is　excited to present its summer show – an exhibition of sculpture by Ridgefield artist Jim Felice. The exhibit, entitled “Fresh Pop!” will showcase Felice’s unique twist on objects of play and chance – common dice, the Sorry! pawn, and the iconic red and white bucket of popcorn. Using industrial materials, the sculptor explores a variety of forms, colors, sizes and configurations, examining how these objects occupy space and relate to each other. Felice incorporates a sense of playfulness in these larger than life, color-infused, morphed objects. A focal point of the exhibition, Felice traverses from the relatively wholeness of his dice tables to his fully deconstructed dice wall sculpture. As the dice are unraveled, the viewer is challenged with the larger game of life and reminded of the role that chance plays. As a fine art sculptor and restorer, Felice has secured many fabrication and restoration commissions by galleries, estates and collectors, restoring sculpture by numerous noted artists. The show will run from July 28 – September 3, 2012, with the opening reception on Saturday, July 28, 2012 from 4-7 PM. The public is invited and refreshments will be served. Previews and private showings are by appointment only.

Working out of his studio space in Danbury, Felice’s gravitates to using materials of the like - raw steel and aluminum, car parts, fiberglass, paint, and machinery.　 As in Pop Art, the sculptor focuses on objects of mass culture - everday objects - in this body of work. Appropriately, the words on the vintage popcorn bucket have inspired and been reconfigured by the artist as the show’s title “Fresh Pop!”. As Felice’s dice unravel, the artist is able to manipulate their form from closed to open, flat, or detached sides, and focus on the connection between planes and the interaction of light and color.

Felice’s aluminum and steel dice sculpture take on many sizes and forms – free-standing solid and deconstructed cubes, as well as wall sculptures configured from individual planes detached from the cube. Unlike the familiar die, the patterns of round dots that signify a number from 1-6, called pips, are punched out, allowing light and shadow to interact with the sculpture and its environment, while the inside and outside colors of the cube play off each other. A highlight of the show will include pairs of aluminum dice splitting open with each of the die’s 6 sides measuring 2 feet square, approaching 5 to 6 feet in length.

Felice’s wall constructions are configured from multi-colored, varied sized aluminum and birch plywood dice panels. Another highlight of the exhibition, “Out of Chaos” consists of twelve 2 feet square machined-aluminum panels that will approach twenty feet in length. Another sculpture will contain 6 – 2 feet square aluminum panels configured into a cross formation, inspired by dice unraveling until they come to rest in a totally flattened state, resembling a human form exhausted and laying horizontally. Here we can image reconstructing the die to resemble the common die, with the sum of the numbers on opposite planes adding up to seven. The artist additionally created minimal paintings while exploring color pairings of birch plywood die planes in calculated number combinations.

The show will also include an overflowing popcorn container, towering over 5 feet tall, modeled after the iconic red & white cardboard box. A collection of Sorry! pawns in bright colors – blue, green, red, and yellow – will also be on view. Inspired by the board game, Felice has constructed the pawns of cast fiberglass and epoxy resin, enhancing each pawn to just over 1 1/3 feet in height.

Jim Felice’s sculptures have been shown in numerous exhibitions, including Bartlett Arboretum, Stamford Ct; The Upstairs Gallery at Molten Java, Bethel, CT; SCOTT & BOWNE, Silvermine Art Center, New Canaan, CT; Time Inc./Kohler, Time Warner Center, NYC, NY; The Stamford Museum and Nature Center (Stamford, CT); Opus Gallery, Northern Westchester Center for the Arts, Mount Kisco, NY; The Sculpture Barn, New Fairfield CT; Zoe and Floyd Gallery, Seymour, CT; The Maija Veide Gallery, Pound Ridge, NY, and and Colby College, Waterville, ME. His work can be found in the Kohler Art Collection, Kohler Wisconsin and several private collections. Felice has restored sculpture by noted artists including Alexander Calder, Anthony Caro, George Condo, Carol Dunham, Mark DiSuvero, Red Grooms, Keith Haring, Mara Haseltine, Robert Indiana, Alexander Liberman, Roy Lichtenstein, Marisol, Henry Moore, Louise Nevelson, Claes Oldenburg, Sol Lewitt and Joel Shapiro.

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, Fine Art & Furnishings

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