Holiday Parranda with Papo Vázquez and the Mighty Pirates Troubadours at Real Art Ways

Skip to main content
Holiday Parranda with Papo Vázquez and the Mighty Pirates Troubadours

 

Real Art Ways welcomes back trombonist, composer and arranger Papo Vázquez for an annual concert and holiday parranda.
Real Art Ways le da la bienvenida de regreso al trombonista, compositor y arreglista Papo Vázquez a nuestro concierto anual y parranda navideña.
Parranda de aguinaldo (Christmas folk music), is an Afro-Indigenous musical form played during the holidays in various Caribbean and Latin American countries including Puerto Rico, Cuba, Trinidad, and the coastal area of the states Aragua and Carabobo in Venezuela.
Parranda de aguinaldo (música folclórica navideña), es una forma musical afro-indígena que se toca en temporada de vacaciones en varios países del Caribe y América Latina, incluidos Puerto Rico, Cuba, Trinidad y la zona costera de los estados de Aragua y Carabobo en Venezuela.

Band of Pirates
Papo Vázquez – Trombone, Leader
Ivan Renta – Sax
Rick Germanson – Piano
Ariel Robles – Bass
Willy Rodriguez – Drums
Carlos Maldonado – Perc.
Reinaldo DeJesus – Perc.
Jose Mangual – Vocals, Perc.

ATTENTION LOCAL MUSICIANS
Bring your instruments and join in!
¡Músicos – traigan su instrumento y entran gratis!

parranda audience

people dancing and making music for the holidays

Papo Vázquez
Trombonist, composer, arranger has 40+ years of career spanning Jazz, Latin and Afro Caribbean music. National Endowment for the Arts Master Artist, Grammy Nominee. Featured in the 2020 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll.

“En fin, Vázquez junto a sus Mighty Pirates Troubadours e invitados exponen un proyecto exquisito y cadencioso que se transforma en un banquete para los amantes del género.” – El Vocero, 2020
(In short, Vázquez along with his Mighty Pirates Troubadours and guests present an exquisite and lilting project that becomes a banquet for lovers of the genre.)

•Musical Director for the National Puerto Rican Day Parade Orchestra, (NYC/WABC) 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
•Commissioned by Wynton Marsalis to compose music for Jazz and Art series, conducted and performed with J@LC orchestra, CD release August 2019
•New York Pops Education, Board of Education certified, 2018 and 2019
•Commissioned new music for Afro Latin Jazz Alliance for “Nueva Musica” concert series
•Grammy nominated for Papo Vázquez’ Mighty Pirates, Marooned/Aíslado, 2008

Born in 1958 in Philadelphia, PA, although his young formative years were in Puerto Rico. By age 17, Vazquez headed to New York City, recorded and performed with top artists in the salsa music scene like The Fania All-Stars, Ray Barretto, Willie Colón, Eddie Palmieri, Larry Harlow, and Hector La Voe. Vázquez became a key player in NYC’s burgeoning Latin jazz scene of the late 1970’s.

Went on to perform and/or record with jazz luminaries Tito Puente, Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nations Orchestra, Chico O’Farrill, Ray Charles, Slide Hampton’s World of Trombones, Jerry Gonzalez Fort Apache among many others. By the age of 22, Vázquez had traveled the globe.

Vázquez was deeply moved by jazz at a young age. His appreciation and knowledge of the indigenous music of the Caribbean provides him with a unique ability to fuse Afro-Caribbean rhythms with freer melodic and harmonic elements of progressive jazz.

Learn more at his website.

Naufragium
Kenny Martin
Real Art Ways presents a solo exhibition of new work by Norwalk-based artist Kenny Martin.

Taking its title from the Latin word for ‘shipwreck’ or ‘wreckage,’ Naufragium sees Martin create large, immersive drawings based on first-hand encounters with regional shipwrecks. Using charcoal, chalk, pastels, and adhesive marks atop sculpturally layered, recycled paper, Martin depicts images of submarine wreckage and obstructions he observes while freediving. Freediving, Martin shares, “means breath-hold diving—using a snorkel and mask, wetsuit and fins, descending for a few minutes each dive.” The resulting drawings are recollections of forms and underwater environments that the artist desires to revisit.

As Martin notes, “the images produced are abstracted by time and perspective, by the ocean current and fluctuation of light, by movement and memory. The drawings are textural and structural.” Naufragium recalls Martin’s visits to often dark, submarine locations of the Long Island Sound and Northwest Atlantic, some forgotten to the human world. These topical locales—‘shipwrecks’ or abstract piles of aged iron—appear as anthropomorphic behemoths and frail vestiges, all laying as motionless bastions of gravity and time.

About the Artist:

Kenny Martin is an artist and art educator based in Norwalk, CT, where he lives with his wife and son. Martin holds a BFA in Sculpture from Syracuse University, and has exhibited artwork in various mediums across the Northeast, as well as in the New York metropolitan area, Florence, and Madrid. His work invokes a physical connection to the ocean’s depths.

After years spent freediving from Maine to Carolina, and regularly working charters aboard the Bandit, out of Bay Shore, NY, Martin is now featured at Real Art Ways for his first solo exhibition. Initiated while working with Professor Peter Waite of Wesleyan University, Martin’s recent body of work is an extension of his independent study through the Graduate Liberal Studies Program.

