First Shot Show Brings New Work To Light

Jordan Hutton is a charming young man with a degree in art history from Roanoke College. For several years he has been a gallery assistant — “our favorite,” says owner Tino Galluzzo — at The White Gallery in Lakeville, CT. Working mostly in summers and during school breaks, Hutton learned how a gallery operates, how to deal with artists. But mostly he formed his own opinions of the art he likes. Now Galluzzo and his wife and co-owner, Susan, have given Hutton an opportunity to curate his own show, First Shot, an emerging artist invitational.

Unlike those black-clad, self-absorbed gallery assistants in many New York City galleries, the ones who rarely look up from their cell phones or laptops to greet you when you enter, Hutton is outgoing, optimistic, often dressed in vibrant colors, always wanting to share his joy in art itself. For his show, he visited area colleges with respected art departments, looked at work from dozens of students, then chose the pieces that “spoke” to him, work “I really liked.” So he passed over academic assignment art and selected work that came from the artists’ imagination and need to create.

Laura Viola Preciado from the University of Hartford combines techniques — gesture, paint-on-paint — in a picture of chaos relieved by calm. Blues, grays and calming white are punctuated with vibrant red near the top and a strange circle of red near the center that focuses your eye. (Preciado, who is in her early 50s, is a trained nurse who plans to now work toward a master’s degree.)

Mary Huber recently received her B.A. from Vassar College. Hutton chose her big picture that combines paint and hot wax, an ancient and difficult technique. Colors, deep reds and blues, white and  flat golden yellow, seem to seethe and flow under a semi-opaque, uneven coating of wax that is broken here and there.    

Two other cosmic pictures are by Lauren Emory of Marist College. Her work is made of thousands of circles of all sizes and colors that seem to float like bubbles. As you look, bands of color differentiation move diagonally down. Another Marist graduate, Erin Kerbert, shows a large group of papier-mâché pieces hung in a grouping of abstract shapes painted in soothing sky and sea blues, pale cream and deep green with small splotches of orangey red. They almost seem to be made from colorful, satellite images of the earth. Kali Vozeh, also from Marist, shows a bold picture of deep blue, overpainted with a few horizontal and vertical stripes. On top are three strident black forms that might be prehistoric animals.

Marist student Christina Tinti created a group of small monotypes that are refined, monochromatic, yet complex and professional. Her use of linoleum block, a technique you seldom encounter anymore, is remarkable. Hutton’s affinity for deep color is seen in Marist graduate Marisa Gilbert’s purple sculpture made from straight pieces of various lengths roughly joined together to make a straight-edged sort of pyramidal jungle jim.

Rebecca Gluck, another recent Vassar graduate, is interested in sensuality and body imagery. Her provocative white wall sculpture, made of emphatic, vertical forms in deep relief, clearly refers to male anatomy. Her deep, golden yellow and orange floor work, hints at a female form under a camouflage cover. It is arresting and puzzling.

First Shot continues at The White Gallery, 342 Main Street in Lakeville, CT, through Aug. 9. The gallery is open Thursday to Sunday. For information, call 860-435-1029 or go to thewhitegalleryart.com.