Five Points Gallery shows opening Friday

TORRINGTON — Five Points Gallery, located at 33 Main St. in downtown Torrington, presents new exhibitions. In its three galleries. The West Gallery features paintings by Bridget Grady that focus on the fragile ecologies of forests and swamps.

The TDP Gallery highlights mixed media works by printmaker Kathleen Schroeder that highlight liminal spaces between art and science. Robert Taplin’s work in the East Gallery combines sculpture and photography in ways that address opposing concepts, according to the artist. West Gallery: Fragile Ecologies by Bridget Grady. Gallery members say she investigates sensitive ecological environments both representatively and abstractly in her forest and swamp paintings. Her maximalist approach to painting or replicating textures and colors blur the definitions and boundaries of space. These environments are in a constant state of change, and it’s Grady’s belief that cultural attitudes have the greatest impact on the condition of the environment.

“The work focuses on the connection of the psyche to nature and the translation of that experience through the perceptual process of painting,” Grady said.

TDP Gallery: Of Two Minds: Dancing Between Art and Science by Kathleen Schroeder. According to Five Points, she combines chine collé with lithographs in this new series which addresses relationships between art and science. Focused on space that is in a transition or on a threshold between two points in time or space, Schroeder’s work is informed by her studies of embryonic development and growth . ... a liminal space in a constant state of flux. The minimalist graphic elements of line in the prints on exhibition speak to visual scientific data structures and graphs of this intangible space, according to the artist.

East Gallery: OutscapesRobert Taplin’s work brings the familiar and strange into somewhat startling proximity. Taplin said, “The role of the artist has been to expose the lie, reveal the hidden agenda, and break the dominant image.” His relief sculptures and ghost boxes combine layered imagery that moves back and forth between the illusion and the reality of three dimensions; focusing on opposing, yet entangled forces of modernity – the rational and the irrational, and the political and the personal, finding an equilibrium between these forces, he said.

There will be an in-person opening reception from 6-8 p.m. Friday, and a Virtual Artist talk at 6:30 p.m. April 14.

There is no admission charge.

All artwork is for sale. Five Points exhibitions and educational events are free and open to the public. Five Points respects your masking preferences.

For more information about Five Points Gallery, visit www.fivepointsarts.org

Five Points Gallery/Contributed artwork Torrington’s Five Points Gallery presents three new shows at its space on Main Street, with an opening reception set for Friday. The public is welcome and all gallery events are free.