'A•ONE' Signature Exhibition On Display At Silvermine Galleries

NEW CANAAN, CT — The Silvermine Arts Center's 72nd "A•ONE" signature exhibition is now open at Silvermine Galleries and will be on displace until late October.

According to a news release provided by the arts center, A•ONE celebrates a wide spectrum of forms and ideas, as well as innovation in composition and materials. A•ONE, which began in 1949, is known equally for compelling works of art and for the luminaries who have served as jurors.

As Silvermine Arts Center marks its 100-year anniversary, A•ONE is a testament to Silvermine’s enduring presence in the quicksilver world of contemporary art, according to the arts center. The exhibition runs from Sept. 3 through Oct. 20.

Sharon Butler, a painter, writer and founder of "Two Coats of Paint," served as juror for this year’s A•ONE. Butler was drawn especially to "meaningful threads" running through an artist’s work, according to the arts center.

"Such a thread might be a particular point of view, a preoccupation with process, a focus on a specific material, or the unfolding of a certain kind of content," Butler said in a news release. "I also seized on work that revealed a subtle knowingness and sense of humor about the history of art, the nature of perception, and the human condition."

Butler also said she was "heartened to see so many artists rising to the challenges of a difficult world." She commented on the abundance of fine work, including Jason Lipow’s "loose and evocative materiality," Loren Eiferman’s wide range of influences and "delicate sense of irony" and Carmen DeCristo’s portraits of fellow trans community members, or "photographs that are deeply engaged in the details of context and framing."

Among the more unconventional pieces is Weina Li’s telescope that looks back at the viewer, according to the arts center. Sharon Butler described Board Chair Grand Prize Award winner Elizabeth Gilfilen as a painter whose recent pieces "traffic in a kind of turbulent chaos, like a single tumbleweed on a prairie, but tempered by elegant line, assured brushwork, and subtle color combinations."

The Board Chair Grand Prize, which was awarded to Gilfilen for Elastic Cleft and her large-scale oil painting, includes a future solo exhibition in the Silvermine Galleries.

Loren Eiferman of Katonah, N.Y., was the recipient of the Carole Eisner Sculpture Award. The Mollie + Albert Jacobson Sculpture Award went to Jason Lipow of Glenmoore, Penn.

Andrew McKay of Vancouver, B.C., Canada, received the Patricia Warfield Jinishian Figurative Award. Todd Arsenault of Carlisle, Penn., and Meghan Cox of Philadelphia, Penn., received Jerry’s Artarama of Norwalk Awards.

Winners of Silvermine’s Awards of Excellence included Jeanne Ciravolo of Hamden, Tielin Ding of New York, N.Y, Jane Ehrlich of Hudson, N.Y., Laurel Marx of New York, N.Y., and Carol Paik of New York, N.Y.

A complete list of artists selected for this year’s A•ONE can be found at www.silvermineart.org.