The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Solo shows open at Five Points
TORRINGTON — Five Points Gallery will open three new solo shows, opening Thursday and continuing through Jan. 13. The exhibitions feature the work of Connecticut artists, Pamela Stockamore, Joseph Byrne and Peter Busby, and are sponsored by Grace and Djan Yagtug and Victor and Marion Muschell.
Pamela Stockamore’s show, “Looking Back - 30 yrs,” will be featured in the Five Points West Gallery. Stockamore writes that she approaches art by exploring the conceptual links between Eastern and Western philosophies, and “the delicate balance of opposites: entropy and order, intuition and reason, flux and permanence. These dualities complement one another and permeate every aspect of our lives.”
Using brushes, her hands “or whatever tool suits the need of the moment,” Stockamore works in a square format. She explains that unlike the rectangle, which makes an associative reference to landscape, the square is an archetypal shape that is stable, static and passive.
“It is perhaps the most difficult shape to energize. My paintings are an investigation into the effects of time and nature on all things,” she said.
Stockamore earned an MFA in painting Summa cum Laude from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and has exhibited in numerous shows. Her most recent exhibition was at Northwestern Connecticut Com-
munity College in Winsted.
Joseph Byrne’s “Connemara Paintings” will be on display in the Five Points TDP Gallery. Byrne describes his work as “fictional constructs that represent a long and complicated negotiation between what is out there in the world — rocks, hills, a body of water — and my subjective response to them.” These recent paintings are based on the landscape of the Roundstone Bog in the Connemara region of west Ireland, where his maternal grandmother was born. “
The characteristics of this austere
landscape present visual problems that challenge me as a painter. It is the relationship between perception, representation and abstraction that holds my attention: how a field of rocks becomes an arrangement of color and marks on paper; how the painting that results resonates with a viewer’s own memories,” he said.
Byrne is Professor of Art at Trinity College in Hartford. He has received awards and fellowships from the National Academy of Design, the MacDowell Colony and the American Academy in Rome, among others. He has exhibited at Five Points Gallery, the Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis and Gallery on the Green
in Canton, Ct.
The Five Points East Gallery will showcase sculptor Peter Busby’s “Amphorae.” Busby says these collective pieces “represent the realization of an idea I’ve carried with me for decades, prompted by a visit to Karnak, a temple in Egypt.” He describes how the roof of the temple was supported by colossal columns that visitors could walk around.
In “Amphorae,” the sculptor aims to “emulate that humbling feeling of existing among something much greater than oneself.” Viewers become a part of the installation as they weave their way around the giant vessels. Although the forms were inspired by ancient vessels, Busby says the
materials he used, the giant scale of the work and their non-functionality provoke “a dialog between classical and contemporary approaches to art, between idealized forms and process.”
The most recent of Busby’s numerous commissions were for the Willow Way Equestrian Center, Johnstown, Ohio; the Dallas Zoo, Tryon International Equestrian Center, Jupiter, Fla., and the Alaska State Council on the Arts, Kodiak, Alaska.
An opening reception will be held on Friday, Dec. 8, 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.; and an artists’ panel discussion will take place in the gallery at 6 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 5. Gallery hours are Thursdays through Mondays, 1 p.m.-5 p.m.,
and by appointment. There is no admission. Five Points exhibitions and educational events are free and open to the public.
Located at 33 Main St., in a historic downtown building, Five Points Gallery (FPG) is a nonprofit contemporary art gallery showcasing professional regional, national and international visual artists. The gallery presents exhibitions in three beautifully renovated exhibition spaces, and has earned the reputation as one of Connecticut’s outstanding contemporary art venues. For more information about the gallery, visit www.fivepointsgallery.org Five Points is supported in part by the Connecticut Office of the Arts.