Three CT Artists In New WAA Show

WASHINGTON DEPOT — Three Connecticut artists are featured in Washington Art Association’s diverse new exhibition. Simply called “February Show,” the exhibition is on view until February 25.

Florin Ion Firimita from Winchester works in mixed mediums. Since 1991 he has participated in over 125 solo and group art exhibits in the United States and Europe and published numerous art related essays, criticism and reviews. Arriving here in 1990 from Romania where he had been manager of the painting department, costume and set painter for the National Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Bucharest, he continued his studies and worked as an artist and teacher in Connecticut.

Mr Firimita’s art reflects his preoccupation with “the issues of identity, love, death, loss, and reality versus fiction, dreams and memories,” he says.

Torrington-based sculptor Michael J. McLaughlin is a co-founder of Macedonia Casting Company. He has taught sculpture, figurative drawing and anatomy part-time at the New Cambridge Art Center and also for WAA.

As lead assistant under Peter Woytuk, Mr McLaughlin learned the many facets of large-scale bronze sculpture, and the process of bringing a work from conceptual stage to casting, metal finishing, patination and installation. Mr McLaughlin has exhibited widely in the United States since 1998.  His awards include the New Britain Museum of American Art Jurors Choice Award, the New Alliance Award, and the Lynge Prize for metal sculpture.

Photographer Carl Weese, a Woodbury resident, has been making and printing pictures since childhood. From using his father’s 3.25 by 4.25-inch Speed Graphic, he has mastered many different photographic media, including the platinum-palladium process and the latest digital imaging equipment.

Many of Mr Weese’s documentary projects center on small town life, and corporate/industrial assignments include Connecticut rural and industrial landscapes. He writes on photography and teaches in Woodbury and in workshop centers around the country.  His work has been exhibited most recently in Connecticut, Virginia, Massachusetts and Belgium.

Gallery hours at the WAA gallery, on Route 47 in Bryan Memorial Plaza in Washington Depot, are Tuesday to Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm, and noon to 5 pm on Sunday.

For more information or directions, call 860-868-2878 or visit WAA’s website, WashingtonArt.org.