Since Sam Quigley became director of New London’s Lyman Allyn Art Museum in 2014 his mission has been not only to show art of the past but to give equal time to art of today. And so he created a series of changing exhibitions of contemporary art by regional artists in the museum’s Glassenberg Gallery that he calls "Near::New."

“I believe strongly that contemporary art has got to be a component of our daily menu of exhibitions,” Quigley stresses. “We are a museum. We are full of life. We want to show that the world is full of life and that art is being created today. Everybody may not love everything we show, but we want people to think, to engage in it, to be moved in one way or another by contemporary art.

Therefore, Quigley thought it was very important to not only designate a gallery to new works at the Lyman Allyn, but also to "show off what’s being done by the artists among us.”

He explains that the double colon used in classical logic between the words “Near” and “New” is to imply a certain level of equivalence or equal importance.

“In this series, it’s important that our artists are near to some manner of interpretation and new to some level of interpretation,” he says. “The ‘Near::New’ series is near to my heart.” 

‘Cued by Color’

The inaugural exhibition, which opened in November and continues through Jan. 31, is titled “Cued by Color” and features more than 20 paintings and mixed media works by Michael DesRosiers of Lyme.

Quigley says of the exhibit, “I’m highly biased and very intrigued by this. I love Michael’s work. I knew it had this incredible, intense color palette and in order to maximize the way Michael creates his art, I wanted to put it on a neutral background (what I call photographic gray) that really allows the work to sing, if you allow me to use a musical metaphor. That’s actually how I do see it. The work has got rhythm, tonalities, a lot of joy and depth, and I find it to be infinitely fascinating. That’s why I asked Michael to inaugurate this show and this series.”

The intense color that Quigley refers to in DesRosiers’ paintings were developed by applying very thin paint films “layer by layer by layer,” according to the artist, who sees his process as his own unique fingerprint or methodology.

“The luminosity is because of the many layers and you create these matrixes where the light penetrates and bounces back as opposed to just reflecting off the surface,” he explains.

Some of his paintings are years in the making as there are as many as 30 layers of paint on one piece and as many as 50 on another. In placing layer upon layer he says he is searching for the meaning of the image, which ultimately tells him when it’s done.

“There’s a point when you’re adding energy to a painting, working on it, and revisiting it,” DesRosiers says, “and then there’s a moment when the painting is giving me back more energy and infor mation that I gave it, and at that moment you realize it’s succeeded in communicating what it’s meant to do.”

DesRosiers has been living and working in an 18th-century hay barn in Lyme for 35 years. He grew up in Texas, received his BFA from the University of Texas and his master’s from New York University.

“Everything is so large in Texas, I learned intimacy up here,” he says. “When I was living in New York I thought I’d never leave New York, but my art is very nature-based in its complexity and color references, so I used to come out on weekends and then just decided it was much more nurturing to be out here (full-time) and be adjacent to the city, but not be in the city.”

DesRosiers executes his vertical-hanging paintings horizontally — painted flat using polymer paint on cradled medium density fiberboard — on very large worktables in his studio. He describes his painting method as “a sort of topographical landscape, looking down.”

“If they were to be painted vertically, the entire surface or image you see would just be a series of cascades of color because the color is so thin. So what happens is when the brush hits the edge, the residual paint runs down and so if they were painted vertically you wouldn’t be able to control the image because of the delicacy of the paint fill,” he notes.

Most of the paintings in the show are 4-by-4-foot squares, which DesRosiers points out is to allow the viewer to both stand up close and farther away and still get the full impact of the work, whereas very large paintings require that one stand at a distance to be fully experienced.

A series in cobalt blue of 12 smaller canvases (each 20 inches by 20 inches) implements a new technique DesRosiers developed in which he imbues the paint with photographic effects, creating a peaceful floating feeling.

DesRosiers sees his paintings as “nature enacted rather than nature replicated.” He says he hopes people will have their own interpretation of his work.

“I’m interacting with the active paint … but that duet of interaction at a certain point in time becomes irrelevant because there’s a meaningfulness to the actual painting, and that belongs to other people. It doesn’t belong to me anymore. It’s that direct factor of association that I think makes it exciting.”

He is very enthusiastic about the “Near::New” series at the Lyman Allyn.

“In talking with Sam I think he sees cross-fertilization between art of the moment and his responsibility to preserve and exhibit the art of the past and in juxtaposing the two, there is this tremendous vitality.

“I think it’s a very democratic and beautiful program to maintain another legacy for the Glassenberg family,” DesRosiers adds. “This is a living memorial to their generosity and I think it’s amazing to have something that’s constantly changing, like life, instead of another gallery of permanently installed things.”

IF YOU GO

What: "Cued by Color" - Paintings and Mixed Media Work by Michael DesRosiers

Where: Lyman Allyn Art Museum, 625 Williams St., New London

When: Tuesday - Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 1 - 5 p.m.; through Jan. 31

Info: www.lymanallyn.org or call (860)443-2545, ext. 129