New Haven exhibition turns trash into art

Lunch Money Print, an online marketplace and art curating company that sells works from established and rising artists, is holding its biggest show ever, with the exhibition “New Haven: Disposable Aesthetics.” Here, Daniel Eugene flashes his colorful fingernails in front of a backdrop of repeating commercial images. less Lunch Money Print, an online marketplace and art curating company that sells works from established and rising artists, is holding its biggest show ever, with the exhibition “New Haven: Disposable ... more Photo: Jake Dressler / Photo: Jake Dressler / Image 1 of / 11 Caption Close New Haven exhibition turns trash into art 1 / 11 Back to Gallery

Lunch Money Print, an online marketplace and art curating company that sells works from established and rising artists, is holding its biggest show ever, with the exhibition “New Haven: Disposable Aesthetics” featuring artwork exploring consumer culture surrounding disposable items, while suggesting a certain immortality that exists beyond their expendability.

The business, started by Chris O’Flaherty and Mark Donne two years ago in New Haven, got the idea to display artists’ work in the local art scene through pop-up exhibitions after the team saw success in several prototype shows. The Disposable Aesthetics show features six artists from Connecticut, New York City Rhode Island. O’Flaherty and Donne said they plan to bring the show to Boston, Providence and New York.

The exhibition is themed around single-use items that people are accustomed to trashing.

The show will be held from Friday through Sunday in Hull’s art studio in downtown New Haven, right above the Hull’s Art Supply and Framing store at 144 Chapel St. The space is being repurposed for the show with decorations that are in line with the theme of disposability, including a wall punctured with hundreds of straws and pictures of cereal boxes plastering the hallway.

“This exhibition is about consumer culture expressed through excess and indulgence,” O’Flaherty said.

The artists

Michael Angelis is a New Haven-based artist working out of his studio in Foundry Square at 169 East St. In this show he will feature his disposable collection of watercolors and wood cut pieces that aim to immortalize temporary everyday items such as soy sauce packets, chopsticks, plastic bags, and wrappers.

“This series is focused on single use or disposable food containers that have a lifespan of about 20 minutes on average yet have years of aesthetic evolution and development,” said Angelis, “The appearance is so immediately recognizable to the everyday consumer who may not take time to digest the packaging design. It’s a celebration of the everyday objects painstakingly painted at a slowly considered pace, even though it’s consumed as a product incredibly quickly.”

- Daniel Eugene is a photographer and artist based in New Haven. He manages NHV Drag, a social media company that documents the local drag scene through photography. He’s showcasing a series of commercial photographs that call out the normalized absurdity of commercialism with a stylistic nod to Andy Warhol. Photographs of trash overlaid on backgrounds of consumer goods draw parallels between the expendability they represent. “Visually these images make a huge impact,” said Eugene. The art is meant to convey “The seduction of commercialism and how visual that influence and that power is” he said.

- Nick McKnight is based out of the New London Hygenic community, an art residency and gallery. He is installing five neon glass clouds above a patch of faux moss to create an immersive, vibrant landscape that lends to the theme of excess. The idealistic dream clouds symbolize the bright, flashy neon signs traditionally used to captivate consumers. While normally perceived as soft and docile, these clouds are made from glass to represent the fragile and hazardous realities of consumerism.

- Alex Puz, who is based in Queens, has a conceptual background steeped in modernism. His visually vibrant paintings explore 2-dimensional space and capture the fractal computer chip spaces of the mind. Puz said his art is “Dovetailing with this idea of compressed spaced, particularly urban living.” He said his art represents everyday experiences of the modern world. “Trying to get to your job on time, trying to keep up with everything on social media. That’s how I came to this style of painting, very hard edged, very compressed and linear. That goes together with disposable aesthetics because we’re talking about the modern age and what cost it has. This is more of a mental, emotional cost as opposed to the other artists who are doing a more physical cost.”

- Kerryanne Celona is a poet and visual artist based in Providence. She’s into abstract art and midcentury modernism. She’s displaying an 80-inch monumental painting titled “Pompei,” dubbed so for its volcanic form. “I responded to comments that said it looked like an aerial landscape,” she said “I worked intuitively to make it but the image of Pompei came to mind after I made it as an explosion through the color or as described online as lava. It is from a contemporary view I have an interest in carnal desires, compulsions and addictions, an excess of filling holes in the spirit to seek out satisfaction. I’m using acrylic so there’s a certain amount of fakeness to it.”

- Rebecca Aloisio is a Syracuse-based artist whose work is composed of a combination of traditional and digital techniques. She uses print mediums such as monotypes and etching to dissect visual spaces and subvert them into new perspectives. She has been featured in countless publications including the Ithaca times and the Boston Voyager.