curated by
kathleen giordano
featured artists
kevin van aelst
amy pryor
jason asselin
alyse rosner
cynthia back
tyler starr
claudia cron phyllis crowley
Shadow bruises visibility as day collapses into night. Loose twigs are tugged by the current as the busy river combs through a beaver’s dam. Tree bark displaces to accommodate new rings. Though defined by occurrences of the natural world, the ways in which we understand time are constructed. Sixty minutes in one hour, twenty-four hours in a day and so on. The yearly candlelight vigil that recalls the impact of a local tragedy. The more scientists investigate and warn of decreasing planetary health. This collection of work proposes an investigation into the realities associated with and impacted by time. How do events, seemingly insignificant or otherwise, chronicle toward impending consequences? What compels one to meddle with the future? In the murky continuum of present tense, when does one begin to define future?
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claudia cron Spanning dark waters, these gritty depictions of bridges deal with personal feelings about the passage of time and moments of transformation. The bridge, like a rainbow, is optimistic—it represents survival and the possibility of change. Graphite and intaglio, when mixed with dry pigment on handmade rice paper, suggest the haunting atmosphere of the hour just before the dawn.
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The Bridges: Hereto. 2016. Mixed media on paper. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven.
The Bridges: Again. 2015. Mixed media on paper. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven.
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cynthia back I work as a printmaker and painter. I am drawn to water for its design and abstract qualities, but most especially because it is a resource that is being commodified, a force of nature that is destructive by its absence and presence, a life force, and a constantly changing source of beauty and pleasure. Much of my current work is concerned with the idea of rivers and their tributaries, and bays and rocky coastlines. I return again and again to the same places, focusing on light and movement. I like the discipline and forethought of the reduction linocut process and the surprises that come with each new color printing. Starting with observation, the final images are culled from memory, shaped by my own experiences and perspectives. I often work in series, finding it an excellent way to explore many possibilities concerning one theme.
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Darby Creek: Past Presence 4. 2014. Etching, aquatint. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven. Walls Come Tumbling #1. 2012. Reduction linocut, woodcut, chine colle. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven. 7
phyllis crowley Much of my work addresses issues of perception and point of view. Changes in position, format, scale, and focusing create the illusion of space in very different ways. The view from the sky causes the land to flatten out and take on characteristics of mapping and drawing. A composite landscape made up of separate images, instead of the traditional single one, stretches space and elongates time. Increasing scale is important to creating the experience of a field. With the use of abstraction, multiple images, and non-conventional formats, I can create new relationships which bring me closer to the original emotional experience.
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Tilted Plane: Mountain, Cloud, Shadow. 2012. Archival pigment print. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven. 9
Tilted Plane: Icy River. 2012. Archival pigment print. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven.
tyler starr Tyler Starr’s mixed-media works on paper combine direct observation, poetic associations and elements of yellow journalism to visualize social and spiritual conundrums in such forms as prophetic motorcades from declassified FBI documents and imposing geographical sites associated with tragedies. The works are made through a combination of drawing, collage, and stencils with an interest in the ways printed information has been used from its very beginnings to map human endeavors.
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Lover’s Leap, Blue Ridge Mountains, North Carolina. Spray paint, Japanese papers on panel. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven. Lover’s Leap Junction. 2015. Sumi ink, spray paint, Japanese papers on panel. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven.
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alyse rosner These pieces follow nine years of painting highly detailed abstract miniatures on raw pine boards. The accumulation of tiny mark making on wood created a raised surface and distinct texture which naturally led to me to make rubbings of the miniature paintings. Later, I began to create more expansive rubbings taken from the deck behind my kitchen. On top of this layer of wood grain pattern, the organic dissemination of painted marks across the surface mutated into a more methodical system of painting and line drawing.
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With wood grain XXXVI. 2009. Fluid acrylic, ink on yupo. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven.
