GIL SCULLION: “LOOK AT ME LOOK AT YOU”
February 6 to March 16, 2023
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 9, 4:30–6:30 p.m. in Pegasus Gallery
“Look at Me, Look at You,” set 2, 1 of 9, 2021, 22″ x 30″, spray paints on rag paper.
Gil Scullion’s exhibition “Look at Me, Look at You” features work from his 2021 series of the same name. “Look at Me, Look at You” is one part of a multi-part project dealing with a sense of existential paralysis in the face of what seem to be social, political, and geophysical inevitabilities titled, “I Saw It Coming But Stood There Like A Jerk Anyway.” This set of stenciled spray paintings contains single and repeated patterns of a suited male figure peering outward through handheld binoculars. The gallery installation of serialized surveillance images by an unknown observer is inherently unnerving and offers insights into authoritarian critique. Confronted with a multiplicity of images, the viewer is outnumbered and immediately put on the defensive. However, when viewing an individual rather than a multiple figure composition, the act of looking transforms into a more intimate mutual act. In this perspective, the reciprocal gaze connects with more convergent cultural, philosophical, political, and psychological references and associative interpretations.
Scullion lives in Middletown and has exhibited nationally and internationally for more than 40 years. His works has been included regionally in exhibitions at the Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford), the DeCordova Museum (Lincoln, MA), the New Britain Museum of American Art (New Britain), Real Art Ways (Hartford), the Aldrich Museum (Ridgefield), and P.S. 1 (Long Island City, NY). See more of his work at: www.gilscullion-projects.com/
NANCY PEEL GLADWELL: “REMAINS OF THE DAY”
March 30 to May 10
Opening Reception: Wednesday, April 5, 4:30–6:30 p.m. in Pegasus Gallery
Nancy Peel Gladwell, “The Matriarch,” oil on panel, 2021.
Nancy Peel Gladwell’s paintings employ traditional modes of representation while contemplating contemporary issues of material consumption, digital, and metaphysical resources. The show title is drawn from Kazuo Ishiguro’s award-winning book, “Remains of the Day,” where the butler/protagonist confronts shifting perspectives of personal memory and purpose. Her reading also extends the meanings and processes of understanding the multidimensional web as a similar form of remains. Gladwell explains that… “We all leave a sizable trail of discarded and misappropriated things as the detritus of every single moment. As in Ishiguro’s book, most are psychological, behavioral, unintended, or not, misunderstood or not. They are physical and physiological and represent transitions, cleansings, and restorations.”
Gladwell is an adjunct professor of Fine Arts at Middlesex and has taught at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts and Long Island University. Her work is held in international public and private collections including the Heckscher Museum of Art, Fort Wayne Museum or Art and Parrish Art Museum. See more of her work at nancypeelgladwell.net
THE 19th ANNUAL ARTS AND MEDIA FESTIVAL
May 19, 6–9 p.m.
Chapman Hall 808, Jean Burr Smith Library, Pegasus Gallery & the Niche:
The 19th Annual Arts and Media Festival showcases projects produced by Middlesex students. Student video, film, and new media projects will be screened in the multipurpose rooms on the upper level of Chapman Hall. Student art works will be displayed in the Jean Burr Smith Library, Pegasus Gallery, and the Niche. This festival shares the most accomplished examples of student skill, ingenuity, and creative diversity with our campus and community.
For more information, please contact: Matthew Weber, Art Curator, 860.343.5806, mweber@mxcc.edu
