Forest – Wander:
Frank Bruckmann and Roy Money

April 21, – May 22, 2022
Opening: Sunday April 24, 2-5 PM

Frank Bruckmann, oil painter and a founding member at KLG unveils an exhibition featuring objects he’s foraged and found to be profoundly compelling. Bruckmann has explored his favorite places in Edgewood Park and the West Rock Ridge, unearthing skulls of birds, forest creatures and edible mushrooms that are blown up in his studio to epic proportions “to reveal their integrity and to give them the respect that such beautiful things deserve.”  

In addition to these paintings of enormously valued foraged objects, Bruckmann has also hung forest landscape paintings “to give the viewer the sense of walking into the magical realm of discovery that our forests and parks offer.”  For instance, “the viewer follows a park trail that leads to a gnarly cooper beech with complex root systems and mycelial networks crowned with seasonal fungi OR the soil of a decomposing stump which spurts forth a cluster of suedelike textured, neon orange Laetiporus sulphureus, aka, chicken of the woods.”  “All these discoveries have earned my time and attention; I’m there, stationary in the woods, knowing that people, their kids, their dogs will pass by me, the weather and the light will change, and I will come away with this tableau, this scrap of life; an experience.”  Bruckmann’s work is painted with top-notch oil paints, on hand-stretched finest quality canvas or panels to retain it’s value for generations.

Frank Bruckmann’s Artist Page | Shop: Franks’s Forest-Wander Show

Roy Money, photographer, presents a series of framed photographs, comprising tree environments that are both spiritually and physically close to home. Money marvels that he “has not yet found a better place for my camera work than wandering in the woods. I have strayed near and far, as far as I can go, but these pictures are from a neighborhood park.” 

One portion of Money’s oeuvre intentionally lacks focus as it “evolved out of a chance event ten years ago, when I followed a conventional exposure of birch trees with one involving intentional camera movement. I found the result more commensurate with my experience and was astonished. In the case of these pictures, the subject matter is blurred because of the camera movement. I  think of the blurred boundaries as a displacement of my animation by the subject back to the source. There is no sharp separation between us as it has occupied me. The blur expresses my acknowledgment of its capacity to move me and a bow to its presence.”  

Money’s remaining pieces in Forest – Wander, also reveal trees and forest, but these are shot in a “still photograph” style, his more traditional practice.  All of Money’s archival digital photographs are surrounded by brushed silver frames, offering simple and clean lines.

Roy Money Artist Page | Shop: Roy’s Forest-Wander Show

Biographies: 
Frank Bruckmann studied at the DuCret School of the Arts, NJ, Arts Students League, NY and Paris American Academy, France. He has instructed painting at Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT, Silvermine Art School, New Canaan, CT and Rowayton Arts Center, Darien, CT. He has won awards for his work such as the John Slade Ely House Members Exhibit Award, The Weiss Sisters Award and Elizabeth Pragst Memorial Award.  He has shown at many regional galleries, including Silvermine Gallery, New Canaan, CT and Inverary Gallery, Villanova, PA; Lupine Gallery, Monhegan, ME. His work is in numerous public and private collections globally.  Visit fbruckmann.com

Roy Money completed an MFA in photography at the University of Delaware and taught photography at several schools before and after the MFA. His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows at the Tennessee Historical Commission, Nashville, TN, Janvier Gallery, Newark, DE, John Hancock Center in Chicago, IL, Hamden Hall Country Day School, European Café, Artspace, New Haven Lawn Club, Silk Road Art Gallery, West Cove Gallery, and George St Gallery in New Haven, Mary Daly Art Gallery, Madison, CT, Barratt Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY, Ridgefield Art Center, Ridgefield, CT, Weir Farm, Wilton, CT,  PhotoPlace Gallery  Middlebury, VT, and  Darkroom Gallery in Essex Junction, VT. Visit www.roymoney.com

Tom Edwards : Backyard Archeology
and Sean Gallagher : What She Left and What She Kept
May 26 - June 26, 2022
Opening: Thursday May 26, 6:00 - 9:00pm
Closing Reception and Artist Talk Sunday June 26, 3:00 - 6:00 pm

Two artists work to create a place of memory,
observed and imagined, romantic and revered.