Welcoming You Back Safely:

As you return to our physical space, your health and safety is our top priority. To learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new procedures visit our Welcoming You Back page.

Photo Credit: John Groo

Real Wall: Maxim Schmidt
Real Art Ways presents to phone a friend, an installation by Connecticut-based artist Maxim Schmidt and part of the Real Wall series.
Artist Statement:

“to phone a friend is a self-portrait of loneliness and not-belonging. It is a collection of memories I hold dear or hardly remember, trinkets and treasures alongside testaments to unwavering sadness in the form of crumpled unlove letters. The piece embodies the feeling that I am explosively everything, yet also culminating into nothing. I am so trapped inside of myself that the longest reach to form some sort of connection outside of myself is doomed to fail. I am a moment that never comes, as is my relationship with the world and those around me. I feel so marred by my subjectivity and obsession with small, strange objects that I forget (or neglect to try) to help myself. I ignore the fact that maybe someone, somewhere, wants to properly know me, so as to escape the inevitable pain that accompanies a close connection with any other person. I am a museum without visitors, stuffed to the brim with otherwise-nonsense objects and ideas that no one will see. The idea of calling a friend is a hypothetical I do not have.”

About the Artist:

Maxim Tobias Schmidt (he/they) is a multidisciplinary artist working out of Meriden, CT. In May 2019, he graduated with his BA in Art Therapy from Albertus Magnus College. Schmidt currently serves as the gallery coordinator and curatorial assistant for the Ely Center of Contemporary Art in New Haven, and has had a longstanding relationship with ECOCA. He also works as a Program Director for the Institute Library’s latest initiative, the Social Justice Readers Program. As a young trans masculine artist, much of Schmidt’s work is informed by his growing up in queerness, in both overt and less obvious ways. His work also reflects his love of collecting and finding objects. Schmidt yearns to attach deeper meaning to what is otherwise considered uninteresting or disposed. His work has been displayed at the Ely Center and Artspace New Haven, and has been published in Yale’s The Perch creative arts journal.

Welcoming You Back Safely:

As you return to our physical space, your health and safety is our top priority. To learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new procedures visit our Welcoming You Back page.

무: 無: Nothing
Seunghwui Koo
Real Art Ways presents a solo exhibition of new work by 2019 Real Art Award recipient Seunghwui Koo. 

Drawing from meditative experiences in nature, Koo creates meticulous resin, acrylic, plaster, clay, and mixed media works inspired by the daily happenings and intricate moments of her life in New York City. Her work is a commentary on the lives of her fellow New Yorkers, as she has witnessed them. Koo was born in South Korea, where she first experimented with combining the forms of the pig’s head and the human body. The significance of the pig’s head in Koo’s work plays on differing symbolic meanings in Eastern and Western cultures. Good fortune (Eastern) and greed (Western)—two very different connotations of the pig—are prominent themes, in tension with the textural and organic qualities of the pieces on view.

About the Artist:

Seunghwui Koo studied sculpture in South Korea, earning a BFA from Kyungpook National University. She has shown her work with a number of arts institutions including the Monmouth Museum, NJ; Newark Museum, NJ; Main Line Art Center, PA; and Kunstenfestival Watou 2017, 37th Edition, Belgium. Koo was a winner of the Exhibition Award in 2014 and 2017 at the Korean Cultural Center in New York and Los Angeles, and the 2015 Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art at the Main Line Art Center in Philadelphia, PA. She was also a 5-year artist-in-residence at the Chashama organization from 2013 to 2017.

About the Real Art Awards:

The Real Art Awards is an annual opportunity for emerging artists living in New England, New Jersey, or New York. The open call, offered with no entry fees to artists, attracts hundreds of applicants each year, of which 6 artists are chosen. Selected artists receive a solo exhibition, with a commissioned essay, professional documentation, and a cash prize of $2,500.

The 2019 Real Art Awards is supported in part by:

An award from the National Endowment for the Arts and an Excellence in the Arts award from the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation. Visual arts at Real Art Ways is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for Contemporary Art.

Welcoming You Back Safely:

As you return to our physical space, your health and safety is our top priority. To learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new procedures visit our Welcoming You Back page.

Photo Credit: John Groo

Burnt Sugar Arkestra
& The Veldt

“Orange Sunshine & Liquid Love Lines”

Burnt Sugar Arkestra & The Veldt

As featured in The New Yorker, BBC,
Rolling Stone, and The Guardian.
Four sets, three hours of brilliant, iconoclastic music,
five art exhibitions, two food trucks, DJ Mr. Realistic.
Music starts at 2pm.

“A multiracial jam army that freestyles with cool telekinesis between the lustrous menace of Miles Davis’ On The Corner, the slash-and-om of 1970s King Crimson, and Jimi Hendrix’ moonwalk across side three of Electric Ladyland.” – Rolling Stone

A territory band, a neo-tribal thang, a community hang, a society music guild aspiring to the condition of all that is molten, glacial, racial, spacial, oceanic, mythic, antiphonal and telepathic. Spicy grooves and lyrics with some “bark” on them are their passions.

Butch Morris’s Conduction System for Orchestral Improvisation is the preferred mode of channeling for this Gotham-based ensemble of pan-ethnic sound warriors.

Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber:
Lewis “Flip” Barnes – trumpets
Ben Tyree – guitar
Leon Gruenbaum – keys
Shelley Nicole – vocals, percussion
Greg Tate – conduction
Andre Lassalle – guitar
V. Jeffrey Smith – saxophone, vocals
Bruce Mack – keyboard, vocals
Paula Henderson – saxophone
Abby Dobson – vocals
Jared Michael Nickerson – bass guitar
LaFrae Sci – drums

The Veldt (from Raleigh N.C.):
Daniel Chavis – guitar/ vocals
Danny Chavis – lead/ guitar
Martin Newman – guitar/ effects
Alex Cox – bass/ loops
Dale Miller – drums/ loops

“With Danny’s enveloping hooks, Daniel’s swooning falsetto… the new songs invite paradoxical praise: serenely assaultive, vertiginously soothing.” – The Guardian

Photo by Matthew Breiner

Photo by Matthew Breiner

DJ Mr. Realistic will be opening.

Food trucks: Bloom Kitchen & Co., Southern Bell Soul Food.

Support for this event comes from the Evelyn W. Preston Memorial Trust Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee.

Learn more about the Burnt Sugar and The Veldt.

Artist Reception
Chantal Feitosa and Daniela Puliti

All are welcome to the opening reception for Real Art Awards recipients Daniela Puliti and Chantal Feitosa and their respective solo exhibitions, There were no casseroles… and Can You Repeat The Question?. Both artists represent Real Art Ways’ mission of supporting innovative emerging artists early in their careers. There is no admission fee to attend this event.

From Daniela’s statement:
“This work gave me something to live for when hope lost out. It speaks to the everlasting love I have for my person and the disenfranchised grief associated with his loss. As we emerge from this pandemic we do so with individual and collective PTSD. This exhibition serves as an invitation for healing, for all who have passed, Covid-related or not, and those of us who remain.”

From Chantal’s statement:
“This is for all the slow thinkers and classroom daydreamers who watched from the window side of the classroom. It is for all who watched in confused spite as white boys were granted extended time to breeze by all the ivory pages of standardized exam booklets. I broke the arms off all the clocks, so your mind can wander all day until you’re ready to respond.”

We want to take a moment to reassure you how seriously Real Art Ways takes visitor and employee health. With the rise of the Delta variant, visitors have been asked to mask, and we provide masks for any who might not have them. As of 8/11, the Mayor of Hartford has instituted a mask mandate, along with other directives for public spaces, and we are following his lead. All visitors must wear masks. You can visit our Welcome Back page for more information.

About the Real Art Awards:

The Real Art Awards is an annual opportunity for emerging artists living in New England, New Jersey, or New York. The open call, offered with no entry fees to artists, attracts hundreds of applicants each year, of which 6 artists are chosen. Selected artists receive a solo exhibition, with a commissioned essay, professional documentation, and a cash prize of $2,500. The 2020 Real Art Awards was juried by artist and educator Mary Mattingly, Director of the Laundromat Project Kemi Ilesanmi, and Real Art Ways Executive Director Will K. Wilkins.

The 2020 Real Art Awards is supported in part by:

An award from the National Endowment for the Arts and an Excellence in the Arts award from the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation. Visual arts at Real Art Ways is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for Contemporary Art.

Welcoming You Back Safely:

As you return to our physical space, your health and safety is our top priority. To learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new procedures visit our Welcoming You Back page.

Can You Repeat the Question?
Chantal Feitosa
Real Art Ways presents a solo exhibition of new work by 2020 Real Art Award recipient Chantal Feitosa. 

Chantal Feitosa’s exhibition, Can You Repeat the Question?, utilizes the aesthetics of elementary school education and classrooms to explore complicated racial identities in Brazilian culture. Feitosa’s work uses a 1976 survey of Brazilian households to inform its content. When given the opportunity to self-identify their skin color and identity, Brazilians across the country came up with 136 unique labels and definitions, many of which are names of foods. Feitosa has taken this list and created decks of flash cards, video, drawings, and an interactive website allowing viewers to engage in her ideas as if they are her students in a classroom setting.

Artist’s statement:

“The projects on view blend contrasting cultural references tied to race relations within Brazil, the United States and the first generation immigrant experience. The exhibition’s central video piece, “Brown Bag Lunch,” merges early childhood learning, a 1976 Brazilian survey documenting the population’s nuanced descriptions of race, and a re-staging of Modesto Broco’s 19th century painting “Ham’s Redemption.” The characters displayed across the drawing series, “Mind Maps,” are modeled after the Brazilian Namoradeira doll and depict bodies that are free to wander physically, emotionally, and mentally. These figures refuse to be easily legible or digested for the pleasure of outsiders.

This is for all the slow thinkers and classroom daydreamers who watched from the window side of the classroom. It is for all who watched in confused spite as white boys were granted extended time to breeze by all the ivory pages of standardized exam booklets. I broke the arms off all the clocks, so your mind can wander all day until you’re ready to respond.”

[smartslider3 slider=”12″]

About the Real Art Awards:

The Real Art Awards is an annual opportunity for emerging artists living in New England, New Jersey, or New York. The open call, offered with no entry fees to artists, attracts hundreds of applicants each year, of which 6 artists are chosen. Selected artists receive a solo exhibition, with a commissioned essay, professional documentation, and a cash prize of $2,500. The 2020 Real Art Awards was juried by artist and educator Mary Mattingly, Director of the Laundromat Project Kemi Ilesanmi, and Real Art Ways Executive Director Will K. Wilkins. The 2020 Real Art Awards is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts and an Excellence in the Arts award from the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation. Visual arts at Real Art Ways is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for Contemporary Art.

