Made Visible

Creative Arts Workshop is pleased to announce that artists Margaret Roleke, Shaunda Holloway, and Annie Sailer have been selected to present their work in CAW’s upcoming fall 2020 windows exhibition.

With this upcoming exhibition, CAW seeks to explore issues of our time and of our city and region, and asked CT-based artists to create proposals for site-specific window installations at 80 Audubon Street that explore issues that our community is grappling with. Because the building, including the gallery spaces, are still closed to the public due to COVID-19, CAW asked artists to design their installations to be viewed streetside through the gallery windows. The call for work encouraged proposals from artists whose work affirms the importance of black and brown lives, lived experiences, influence, and culture in our community and nation.

Submitted proposals were reviewed by a panel of local arts leaders, including Jacob G. Padrón, Artistic Director of Long Wharf Theatre, Lisa Dent, Executive Director of Artspace, Luciana Q. McClure, Co-founder of Nasty Women Connecticut, and Anne Coates, Executive Director of Creative Arts Workshop.

The windows exhibition runs from September 28th through January 4th, cycling through three displays with accompanying online programming by the artists. The windows of Hilles Gallery at Creative Arts Workshop can be viewed at any time via Audubon Street, and the online programming will be free and open to the public via Zoom.

The first exhibition features works by artist Margaret Roleke, whose new cyanotype projects address New Haven as a sanctuary city, COVID-19, healthcare, and Black Lives Matter. Roleke’s cyanotype installation at CAW will launch on World Cyanotype Day.

In November, the gallery windows will feature the work of Shaunda Holloway for the second exhibition in this series. Using photo montage monotype on cotton, Holloway creates portraits of local people and “[reveals] the impact of Black and Brown lives on our community.”

The third and final exhibition, featuring works by Annie Sailer, will feature brightly colored, large-scale canvases “inspired by the ongoing struggle of black and brown people to be visible, heard, and respected as equal; and informed by the aesthetics of African American youth culture including graffiti, sneaker design, and fashion; the quilts of Gee’s Bend, and by West African textile design.”

“CAW is very excited to launch this new program as a way to present works by Connecticut-based artists,” said Executive Director, Anne Coates. “We love the opportunity to use our windows to more fully engage with passers-by and enliven the Audubon Arts District, especially during this time of closure due to COVID.”

This exhibition and public programs are made possible, in part, from public funds from the Neighborhood Cultural Vitality grant program, City of New Haven. We are grateful for this important support.

For more information, please contact gallery@creativeartsworkshop.org.