in the visceral dialogue taking place between Stamford Loft Artist June Ahrens and Chris Joy, a New York artist recently transplanted to Connecticut."

The exhibit was also reviewed in Art New England in the December/ January 2006  issue.

Download ArtNewEnglandBranchvilleGalleryReview.pdf

What is Branchville?

May 28 - July 10,2005 Branchville Gallery Ridgefield, CT This exhibit presented the work of 12 artists who created pieces based on the area of Connecticut known as Branchville.It featured webart, paintings, drawings, and photos. Artists- Michael Barberie, Chance Browne, Debra Browne, Gary Bunce, Marc Chabot, Mary Dwyer, Constance Evans, N.W. Gibbons, Vanessa Nesvig, John Roleke, Joan Wheeler.

top image,  Constance Evans  middle, Joan Wheeler  bottom, Gary Bunce. Visit John Roleke's site that he made for this exhibit which documents Branchville branchv.com

Melinda Hackett and Drew Klotz

April 8-May 22, 2005  Branchville Gallery Ridgefield, CT  This exhibit paired  abstract painter, Melinda Hackett of New York with kinetic sculptor Drew Klotz of Connecticut.See more of Hackett's art.

D. Dominick Lombardi and Kenneth Marchione

Download lombardi_review.pdf

January 7- February 12, 2005  Branchville Gallery  Ridgefield, CT This exhibit was reviewed in The Stamford Advocate and Art New England. Lisa Paul Streitfeld in the April/May 2005 issue of Art New England writes, "These two artists/curators/educators establish a timely and essential dialogue regarding the very form by which pop surrealism explodes with the messiness of human emotion; a new dynamism of beauty incorporating the shadow of the grotesque is created...Marchione uses Ophelia, the doomed archetypal female in Shakespeare's Hamlet as a launching point for an exploration evolving interior space....Lombardi's post-apocalyptic mutant Heads packs a visceral punch via the transformations suggested by its theme.In the completed arc of this highly evolved and self-contained narrative series of paintings, sculpture, and india ink drawings on the human head, the surface has been stripped away until the viewer is confronted with a ravaged brain bent on cannibalizing itself for expression..."
top image;Marchione  bottom image ; Lombardi

Prints and Paper

Branchville Gallery  Ridgefield, CT. November 5 - December 19, 2004 This exhibit featured 12 artists who use paper in traditional and experimental ways. Drawings, etchings, woodblock prints, monoprints, rubbings, tintype photos, paper sculptures and installations were on display. The artists were from New York, Connecticut, and London.They were Amy Allen, Jackie Brown, Vincent Dion, Cecilia Fradet, David Gesualdi, N.W. Gibbons, James Grashow, Melinda Hackett, Janice Mauro, Carolina Pedraza, Brian Sullivan and Deborah Waimon.  sculpture/installation ; Carolina Pedraza     woodblock prints; James Grashow

Robert Dancik and Joan Wheeler

Robert Dancik: The Cartographer's Enigma Sculpture for Viewing the Territory
Joan Wheeler: Other World's
Sept.17- Oct. 31, 2004  Branchville Gallery Ridgefield, CT
Dancik created "fake instruments" and maps base on a fictitious story of exploration. Wheeler created dioramas using animal figurines.

The 14 Show

August 14- September 12, 2004   Branchville Gallery  Ridgefield, CT
This exhibit involved over 40 artists from New York, New Jersey, California, Connecticut, and London. They all created art that was 14" x 14". Paintings, drawings, sculptures, mail art, photos, and prints were exhibited.

print image; Deborah Waimon photo image; Margaret Roleke

Webs: Joseph Fucigna and Laura Watt

June 25 thru August 8, 2004  Branchville Gallery Ridgefield, CT
Joseph Fucigna of Connecticut, created dynamic and colorful sculptures out of plastic fencing.  Laura Watt of Philadelphia presented obsessively detailed op-art paintings which
complemented Fucigna's work.

BLAST!

BLAST! was the inaugural exhibit at Branchville Gallery in Ridgefield, CT. It opened May 21, 2004 and ran thru June 20, 2004. It featured video, mail art, installation, prints, photos, and paintings by Amy Allen, David Cramer, Chan Davis and Joan Wheeler, Chris Durante, Mary Dwyer, Eva Lee, D. Dominick Lombardi,
Oskar Martinez, Margaret Roleke, and Brian Sullivan. It was reviewed in The Stamford Advocate, Stamford, CT.