Welcoming You Back Safely:

As you return to our physical space, your health and safety is our top priority. To learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new procedures visit our Welcoming You Back page.

Photo Credit: John Groo

There were no casseroles…
Daniela Puliti
Real Art Ways presents a solo exhibition of new work by 2020 Real Art Award recipient Daniela Puliti. 

There were no casseroles… explores multiple forms of communal grieving and funerary traditions, using her personal narrative as a means to connect with the universal experience of death. Puliti’s use of textiles references her experience with neurodivergence (anxiety, ADHD, etc.), weaving materials together in complicated and almost obsessive means. The large scale woven tapestry You, Me, and Jesse’s Ghost, serves as the main component of the installation. It also functions as a memorial for Puliti’s partner, who suffered an anoxic brain injury in January of 2019 and passed away mid-pandemic in 2020, unable to have a funeral. In addition to the gallery exhibition, the public is invited to submit their recipes for comfort for an ongoing publication and future interactive performance. To learn more and submit a recipe, click here.

[smartslider3 slider=”6″]

About The Artist:

Daniela Puliti studied painting at Montclair State University (BFA, 2011) and The Savannah College of Art and Design (MFA, 2015). Puliti manipulates craft-based materials with an intuitive painter’s sensibility; creating installations, paintings, and mixed media works about gender, sexuality, vulnerability, and mental illness. She identifies as a gender-questioning femme, forever evaluating the shifting ideals around intersectional feminism within structural misogyny. She has participated in short term residencies at The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (NYC), Vermont Studio Center, The Wassaic Project and ChaNorth. Puliti is an alumna of the A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship Program in Brooklyn, NY (2017-2018), which granted her first solo exhibition in NYC in February 2018. Puliti received a 2021 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

About the Real Art Awards:

The Real Art Awards is an annual opportunity for emerging artists living in New England, New Jersey, or New York. The open call, offered with no entry fees to artists, attracts hundreds of applicants each year, of which 6 artists are chosen. Selected artists receive a solo exhibition, with a commissioned essay, professional documentation, and a cash prize of $2,500. The 2020 Real Art Awards was juried by artist and educator Mary Mattingly, Director of the Laundromat Project Kemi Ilesanmi, and Real Art Ways Executive Director Will K. Wilkins. The 2020 Real Art Awards is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts and an Excellence in the Arts award from the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation. Visual arts at Real Art Ways is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for Contemporary Art.

Welcoming You Back Safely:

As you return to our physical space, your health and safety is our top priority. To learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new procedures visit our Welcoming You Back page.

Photo Credit: John Groo

Cimafunk returns!
Cimafunk is returning to Real Art Ways for a free outdoor concert on Sunday, August 29!

“Cimafunk’s magic is at its peak when he’s singing live.” – The New Yorker

” […] the crowd’s enthusiastic roar nearly overwhelmed the sound system.” – Rolling Stone

“Cimafunk, el cantante del momento en Cuba (Cimafunk, the top singer in Cuba).” – El País

Cimafunk is one the most exciting new faces in the Latin music space, and a pioneer in bringing Afro-Cuban funk to the world. Singer, composer and producer, the young Cuban sensation offers a subtle and bold mix of funk with Cuban music and African rhythms, which is currently revolutionizing the island’s music scene.

DJ Mr. Realistic will be spinning, too!

DJ Mr Realistic spinning

Food trucks: Dori’s Latin Inspired Food, Samba Kitchen

Artist Conversation: Colonialism as Disability/Disability as Colonialism

 To register for this free event, click here.

Real Art Ways presents a conversation between New York-based artist Alex Dolores Salerno, Puerto Rico-based artist Miguel González Cordero, and exhibiting artist Kevin Quiles Bonilla. On Thursday, July 22 at 6:30 PM EDT, the three artists will present their work and explore the various ways disability, queerness, and Puerto Rican identity collide. The conversation will last about an hour with a question-and-answer portion at the end. This event will be held on Zoom and live-streamed to the Real Art Ways Facebook page.

Accessibility: Automated closed captions will be provided by Zoom, and all images/videos will be visually described.

         
This panel is supported in part by the Artist Engagement Fund from the National Performance Network.

About The Artists:

Kevin Quiles Bonilla (b. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He received a BA in Fine Arts – Photography from the University of Puerto Rico (2015) and an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design (2018). He has recently presented his work at The Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, The Shelly & Rubin Foundation’s 8th Floor Gallery, Dedalus Foundation, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Project Space. He has been an artist in residence at Art Beyond Sight’s Arts + Disability Residency (2018-2019), Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Queer Performance Residency (2019) and LMCC’s Workspace Residency (2019-2020). He currently lives and works between Puerto Rico and New York.