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With wood grain XL. 2009. Fluid acrylic, ink on yupo. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven.
amy pryor In my studio, piles of paper trimmed from junk mail, ad circulars, bills, forms and packaging are materials for construction. As consumer and examiner of the language of capitalism, I clip and save, organize and re-use the printed matter that saturates the topography of my life. Works are shaped through intense collaging, painting, layering and excavation of surfaces. I think of my work as landscape. One that is shaped through its material content–that is in some way an anthropological survey of the world in which I live. I utilize both formal and linguistic strategies–visual and verbal pathways when making works. I often begin with accumulations: adjectives, prices, barcodes, recycling symbols, etc‌, that when amassed achieve a visual density that is static-like, restless and more-or-less homogenous. It is through these ever-evolving strategies that I am able to explore the intersections and the enticements of the institutions that structure our world-views.
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Map Study. 2014. Silkscreen, color xerox collage on paper. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven.
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Crazy Low. Color magazine collage on paper. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven.
jason asselin Empty packs of cigarettes find their way to the ground and get crushed by cars or human traffic. They are rained and snowed upon and kicked around for months. The forces of nature and the inhabitants of the city are preparing these discarded cigarette packs for me to draw from. I consider this artwork a way of taking the nasty habits of smoking and littering, and re-contextualizing the resultant trash for a positive purpose. Looking at our garbage tells us about who we are; it is a cultural artifact of the age in which we live. What is now trash was, at one point in time, a very important possession for many people. When a cigarette package is empty, it is quickly discarded as trash. At first it is valued as extremely important, but in the end it becomes totally useless. This is the action of a disposable culture. We all participate to some extent in this culture and in doing so we are leaving our mark on the earth. These actions will echo into the future to eventually become our legacy. This new body of work is a result of close examination of these items which have been discarded, seemingly without another thought. By not only examining but by re-making these cigarette packs at an increased scale, I implore us to look at what we have left behind. 16
Lament. 2013. Watercolor, graphite. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven.
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New Box. 2013. Watercolor, graphite. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven.
kevin van aelst My color photographs consist of common artifacts and scenes from everyday life, which have been rearranged, assembled, and constructed into various forms, patterns, and illustrations. The images aim to examine the distance between the ‘big picture’ and the ‘little things’ in life—the banalities of our daily lives, and the sublime notions of identity and existance. While the depictions of information–such as an EKG, fingerprint, map or anatomical model–are unconventional, the truth and accuracy to the illustrations are just as valid as their traditional depictions. This work is about creating order where we expect to find randomness, and also hints that the minutiae all around us is capable of communicating much larger ideas.
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Self Portrait as a Drowned Man (After Hippolyte Bayard). 2016. Digital c-print. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven. Terror Management. 2016. Inkjet print. Artspace Flatfile, New Haven.
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bibliography Artspace New Haven. “Flatfile Collection: Claudia Cron.” published October 28, 2016. https://artspacenewhaven.org/flatfiles/claudia-cron/ Artspace New Haven. “Flatfile Collection: Cynthia Back.” published March 25, 2016. https://artspacenewhaven.org/flatfiles/cynthia-back/ Artspace New Haven. “Flatfile Collection: Phyllis Crowley.” published March 25, 2016. https://artspacenewhaven.org/flatfiles/phyllis-crowley/ Artspace New Haven. “Flatfile Collection: Alyse Rosner.” published June 1, 2016. https://artspacenewhaven.org/flatfiles/alyse-rosner/ Lorraine Glessner, “Alyse Rosner,” oh, what a world, what a world…, February 23, 2010. http://lorraineglessner.blogspot.com/2010/02/alyse-rosner.html Artspace New Haven. “Flatfile Collection: Kevin Van Aelst.” published October 28, 2016. https://artspacenewhaven.org/flatfiles/kevin-van-aelst/ Artspace New Haven. “Flatfile Collection: Jason Asselin.” published March 25, 2016. https://artspacenewhaven.org/flatfiles/jason-asselin/ Artspace New Haven. “Flatfile Collection: Amy Pryor.” published October 28, 2016. https://artspacenewhaven.org/flatfiles/amy-pryor/ Artspace New Haven. “Flatfile Collection: Tyler Starr.” published July 5, 2017. https://artspacenewhaven.org/flatfiles/tyler-starr/