Horizon, a City Gallery Artists Group Exhibit

[Jen Payne]

Three City Gallery artists — William Frucht, Ruth Sack, and Michael Zack — come together to present HORIZON, an appropriately named show for the start of a new year. The group exhibit will be on view January 6 - 29, with an Artists’ Reception on Saturday, January 28, 1pm - 4 pm (Snow Date: January 29.)

The word horizon takes on many meanings — where the earth meets the sky, for example, or the limit of a person’s mental perception, experience, or interest. In that same way, this group show reflects many interpretations of its title, both representational and metaphorical.

Photographer William Frucht looks at a place where our past meets our present. His photographs of the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital reflect its present condition: half abandoned and half saved, our feelings toward it as conflicted as our relationship with immigration itself. “Almost all of us are immigrants or descended from immigrants — voluntary or not — and as a nation we revere that history while trying to keep it firmly in the past. Yet the past was no different.”

Painter and sculptor Ruth Sack considers “horizon” both literally and conceptually. Her paintings, called Randoms, consist of free-floating forms in a painterly space. If anything, they are anti-horizon as they do not have a horizon line and are not grounded in a sense of a conventional landscape. “The sculptures in this exhibit are a new horizon for me, in that I am pursuing new directions. These works are multi-colored reliefs, a considerable departure from earlier work. In this context, I am broadening my horizons.”

In artist Michael Zack’s Prints on Black Paper, the concept of “horizon” comes in exploring technique and what happens when we take another step forward in the process. As he explains, “often after printing a monotype or mono print, there is enough ink on the plate to pull a second print which is a pale copy of the original and is therefore referred to as a ‘ghost.’ It is always an experiment and I sometimes use that ‘ghost’ as a first step in making an entirely new print, exploring what comes next.”

HORIZON is free and open to the public, January 6 - 29, 2023. An Artists’ Reception will be held on Saturday, January 28, 1pm - 4 pm (Snow Date: January 29). City Gallery is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Gallery hours are Friday - Sunday, 1pm - 4 pm, or by appointment. City Gallery follows New Haven City’s mask mandate policy. For further information please contact City Gallery, [e-mail], www.city-gallery.org.