Alex Dolores Salerno (b. 1994, Washington D.C.) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Informed by themes of care, interdependency, and queer-crip time, they work to critique standards of productivity, notions of normative embodiment and the commodification of rest. Salerno received their M.F.A. in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design and their B.S. in Studio Art from Skidmore College. They have exhibited at The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation’s 8th Floor Gallery, the Ford Foundation Gallery, Franklin Street Works, Gibney Dance, among others. Their work has been featured in the New York Times and Art in America. Recently, they participated in Art Beyond Sight’s Art & Disability Residency (2019-2020), and are currently an artist in residence in the Artist Studios Program (cycle 35) at the Museum of Arts and Design.

Miguel González Cordero (b.1993), is an interdisciplinary artist from Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. In 2016, Miguel González Cordero received his BA in Visual Arts from the Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in Santurce, Puerto Rico. In 2014, he held his first solo exhibition “Danza Coralina”, José Pepín Méndez Gallery at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón. González Cordero has participated in group exhibitions such as “DISLOQUE” at AREA Lugar de Proyectos, Caguas, PR (2016), “Video Voces Boricuas” at Tres50 Espacio Cultural, Chiapas, Mexico (2018), “Exploración Corporea: Formas y Movimiento” in Diagonal (2019), and “25 / 25 ”at Galería de Arte de Universidad del Sagrado Corazón (2020) both in Santurce, Puerto Rico. He is currently studying a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design at the School of Design and Architecture of the Ana G. Méndez University, Gurabo Campus in Puerto Rico.

 

Image captions from left:
Kevin Quiles Bonilla
“Untitled (Exposure therapy documentation)”
Analogue photography, 2002/2021

Alex Dolores Salerno
“Pillow Fight”
Used pillow cases and medical ephemera, 2019-ongoing

Miguel González Corderro
“How Do You Shower?”
Pastels on paper, 2020

 

Real Wall: Lauren Be Dear
Real Art Ways presents Through the Veil, an installation and performance by Hartford-based artist Lauren Be Dear and part of the Real Wall series. The installation will open on Thursday, July 15 with performances at 7:00 PM and 9:15 PM during the Creative Cocktail Hour. 
Artist Statement:

“Through the Veil is an interactive collage of fabrics, photographs, jewelry and letters. The fabrics on the base layer have been spray painted and dyed, and tied and woven together to connect each item. Every element holds a personal meaning or memory associated with the history and lineage of my bipolar disorder. The letters are mostly from my father, who wrote to me from the hospital when he was ill, and when I was in the hospital myself. Plastic bags hold miscellaneous items that were in my possession when I entered the hospital that have since been returned to me. As if caught on the edges of the piece, feathers stick out, counting down my episodes: one black feather for every major depression I’ve experienced, and one brown/gold feather for every manic episode. The surface layer of the piece consists of strips of different fabrics knotted together without adhesives. This surface layer is meant to be interactive, allowing the audience to move the strips of fabric in order to view the base layer behind it. 

I draw on my disorder’s history in my work as a way to heal, advocate and inform. In the process of mapping out my experiences, I attempt to reframe and alter my own perspective, and to shed unhelpful emotions. Many of us are taught to hide away our traumas, but I have learned that through the process of exposing them, they hold less power over our lives, and allow space for acceptance and/or forgiveness. I hope to spark a deeper discussion that travels beyond stigma; A discussion that moves into vulnerable territory: the stories and memories we sweep under the rug, the words that get lodged in our throats because we fear their reception. I hope these words and stories will be met with a compassionate ear, provide relief to the speaker, and facilitate further healing for both.”

About the Artist:

Lauren Be Dear is an interdisciplinary artist and spoken word poet from West Hartford, Connecticut. She has studied at Bennington College and Manchester Community College. Under the name FemmeGod, she released a collection of avant-garde pieces at the 2015 Hartford Fashion Week, and created two pieces for Hartford’s Trashion Fashion Show. In 2018, Lauren participated in Mental Health Connecticut’s “Write On!” program. She has since worked closely with the organization to help advocate for individuals with mental health issues, and to promote the use of writing as a coping tool for expression and healing. She currently lives and has a studio in Downtown Hartford.

Image: Portrait of the artist, Courtesy the artist

Welcoming You Back Safely:

As you return to our physical space, your health and safety is our top priority. To learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new procedures visit our Welcoming You Back page.

Then The Morning Comes
Lydia Viscardi
Real Art Ways presents a solo exhibition by Newtown-based artist Lydia Viscardi, curated by David Borawski.
Join us as Real Art Ways on Friday, October 15, 6pm for an in-gallery artist talk by Lydia Viscardi.

Viscardi utilizes mixed media, oil, and collage to create paintings that depict complicated layered scenes. The resulting textures and saturated color palette encourages the viewer to explore every nook and cranny to discover what hides within their compositions. Found textiles and images offer uncanny moments of legibility in otherwise chaotic scenes.

About the Artist:

Lydia Viscardi is a representational mixed media artist whose exhibition venues include ODETTA Gallery (represented by ODETTA/1stdbs.com), Rick Wester Fine Arts, the Drawing Center, Walter Wickiser Gallery, AHA Fine Art, Sideshow Gallery, Active Space, Brooklyn Fireproof, Concepto Hudson and The Heckscher Museum of Art in New York; Center for Visual Arts, Power Art Center of William Paterson University and Victory Hall Drawing Rooms in New Jersey; Housatonic Museum of Art, The Barnum Museum, Ely Center for Contemporary Art, Artspace, Real Art Ways, Hans Weiss Newspace Gallery of Manchester Community College, and Schelfhaudt Gallery of the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, and Utah Art Alliance, Salt Lake City, UT. 

