The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum opens " Full Circle: Ten Years of Radius "

RIDGEFIELD, CT - The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum presents Full Circle: Ten Years of Radius, on view through June 7, 2009. Radius, the successful professional artist development program presented by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum and the Ridgefield Guild of Artists, has been instrumental in jump-starting the careers of many area artists. Now, the partners are pleased to announce Full Circle: Ten Years of Radius—a special anniversary exhibition which will celebrate the first decade of Radius.

The exhibition is curated by Regine Basha, an independent curator who has worked on a variety of projects in the United States and Canada over the past fifteen years. It is the first Radius presentation to be hung in The Aldrich’s galleries and surveys a diverse selection of recent works—including paintings, works on paper, sculpture, video, and collage—produced by alumni from the Radius: Emerging Artists from Connecticut and Southeastern New York exhibitions of the last decade.

All of the eighty-one outstanding artists whose work was shown were invited to submit samples of their latest work for review to Regine Basha. From these submissions, Basha selected fourteen artists to participate in the exhibition.

The artists whose work has been selected for the anniversary exhibition are: Kelly Bigelow Becerra (Bridgeport, CT), Jaclyn Conley (Brooklyn, NY), Paul Favello (West Haven, CT), Robert Federico (Mahopac, NY ), Beth Gilfilen (Jersey City, NJ), Jim Hett (Darien, CT), Bryan Jones (New Haven, CT), Nathan Lewis (New Haven, CT), Christopher Mir (Hamden, CT), Mari Ogihara (Mamaroneck, NY), Alyse Rosner (Westport, CT), Joseph Smolinski (New Haven, CT), Thuan Vu (Hamden, CT), and Benjamin Weiner (Long Island City, NY).

Curator Regine Basha commented, “When the artists submitted work for inclusion in Full Circle, I was pleased to learn how accomplished they are in their chosen mediums and surprised by the diversity of their approaches to art-making. I decided to allow that diversity to show through in this ten year survey and curated an exhibition that focuses on the power of the visual image.”

The Aldrich will host a reception to celebrate the exhibition on Sunday, December 14, 2008, from 3 to 5 pm. Prior to the opening, there will be a reunion for Radius artists at 2 pm, where the Museum will toast the successful program’s ten year anniversary exhibition with old and new participants and the community. Refreshments will be served.  Visit : http://www.aldrichart.org/