Tom Edwards excavates his backyard of ideas and observations in “Backyard Archeology”.
For Edwards, “backyard” serves as a physical space to observe and draw from while also searching his distant memory for alternatives beyond drawings of his surroundings. “The development of each group of subjects formed when I considered a large generally organized format for the entire presentation of the different pieces,” states Edwards. His final setup includes twenty pieces arranged in three horizontal rows. This arrangement references an altar predella in its construct. The first group consists of black and white drawings in black pencil and ink, made directly from observation while sitting in different locations in my backyard. The second row contains four larger pieces that deal with the “archeological” dream. It expands the view of the backyard inward and outward from multiple points of view and disassociated visions. Finally, the upper row consists of eight nocturnal spaces that suggest an internalized escape from reality, presenting atmospheric spatial form and color associations.

Also included is a ¼ scale group called “1963”, developed as an extension of drawings that began in 1963-66 in a high school mechanical drawing class.

Sean Gallagher paints and draws a tribute to his grandmother and heritage of West Cork, Ireland in What She Left and What She Kept.

Gallagher’s grandmother, Sarah Gallagher (née Roycroft), emigrated in 1920 to NYC and then to Chicago with his grandfather, Patrick Gallagher, from County Mayo, due in part to the tensions between the IRA and supporters of Great Britain in West Cork; specifically, since they had a mixed-marriage (Protestant and Catholic).

 Gallagher paints images of areas his grandmother most likely saw in her lifetime, adding accented color as a means of idealizing the specific places, a version of memory rather than actuality. The images offer a contemporary escape from the limitations of pandemic restrictions, to a more colorful, romantic, fantastic, and primordial place. “Just as my grandmother retained images of her ancestral land of West Cork in her mind, modifying it, over scores of years,” states Gallagher. Having visited these places several times earlier, he regrets being unable to return during these last two years of Covid. What She Left and What She Kept is dedicated to Sarah Gallagher.

Biographies
Tom Edwards: Edwards received a MFA from Yale University School of Fine Arts majoring in painting and printmaking. He was awarded the Elizabeth Canfield Hicks Honorary Award in Drawing. He received a MA from Kansas State University majoring in drawing and printmaking where he also received a bachelor of architecture degree. 
Tom's work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibits at Jane Haslem Gallery, Washington, DC, Prince Street Gallery, New York, NY, Denise Bibro Fine Art, Inc. New York, NY, New Haven Arts Council: Gallery 195, New Haven, CT, New Haven Lawn Club, New Haven, CT, Gallery @ 85 Main, Centerbrook, CT, Naestved Roennebaeksholm Art & Culture Center, Naestved, Denmark, Canton Gallery on the Green, Canton, CT, and Nahcotta Gallery, Portsmouth, NH just to mention a few. 
His work is in numerous collections such as Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, Library of Congress, Washington DC, National Museum of American Art, Washington DC, Smithsonian Collection, Washington DC, The New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT, Baltimore Museum, Baltimore, MD and The Boston Printmakers Permanent Collection, Boston, MA, again, just to name a few. 

Sean Gallagher: born in the city of Chicago and lived there for two decades, including attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and St. Ignatius College Prep; thereafter, studied at Indiana University (B.A. – Honors English Literature; B.F.A. - Printmaking) and the University of Arizona (M.F.A. - Painting and Printmaking). He has taught as a Professor of Art at Central Connecticut State University since 1993, where he is currently Chairperson. Sean recently moved to Fairfield, Connecticut, after living in Brooklyn, New York (for twenty years) with wife, Andrea, who is a senior health reporter at The Wall Street Journal, and their daughter, Fiona, who sings spontaneously.