Viscardi’s work is in many private collections in the United States and in The Copelouzos Family Art Museum in Athens, Greece. In 2020, she had a solo show at Five Points Gallery in Torrington, CT. Upcoming exhibits this Summer, 2021 includes a solo show opening at Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT, the Summer Salon Exhibition at AHA Fine Art, Brooklyn and a summer group show at Rick Wester Fine Art, NYC. A solo show is planned at Rick Wester Fine Art in early 2022.

Welcoming You Back Safely:

As you return to our physical space, your health and safety is our top priority. To learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new procedures visit our Welcoming You Back page.

Photo Credit: John Groo

Online Artist Talks:
UHART Nomad MFA Thesis Exhibition
We invite you to a series of online artist talks by Hartford Art School’s Nomad MFA program, class of 2021.

The series will be streamed to Real Art Ways’ Facebook page on Tuesday, June 22, and Wednesday, June 23.

These talks are in conjunction with their group exhibition, Force Fields, open now through June 25 at the Joseloff Gallery on the University of Hartford’s campus.

Event Schedule:

Tuesday, June 22 | 6:30 – 8:00 PM

Mary Mattingly

Grace Poulsen

Aubrey Murdock

Wednesday, June 23 | 6:30 – 8:00 PM

Tara Long

Elizabeth Deák

Jess Blaustein

In addition to graduating students, artist and educator Mary Mattingly will present on River Labs, an ongoing course in the Nomad MFA program connecting artists with the rivers and waterways they live near. Students in the program have been working with Mattingly since its inception, presenting their findings at Real Art Ways in two previous exhibitions exploring the Park River. This series of talks is a continuation of that collaboration, offering students a chance to present their work to our audience at a crucial moment in their careers.

For more information on the group show Force Fields, click here to visit their website.

About Nomad MFA:

Created in 2015, the Nomad MFA program is an accredited, low-residency graduate program offered by the University of Hartford’s Hartford Art School. It features a high-impact, field-based curriculum that includes art, ecology, study of place, indigenous knowledge systems, and the craft-to-code technology continuum. The Nomad MFA is the MFA of the future, providing artists deeper ways of engaging with their home community and a network of communities in the Americas. Nomad MFA’s faculty and guest lecturers includes an international range of artists and curators, including Mary Mattingly, Marisa Williamson, Camila Marambio, Nico Wheadon, Mark Dion, and others.

Feature video by Aubrey Murdock

There’s a rumble beneath the tarp
Performance by
Kevin Quiles Bonilla

 To register for this free event, click here.

Real Art Ways presents the premiere of a new performance by Kevin Quiles Bonilla, titled There’s a rumble beneath the tarp. The filmed performance, lasting around 15 minutes, will premiere via Zoom and Facebook starting at 6:30 PM EDT on Thursday, July 8. A talkback with artist Kevin Quiles Bonilla will follow the premiere.

There’s a rumble beneath the tarp incorporates Bonilla’s use of lip-syncing as a “form of embodiment,” with his ongoing exploration of the blue tarp. According to the artist, the tarp acts as “the remnants of a trauma that remains with us”. Bonilla’s body will become a physical representation of a hurricane through movement and dress, moving along to Caribbean dance and bomba music.

The full event will last about 45 minutes. 

Accessibility: Automated closed captions will be provided by Zoom, and all images/videos will be visually described.          

There’s a rumble beneath the tarp is supported in part by the Artist Engagement Fund from the National Performance Network.

About The Artist:

Kevin Quiles Bonilla (b. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He received a BA in Fine Arts – Photography from the University of Puerto Rico (2015) and an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design (2018). He has recently presented his work at The Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, The Shelly & Rubin Foundation’s 8th Floor Gallery, Dedalus Foundation, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Project Space. He has been an artist in residence at Art Beyond Sight’s Arts + Disability Residency (2018-2019), Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Queer Performance Residency (2019) and LMCC’s Workspace Residency (2019-2020). He currently lives and works between Puerto Rico and New York.

Artist Conversation:
Kevin Quiles Bonilla

 To register for this free event, click here.

Exhibiting artist Kevin Quiles Bonilla is joined by Visual Arts Manager Neil Daigle Orians in a conversation surrounding the work in the solo exhibition, As the palm is bent, the boy is inclined.

Bonilla uses photography, installation, and performance to explore ideas around colonialism, queerness, and disability using a personal narrative as a catalyst. As the palm is bent, the boy is inclined incorporates historic Western depictions of Puerto Rico with recent events, blurring boundaries between exoticized fantasy and reality. This conversation will take an in-depth look at the individual works contained in the exhibition and the greater narrative they create together. Lasting about an hour, the event will include time for audience questions

This event will also be broadcast on our Facebook page.

About The Artist:

Kevin Quiles Bonilla (b. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He received a BA in Fine Arts – Photography from the University of Puerto Rico (2015) and an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design (2018). He has recently presented his work at The Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, The Shelly & Rubin Foundation’s 8th Floor Gallery, Dedalus Foundation, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Project Space. He has been an artist in residence at Art Beyond Sight’s Arts + Disability Residency (2018-2019), Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Queer Performance Residency (2019) and LMCC’s Workspace Residency (2019-2020). He currently lives and works between Puerto Rico and New York.

