New London City Hall Shows Its Support for the Art Community

New London has been a center for emerging and established artists for a while. Sometimes it manifests on a large scale like at the “Bizarre Bazar” during Sail Fest and during the monthly “”. Other times on a smaller almost underground scale like popup shows that last a for a few days or up to a week such as those produced by the Bump Gallery and by D---kchicken at the former MUSE. Now, the center of town, has very quietly entered the gallery scene by opening up its walls to artists in the area.

City Hall had its first art opening reception on Friday, the night of the second NL Art Night. May’s Art Night was highly successful over all, supported by beautiful weather and additional effort made in advertising and funding for live music.

On its first night as a gallery the center of town managed to follow the underground path, as not too many New Londoners and artists are aware that the municipal building has taken this initiative to support the art’s community.  It will not stay that way for long as Mark Roberts of the plans to have fliers, banners, signs and A-stands ready for the next opening reception in June.  Next month will be featuring the art done as part of the many youth programs produced by the school. City Hall is also by nature a very high traffic high profile establishment providing lots of opportunities for exposure and paths for word of mouth to spread the news.

It was not a difficult task to convince city officials to allow local art to be displayed in the building as they welcomed the idea with open arms. “I approached a few city officials like [city manager] Denise Rose about getting art into City Hall and she responded ‘Absolutely’,” says Mark Roberts. “We’ve also been asked by the City Council to give priority to youth artists”

“What really piqued my interest was the student art show at the and how successful that was,” says Mayor Martin Olsen “we’ve had small youth displays in the hall recently…but we want to have regular displays”

In all, 12 artists participated in the show adorning the walls and pedestals of the hall with 41 pieces of work. The work spanned many different media including photo manipulation, sculpture and illustration.

Mark Roberts spearheaded the production acting as curator and coordinator of the City Hall show while successfully running the opening reception for “Butterflies in Motion” at his own Tsetse gallery,“ a production that involved the release of hundreds of butterflies in the gallery to complement the butterfly themed art.

“I feel that downtown New London is experiencing a renaissance in the arts and…it is great that City Hall is trying to support this effort,” says Susan Hickey, one of the featured artist’s with four pieces of her color pencil work on display.

Even with all of the participants and pieces of work photo manipulation artist Viktoria Mullin originally of Ukraine was “surprised seeing still empty walls in the City Hall. There is plenty of space for even more artists in the Hall.”  Her work at City Hall featured tall ships that have docked in New London.  She also contributed to the show at the TSETSE Gallery across the street.

City Hall intends to display artists on a monthly basis adding itself to the roster of galleries taking part in NL Art Night.  Look out for news of future art shows at the building.