Thursday, December 5, 2019 at 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
New Canaan Library
151 Main Street
New Canaan, CT 06840
New Canaan Library presents “Small Works Big Talent” by artists Natale Adgnot, Holly Hawthorn, Amy Kaplan, Tara Kovach, Susan Leggitt and Tracy Penn on view in the Curtis Gallery from December 3 – January 20, 2020.
Join us for a lavish art opening reception on December 5th at 6:00pm. Q&A with the artists will begin at 6:30 p.m.
Everyone welcome!
NATALE ADGNOT’s practice was formed at the intersection of graphic design, fashion, and art. Her career has included work at Christie’s auction house in New York, Chanel in Paris, and the Fashion Institute of Technology. Natale received her Bachelor of Fine Art Degree in Advertising, Graphic Design, Photography and English from Sam Houston State University.
Natale merges a fascination with science and patterns to create graphic and geometric sculptures and paintings. Like solving puzzles, she sets arbitrary rules and follows them to their logical conclusions. An underlying preoccupation with repetition and structure leads her to devise and then decode these riddles repeatedly.
Natale has had several Solo and Dual Exhibitions and has participated in Art Fairs and Group Exhibitions in New York City and Tokyo. She has taught at both the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York, and the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA.
A dual citizen of the United States and France, Adgnot has lived in Paris, Tokyo, and many states in the US. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn where she maintains her studio.
HOLLY HAWTHORN is a sculptor, printer and ceramic artist. She has studied Art at the New School in NYC, The Athens Center in Greece, University of Urbino in Italy, and MECA in Maine. Holly received her graduate degree from Southern Connecticut University, and taught Art for many years at Weston High School. There, she fostered her students’ creative spirit and helped them along their personal journeys in creative exploration.
Holly’s work is playful and thought provoking, cheerful and memorable. Her porcelain sculptures reflect her love of the ocean and beaches. Her monoprints evoke the serenity of calm water scenes. She has been recognized for her art journaling, a practice she has maintained for over forty years. Her journals of watercolors and writings from her extensive travels were featured in a solo show in Redding, CT.
Hawthorn maintains a studio at the American Fabrics Building in Bridgeport, CT. Her work is shown in galleries throughout the Northeast as well as in international art competitions.
AMY KAPLAN is an artist, community activist and event planner. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University’s Visual and Performing Arts School in Surface Pattern Design and began her career as a textile designer and colorist in the home textile industry in NYC.
Retiring to Connecticut to raise a family and freed from the “commercial” restrictions of her earlier career, Amy has been painting and exploring with color and pattern where she is no longer bound by any rules. She likes to play! Amy will often work an idea or theme in many techniques or materials, where she sees each variable adding a different quality that contributes to the conversation between herself, the evolving work, and the viewer.
In addition to creating original artwork, Amy works as an independent creative consultant to various local non-profit groups, businesses, and municipalities to foster connections and opportunities to integrate the arts into the fabric of communities. Amy has produced several Pop-Up Galleries, exhibits and experiential arts events, and is passionate about the ways in which the creative arts can bring people together and help them hear each other.
Amy is a current board member of Ridgefield Guild of Artists, a member of the Westport Arts Center, Westport Artist Collective and Rowayton Arts Center. She maintains a home studio in Norwalk, CT.
TARA KOVACH started drawing and painting relatively late in life when she was in high school and living in upstate New York, just south of Albany. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Studio Art at Ithaca College and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Inspired by the landscape and the intricacies of natural objects, Tara’s abstracts can be both vast and careful observations of magnified views. Although many of her paintings are abstract, she continually returns to painting more representational landscapes to refuel her color and mark making vocabulary. For Tara there is a constant connection to the world she is seeing around her.
Tara has exhibited her work extensively in the northeast and in Savannah and Atlanta, Georgia. She has had several solo exhibitions and her work has found its way into many private collections across the country. Tara has also been commissioned to paint multiple paintings. Her work has been featured in many area publications, including a feature article in New Canaan/Darien Magazine in February 2007.
Tara maintains a home studio in Wilton, Connecticut.
SUSAN LEGGITT began her life as an artist as soon as she could hold a crayon. Being artistic her entire life, she creatively propelled herself through school, which led her to a successful career as a graphic designer and art director. Her career as a fine artist began to re-emerge several years ago when she began to study under Frank Bruckmann. She has also studied under Alex McFarlane and Dean Fisher at the Silvermine School of Art, and William McCarthy.
Inspired by the rugged and beautiful coast of Maine, Susan’s work reflects a deep connection to the water, coastline and sky, especially to the natural forms created by tidal streams, rock formations and marshes. The play of light and color, warmth and coolness, depth and atmosphere, all take on a role in each painting. Important to each work is a sense of place, connection and serenity.
Susan has been active in many regional arts and community organizations, including serving as the president of the Rowayton Arts Center. She has accumulated many awards for her artwork, including the Sydney and Arthur Eder Foundation Award, from the 2008 New Haven Paint & Clay Annual Exhibition. She is represented by the Watershed Gallery in Ridgefield, Connecticut and has exhibited widely throughout Fairfield County, including several solo shows.
A native of Connecticut and Norwalk resident, Susan is a member of Firing Circuits Artists in Norwalk where she has her studio.
TRACY PENN became a full-time working artist in January 2017, after a lifetime of working in art-related fields. Tracy worked for over a decade in advertising and then at both MOMA and the Guggenheim. Tracy received her BA in Art History from Boston University and a Masters’ Degree in Arts Administration from NYU.
Tracy often works with discarded materials to transform or upcycle unwanted objects to create something which is more meaningful and more visually expressive than the original object. Her work often involves scraping away layers to reveal what is hidden beneath allowing her to transform her work over time.
Tracy’s artistic training has also included studies in black and white photography at The International Center for Photography, and in interior design, color theory, art history, textiles, and drafting at the New York School for Interior Design. She has also attended courses and workshops at the Arts Students League in mixed media, encaustic, oil painting, and abstract art., and furthered her studies of encaustics with a number of workshops with a range of highly regarded instructors working in that medium.
Tracy maintains a home studio in Brooklyn.