Artist Talk: Robin Crookall and Aude Jomini

To register for this free event, click here.

Real Art Ways presents an artist conversation surrounding the work in Robin Crookall’s solo exhibition, Part Fact, Part Aspect. Joining Crookall is artist, architect, and writer Aude Jomini. This conversation will explore Crookall’s conceptual and material considerations while creating her photographs. Crookall’s photographs are deceivingly simple images which do not reveal their secret until the viewer takes a closer look. What appears to be observational photographs of architecture becomes meticulously crafted sets made of cardboard, hot glue, and other “low craft” materials.

This event will also be broadcast on our Facebook page.

About the Panelists:

Robin Crookall is a 2021 finalist in The Print Centers’ 95th Annual International Competition. In Fall 2020 she completed a residency and solos show at Penumbra Foundation in New York City. Crookall is a 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in photography from The New York Foundation for the Arts. In 2016, Crookall recieved her MFA from New York University. In 2015 she completed a solo show at Seattle’s 4Culture Gallery and her post bacc at University of Montana. Crookall is currently living in Brooklyn and working on a self published book of images.

Aude Jomini is a Swiss-American artist and designer pursuing collaborative and cross-disciplinary projects in art and architecture. She holds a BFA in Painting from RISD and a M-ARCH from Yale School of Architecture. She is a Senior Associate at Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, and has served 5 years on Artspace’s Curatorial Advisory Board. She has also worked at Printed Matter Inc, Brooklyn Museum, and as a freelance designer.

Click Here for the exhibition catalogue, featuring an essay by Aude Jomini.
Artist Conversation: Felandus Thames, Kiese Laymon, Charlie R. Braxton and Noel W. Anderson

To register for this free event, click here.

4 outstanding Black artists and writers will take part in an online conversation sparked by Felandus Thames’ The Things That Haunt Me Still, on view at Real Art Ways, in Hartford, Connecticut. The dialogue will feature artist Felandus Thames, writers Kiese Laymon (Heavy: An American Memoir) and Charlie R. Braxton (Cinders Rekindled) and will be moderated by artist Noel W. Anderson.

This event will also be broadcast on our Facebook page.

About the Panelists:

Noel W. Anderson is an artist, and Assistant Professor in Printmaking at NYU. Anderson holds a BFA from Ohio Wesleyan, an MFA from Indiana University, and an MFA in Sculpture from Yale. He was recently included in the Studio Museum of Harlem’s exhibition Speaking of People: Ebony, Jet, and Contemporary Art.

 

 

Kiese Laymon from Jackson, Mississippi, is the author of the bestselling Heavy: An American Memoir, which won the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the 2018 Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, the Austen Riggs Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media, and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times.

 

Charlie R. Braxton is a poet, playwright and journalist born in McComb, Mississippi. He has published two volumes of poetry, Cinders Rekindled (2013), and Ascension from the Ashes (1991). His poetry has appeared in literary journals The Black Nation, Black American Literature Forum, Cutbanks, Drumvoices Review, Eyeball Literary Magazine, Shout Out UK, The San Fernando Poetry Journal, The Transnational and others.

 

Felandus Thames is a conceptual artist living and practicing in the greater New York area. Born in Mississippi, Thames holds an MFA from Yale. He has been included in exhibitions at the Kravets Wehby Gallery, Galerie Myrtis, Tilton Gallery, Heather James Gallery, Charles H. WrightMuseum, USF Contemporary Art Museum, International Center for Printmaking New York, and the African American Museum of Philadelphia.

Artist Talk: Catalina Ouyang and Catherine Damman

 To register for this free event, click here.

Real Art Ways exhibiting artist Catalina Ouyang is joined by writer and art historian Catherine Damman for a conversation surrounding the work in Ouyang’s solo exhibition, THE SIREN. Ouyang and Damman will engage in a dialogue covering the conceptual, formal, and material aspects of Ouyang’s sculptural approach to narrative and history.

This event will also be broadcast on our Facebook page.

About the Panelists:

Portrait of Catalina Ouyang

Catalina Ouyang’s solo exhibitions include: it has always been the perfect instrument at Knockdown Center (Queens, NY); marrow at Make Room (Los Angeles, CA); fish mystery in the shift horizon at Rubber Factory (New York, NY); blood in D minor at Selena Gallery (Brooklyn, NY); and an elegy for Marco at the Millitzer Gallery (St. Louis, MO). Ouyang has attended residencies at Shandaken: Storm King (New Windsor, NY), the NARS Foundation (Brooklyn, NY), OBRAS (Evoramonte, Portugal), and the Atlantic Center for the Arts (New Smyrna Beach, FL), with residencies forthcoming at the Vermont Studio Center and MASS MoCA. Ouyang is a 2020-21 Studio Artist at Smack Mellon (Brooklyn, NY). Ouyang has received awards from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts, the Puffin Foundation, the Santo Foundation, and the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation. Ouyang received an MFA from Yale University and is based in New York.

 

Portrait of Catherine Damman

Catherine Dammanis currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History at Wesleyan University and a Core Lecturer at Columbia University. Previously, she held an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Wesleyan’s Center for the Humanities and a Chester Dale Predoctoral Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art. With the support of a 2020 Terra Foundation for American Art Research Grant, she is at work on her monograph, which radically reconceptualizes the formation of “performance” in the 1970s. Her writing can be found in Artforum, Bookforum, 4Columns, BOMB, Frieze, Art in America, and elsewhere.

