Date: Fri 02-Apr-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

Mattatuck-Nelligan-Chabot

Full Text:

With "Mysteries," Mattatuck Museum Has Expanded Its Vision

(with cuts)

BY SHANNON HICKS

WATERBURY -- In presenting its current show, "Mysteries of the Earth," The

Mattatuck Museum is both continuing and expanding upon its mission of

showcasing artists based in Connecticut.

"Mysteries of the Earth" offers viewers a look at charcoal drawings by Emily

Nelligan of Winsted, line drawings and etchings by Marc Chabot of Woodbury and

Marvin Bileck of Winsted, and small oil and wax on board images by the West

Hartford artist Janice LaMotta. Originally scheduled to be on view through

April 11, the show has been extended to April 18.

The artists have all created works that look at nature, whether from afar at

some quiet place in solitude (Mr Bileck, Ms Nelligan and Mr Chabot) or up

close at a few flowers or plants (Ms LaMotta). The show's curators chose these

four artists because of the common perspective that brings an ethereal and

mystical quality to the works collectively. The works all have to do with

permanence and the continuing cycles of nature.

"This show is something of a departure for the Mattatuck," said Ann Smith, a

curator at the museum. "It marks a change in direction for us."

In the past, the Mattatuck Museum has always been interested in presenting

solo shows of contemporary Connecticut-based artists. Beginning with

"Mysteries of the Earth," however, the museum will now be showcasing small

groups of artists.

The museum's staff will now work on creating one show per year on art history,

another on a specific segment of history, and a third show of contemporary

art.

"We know people are interested in seeing history shows," Ms Smith said

recently. The museum staff is currently in the final stages of creating "The

Waterbury Neighborhoods Project," a long-term undertaking which will open to

the public in approximately four weeks.

The Mattatuck is the only museum in Connecticut devoted entirely to the art

and artists of the state, especially in the Waterbury area. It makes sense,

then, that the historic "Waterbury Project" will present a look at the people

and historic neighborhoods of the city that is home to the museum.

"The contemporary shows will no longer be solo," Ms Smith continued. "It has

instead become an invitational group exhibit. The group shows will be around a

common theme."

"Mysteries of the Earth," for instance, offers a look at the way four artists

look at nature and its guises from a different point of view, and with a

different medium.

"Mysteries of the Earth" also happens to concentrate on works on paper,

although a few of the LaMotta pieces are on small boards. The four artists

approach a similar subject -- nature -- using similar materials, at a similar

scale.

"As you look at the work, you'll find that there is a very distinctive, rich

image in each artist's work. But when you're working in ways that are same

color, same scale, same subject, you expect it to be maybe repetitious," said

Ms Smith.

"The fact that this is not repetitious," she said, with a sweeping motion of

her arm to indicate the works around the gallery space, "is a real tribute to

what creative artists do. They can see a subject that people have been

painting for centuries and still see it in a way that is distinctive, that

isn't like something anyone else has done before."

Different Career Junctures

"This show has been enormously popular," Ms Smith said on March 23. In fact,

during a gallery talk with three of the artists about two weeks prior to this

conversation with the curator, the audience included people from across the

state who drive into Waterbury for the opportunity to meet with and listen to

the highly-respected artists. "Mysteries of the Earth" presents artists at

different points of their career.

For an artist to even be considered for a show at the Mattatuck, he or she

must be based in Connecticut. Therefore, even though husband and wife Marvin

Bileck and Emily Nelligan spend their summers on Cranberry Island, off the

coast of Maine, their home in Winsted allows the couple to be presented in a

Mattatuck show.

Mr Bileck uses etchings and drypoints to present his fascination with rocks,

and the idea of eternity through the large stones.

A few of his images, including "Craggy Rocks Along Dead Man's Point" and

"Rhythmical Rock Constructions," offer views of Mr Bileck's favorite island

home. Only along the coast of Maine does the word "craggy" seem so at home.

Mr Bileck's works are almost ghostly in their presentation, the result of the

delicate nature of the ancient technique he chooses to work in.

In contrast, the strong charcoals produced by Ms Nelligan -- which are

situated on an adjoining wall -- are nearly opposite in nature of how they

depict, one assumes, some of the same scenes Mr Bileck also looks at when

working. While Mr Bileck's images are nearly ghostly in appearance, Ms

Nelligan's pieces are stronger and nearly monumental with the power of their

dark charcoal depictions.

"Her vision of what she is seeing is so totally different than what her

husband is seeing," Ms Smith pointed out, "and so different from what anyone

else has ever done." The works are very rich in appearance. Ms Smith called

them "magical, hypnotic images."

Ms Nelligan, who has been working with this vision for years, was recently

recognized by her peers for her compositions. In addition to the Mattatuck

show, she is also included in the current exhibition at the American Academy

of Arts & Letters in New York City, something, Ms Smith noted, that is "a

tremendous honor." The Connecticut Commission on the Arts has acquired

examples of Emily Nelligan's work for the state's permanent collection.

While Ms Nelligan and Mr Bileck are of the long-established school, the works

of Marc Chabot and Janice LaMotta, says Ms Smith, offer a look at two artists

at their mid-career points.

The monotypes by Mr Chabot offer extremely fine definition. In "River Bank

II," viewers will note not only the water, but its depicted movement -- the

trickle of the stream -- additionally. His work compares in some aspects to

that of Mr Bileck's in that many of his images, produced through a unique and

unusual technique the artist has developed, are very faint and ghostly.

Unlike Mr Bileck's work, though, Mr Chabot's views are from his imagination.

According to his artist statement, Mr Chabot chooses to work not from what he

sees before him, but "sometimes from a feeling, sometimes from a need to feel.

Nature is a wellspring, but my work is from inside."

Mr Chabot's images of nature are "strikingly original," Ms Smith said. "Marc

seems to be attracted to the dark, deep, mysterious places of nature." His

piece entitled "Branches Thru Fog," with the use of brown ink in a few spots

and the very faint tree branches, does seem to offer a look into something

quite mysterious.

Finally, the pieces that represent Janice LaMotta are not only the largest

images in the show, but also those with the most color. While the three

previous artists worked primarily with black tools on white paper, Ms

LaMotta's art has a wider, yet still subdued, palette.

"I thought it would be nice to have some color in this show," laughed Ms

Smith, the show's curator.

Additionally, Ms LaMotta's works, while still natural in theme, are also more

specific, more close-up in scope than the rest of the pieces in the show. Her

images are depictions of single flowers or small clumps of flowers; no

landscapes or even trees are in this section of the show.

Ms LaMotta's works also happen to use the widest range of materials to present

their images. With just a small selection of her oeuvre, Ms LaMotta presents

pieces that are charcoal, oil, wax and ink on paper; charcoal, oil, wax, ink

and watercolor on paper; oil and wax on board; oil and wax on masonite; and a

charcoal and gesso on paper.

The timing of "Mysteries of the Earth," which opened February 26, was not

coincidental. Ms Smith explained that many of the pieces on view, particularly

those by Ms LaMotta, offered looks at nature when it was starting to come

alive, or return from a state of quietude.

"It's all about this time of the year," the curator said. "We've been through

this dark time of the year, and there is something of a life force coming back

in all of us, and all that surrounds us."