Self Love

Self-Love : Personal Expression and Care

February 3 – 27, 2020

The Great Room Gallery | Gallery Hours: Tue. – Thr., 3:00 – 6:00p
New Haven Pride Center, 84 Orange Street, New Haven

Buzzwords like “Self-Care” and “Self-Love” dominate conversations about work environments, activism, and community spaces. But what does self care actually look like?

In this exhibition, the New Haven Pride Center encourages artists to look inward and explore the answers to questions like : What do you love to love yourself? How do you express what is uniquely you through art? How do you care for yourself, and is that enough?

This exhibition, which centers LGBTQ+ works of art, celebrates one’s love and care for themselves and will feature a variety of LGBTQ+ artists from throughout Connecticut and surrounding areas. This exhibition is being curated by our Executive Director, Patrick J Dunn.

EXHIBIT EVENTS:

Opening Reception | Monday, February 3 at 6:00p

IN THE NEWS:

Read the review of the exhibit in The Arts Paper: From Orange Street, With (Self) Love by Lucy Gellman

Read the interview with Curator Patrick Dunn in CT Voice : New Haven Pride Center Expresses Self-Love through Art by Quinn Roberts

Sponsors:

About the Artists

Cate Barry

Cate (she/her) is a queer portrait photographer recently relocated to New Haven from Madison, Wisconsin. She lives with her long-time comics-artist/professor partner KC and their dog Memphis in the Edgewood neighborhood of New Haven. Photographing people is her life’s joy.

In this exhibition we are including some of the photographs from her LGBTQ+ Collaborative Portrait Project from 2019. In the project she photographed close to thirty people who self-identify as LGBTQ+, printed their portraits and they artistically altered them in whatever way they chose. Being photographed is inherently vulnerable, and this is exponentially true for LGBTQ+ folks living in a cis-heteronormative culture. This project sought to treat subjects as collaborators in creating their own image, as well as to bring joy and empowerment to queer, trans, and GNC folks. It was also a shameless opportunity for me to meet and hang out with other fellow queers in New Haven.

Robert Bienstock

Based in New Haven, Connecticut, Robert (he/him) is a member of the Kehler Liddell Gallery in Westville, CT. He has also shown his art at River Street Gallery in Fair Haven CT; Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition in Red Hook Brooklyn (Certificate of Recognition); Catalyst Gallery in Beacon NY; City Lights Gallery in Bridgeport CT; Yale University and Janney Montgomery Scott in New Haven CT and the NE Medical Group building in North Haven; as well as at New Haven’s City Wide Open Studios. When not creating lines, he provides in-house legal support to Yale University’s research scientists, negotiating contracts and handling compliance issues. His work may be seen online at robertbienstock.com & facebook.com/robertbienstockartist

For this Exhibition, He is offering two works created as he was going through a difficult breakup. While fully abstract line drawings, they illustrated his emotional landscape. Creating them helped him think things through; the lines helped create a new order. These works are a personal expression of his self-care.

KC Councilor

KC (he/him) is transgender and he is a cartoonist, two identities that are inseparable for him. His gender transition happened through his transition from non-drawer to cartoonist; in fact, his hand knew that he was trans before his mind did. He drew myself into being, and he continues to draw himself out into the world instead of resisting, hiding or suffering from it. He makes comics about the complexities of moving through the world as a trans* person—the struggles, the surprises, the delights—and he teaches people how to use the medium of comics to powerfully create and own their stories. KC Councilor is an assistant professor in the Communication, Media, and Screen Studies department at Southern Connecticut State University.

Sue Czark

New Haven CT based Designer, Sue Czark (She/Her), has been an artist for as long as she can remember, although majority of her time, since the 1980s, has been spent as a graphic designer. Czark lived in Bridgeport and exhibited in the City Lights Gallery, particularly the same-sex galleries. She hopes that this exhibit will be something that members of the LGBTQ+ community can relate to and use it to spark discussion.

Donald Houston

Don (he/him) is a Connecticut artist who lives here in New Haven. Most of his work features oceans and seascapes from his time working on commercial ships as a Third Mate. His work is often surreal and moody, much like the sunsets he often paints. He is a self taught oil painter, having received his BS in Marine Business and Commerce from SUNY Maritime.

You can view more of his work on Instagram at @donaldmcqueen

Jonathan-Joseph Ganjian

Jonathan-Joseph (he/him) is a Connecticut based fine artist and consultant. Through J. Joseph Studio he sells original modern oil and mixed media pieces with a commitment to narratives of transformation, change, and marginalized narratives. His current project, The Gold Series: 50 Painting exploration of HIV, is slated to wrap in 2018 with a pending project through Nordstrom, who will be commissioning the final pieces for their new Men’s Store in Manhattan. More about his art can be found at JJosephStudio.com. Through his firm Jonathan Joseph Consulting Jonathan pursues a diverse array of projects ranging from luxury womenswear strategic planning to advising international portfolios of client companies across half a dozen sectors. Recently he became CEO of newly formed Creekmouth Commodities, a specialty joint venture focused on global import/export sales and procurement. More information at savageventure.com.

Sarah Savercool

Sarah (she/her) is a spiritual and ethereal artist currently residing in the Groton/New London area. She loves to frequent art shows and get involved with the arts and crafts events of the community in New Haven and New London. She has a primitive, whimsical, and colorful aesthetic to her art and she likes for her art to embody a sense of love and cosmic majesty. She also enjoys working on her writings and compiling all her work into an art book she would like to self publish one day. She studied Journalism at Eastern Michigan University and continues to perfect and explore her craft in writing and art.

Jisu Sheen

Jisu (she/her) is a queer Korean American artist, linguist, and poet living in New Haven. There is a poem that compares Jisu to a hard rock, covered with dust and moss, who will endure hardship. So far, this has held true. Her works in this exhibit are inspired by Adrienne Maree Brown, who talks about love not as a matter of levels from the self to lovers to friends to strangers, but as a skill that can be applied in any direction as it grows.

Dawn Viglione

Dawn (she/her) lives and works in Stratford. Her work, primarily in stained glass, is inspired by the tides, flotsam, and winds just outside her home studio.