Inner circle///Women in the Arts
Closing Reception Friday April 6th: 6-8pm
Friday April 6th, Although we had a well attended opening reception, many of our artists and local art supporters were unable to come due to the extreme weather. A wonderful reason to come together once again and celebrate our regional art community in honor of Women's History Month and International Women's Day. Join us for an evening filled with community, conversation, connection, music, and refreshments. Meet the artists and hear them speak about their work at 6:30pm. See you there!
The Silver Circle Gallery in Putnam, CT is proud to announce the current exhibit Inner Circle: Women in the Arts. In recognition of International Women's Day and Women's History Month, the exhibit will feature work that honors the incredible women of art. The exhibit will be on display March 2 - April 15, 2018 with works featured by Diane Wright, Gabrielle Zane, Kathi Packer, Krista Stanowicz, Lauren Koger, Phoebe Godfrey, Tamara Dimitri, and Tina Shirshac.
Born in New Orleans, Diane Wright has lived most of her life in New England apart from a 9 year residence in South Africa. She studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and obtained her Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts in illustration and has only recently found her medium as a three dimensional mixed media collage and assemblage artist. She has raised two children and currently resides in the Northwest corner of Connecticut. Of her work in reassemblage she says, "I have used elements which have been discarded to re-create my impressions of the current state of affairs or of thoughts that have passed through my mind."
Gabrielle Zane is a writer and visual artist who holds an M.F.A from Bennington College. She is a Teaching Artist for the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism and has been an artist-in-residence in schools throughout New England. Her work, "explores the realms of connection and how our striving for intimacy affects our relationships to ourselves, nature, and the world around us." Her work is in a number of private collections and also on display in businesses in the Windham area.
Connecticut artist Kathi Packer creates imaginative tableaux of wildlife using video and photography from her travels on safari in Africa. "Stills" of zebra and wildebeest inspire Packer to explore the vulnerability of migratory species experiencing persistent drought and effects of climate change. Since receiving her BFA at the Hartford Art School in 1993, Packer has held eight solo exhibitions in New York City and over 100 solo and selected exhibitions throughout New England. Her work is included in many private and permanent collections.
Krista Stanowicz was born and raised in Connecticut and took many art classes during her youth and teenage years. After high school Krista decided to take her skills and education seriously and received her Associates Degree in Fine Arts from Quinebaug Valley CC, then transferred to Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts and graduated with a BFA in drawing in 2013. Since graduation Krista has been partaking in group art shows, solo commissions, and produces art in her studio. Of her Blurred Lines portrait series she says, "are the start of a painterly essence to my typically graphic work. These particular paintings were inspired by line, color, and the illusion of double vision.
As a young girl from Rhode Island, Lauren Koger started reading books on psychology and theology as early as middle school. Koger discovered her passion for conveying the human body at her first figure drawing class at the Rhode Island School of Design at the age of 15 [with a particular intrigue in women]. "There was a fascination to explore the soul of my subjects through art. I wanted to know everything about them at that very moment." In 2008 she started a nonprofit organization called Art Saves People. The mission was to promote artists in creatively using negative energy (such as negative experiences and emotions) and transferring it intosomething positive (such as personal growth/healing or fundraising). After college, Lauren was accepted as and sponsored by RAW: Natural Born Artists. She went on tour in August of 2014 with ASP volunteers. She appeared in major cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Orange County.
Phoebe Godfrey is a sociologist who is also an artist. In the last few years her art has been focused on the topics of identity & intimacy, as well as our relationships to the environment / ourselves. She has included her art work, and that of others, in her academic work as she thinks that the arts are key to our abilities to engage in progressive social and personal change. She takes the topics of her paintings from famous old masters' paintings and then makes significant changes to them to make them modern in a provocative way. Her current project is for a series of paintings that reinterpret the Garden of Eden story from the perspective of Eve in order to reverse the story of the fall into being merely Adam's fantasy / nightmare.
Tamara Dimitri is an artist and an arts administrator. Over the past several years her focus has been on arts administration which placed a temporary pause to her work as a visual artist, but artists are resilient and remain engaged in the arts regardless of life obstacles. Her work "is inspired by landscapes, often it's the solitude nature of spaces that lure me in, but I'm also intrigued by the human footprint and our tendencies to alter the landscape around us."
Music By Gypsy Romantique
Donna Dufresne and Gypsy Romantique, whose slogan is: a little Django, a little Tango, a little Swing, A LOT OF FUN!, is just all that. Whimsical and romantic with a lot of humor infused in Dufresne’s lyrics, the band takes the audience on a magical tour through the jazz and swing era in a brightly wrapped package of new and original material. You might think you’ve heard the songs in an old black and white film, but fear not ASCAP – except for a few public domain standards and tangos, all the material is written by vocalist Donna Dufresne.
Melding the gypsy inspired Paris hot club jazz of the 1930’s and American western swing of the same era, with their Latin influences and a touch of unabashed schmaltz, Gypsy Romantique will make you laugh, cry and want to dance in an entertaining cabaret of music that spans multiple generations. www.donnadufresne.com