Situational Awareness
Jacob Cullers
Real Art Ways presents a solo exhibition of new work by 2020 Real Art Award recipient Jacob Cullers. 

Cullers combines found images printed on vinyl with canvas, animal pelts, and other materials to create layered paintings. Images are chosen from moments before, during, or after an act of violence, and combined with circular abstractions sourcing colors from the original image. Images include figures like Kyle Rittenhouse, Dylann Roof, Timothy McVeigh, and other perpetrators of high profile violence. His experience as an Air Force veteran informs his choices of events, images, and materials.

The title of the exhibition, Situational Awareness, comes from a military practice of the same name. Cullers says, “…there is a hyper sense of awareness when you’re in a hostile situation over a period of time. You bring this back and carry it with you after going to ‘war’.” 

About The Artist:

Jacob Cullers currently lives and works in New London, CT. His educational background includes a Bachelors of Fine Art with a Minor in Art History from the University of Hartford ‘15 and a Masters of Letters in Painting from the Glasgow School of Art ‘16 in Scotland, UK.  He served in the United States Air Force and is an Iraq war veteran.

About the Real Art Awards:

The Real Art Awards is an annual opportunity for emerging artists living in New England, New Jersey, or New York. The open call, offered with no entry fees to artists, attracts hundreds of applicants each year, of which 6 artists are chosen. Selected artists receive a solo exhibition, with a commissioned essay, professional documentation, and a cash prize of $2,500. The 2020 Real Art Awards was juried by artist and educator Mary Mattingly, Director of the Laundromat Project Kemi Ilesanmi, and Real Art Ways Executive Director Will K. Wilkins.

The 2020 Real Art Awards is supported in part by:

An award from the National Endowment for the Arts and an Excellence in the Arts award from the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation. Visual arts at Real Art Ways is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for Contemporary Art.

 

Hunting camo is stretched over stretcher bars with holes cut out depicting a photographic image inside circles are painted around the holes

8.12.17 Inkjet print on vinyl, hunting camo, and, oil 48 x 60 in. 2021

Featured image: 8.25.20 (detail) Oil, animal pelt, and inkjet print on vinyl, 2021 64 x 47 x 2 inches

 

Welcoming You Back Safely:

As you return to our physical space, your health and safety is our top priority. To learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new procedures visit our Welcoming You Back page.

As the palm is bent, the boy is inclined
Kevin Quiles Bonilla
Real Art Ways presents a solo exhibition of new work by 2020 Real Art Award recipient Kevin Quiles Bonilla. 

Bonilla uses video, photography, installation, sculpture, and performance. His solo exhibition incorporates archival research, both through the Library of Congress and his own familial history. According to the artist, this process explores “colonization through photography,” while, “unearthing the construction of an identity and a historic heritage.” Bonilla is one of 6 artists to be chosen for a Real Art Award in 2020.

In speaking about his practice, he says, “…my work seeks to unearth the construction of a queer, historic heritage, using my body as the political repository, colonized by multiple structures of power: As a Puerto Rican, as a diaspora migrant, as a person with a disability, and as a queer man. The work in this exhibition explores how colonialism plays a role in the different intersections of my identity.”

Click Here to view the exhibition catalogue and read the essay Inclination/Reclamation by danilo machado.

About The Artist:

Kevin Quiles Bonilla (b. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He received a BA in Fine Arts – Photography from the University of Puerto Rico (2015) and an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design (2018). He has recently presented his work at The Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, The Shelly & Rubin Foundation’s 8th Floor Gallery, Dedalus Foundation, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Project Space. He has been an artist in residence at Art Beyond Sight’s Arts + Disability Residency (2018-2019), Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Queer Performance Residency (2019) and LMCC’s Workspace Residency (2019-2020). He currently lives and works between Puerto Rico and New York. 

About the Real Art Awards

The Real Art Awards is an annual opportunity for emerging artists living in New England, New Jersey, or New York. The open call, offered with no entry fees to artists, attracts hundreds of applicants each year, of which 6 artists are chosen. Selected artists receive a solo exhibition, with a commissioned essay, professional documentation, and a cash prize of $2,500. The 2020 Real Art Awards was juried by artist and educator Mary Mattingly, Director of the Laundromat Project Kemi Ilesanmi, and Real Art Ways Executive Director Will K. Wilkins.

The 2020 Real Art Awards is supported in part by:

An award from the National Endowment for the Arts and an Excellence in the Arts award from the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation. Visual arts at Real Art Ways is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for Contemporary Art.

Image caption: Doris Bonilla Ramos and Kevin Quiles Bonilla, Self portrait as a young jíbaro (detail), 1996_2021, Analog photography, 4 x 6 in, courtesy of the artist.

Welcoming You Back Safely:

As you return to our physical space, your health and safety is our top priority. To learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new procedures visit our Welcoming You Back page.

A standing figure on a beach is obscured by a blue tarp with the ocean in the background

Carryover (Blue tarp in Vega Baja/Coney Island) [detail], 2021, (2) digital photographs / C-prints, 20 x 30-in., courtesy of the artist.