The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

"Getting” Contemporary Art: Martha Diamond and A Garden of Promise and Dissent, full series

Purchase Tickets

Through this three-session course, participants will engage deeply with The Aldrich’s current exhibitions while having access to our galleries and the Museum’s Studio learning space in private evening sessions. Designed to provoke open and dynamic dialogue, these small classes will help participants learn to analyze, interpret, and discuss the contemporary artwork on view.

January 21: Martha Diamond: Deep Time

Participants will begin this class with close looking in the gallery, examining in detail Martha Diamond’s visionary paintings of the built environment. By studying Diamond’s preparatory monotypes, oil sketches, and finished works, we can begin to understand her method of capturing “perceptions” in paintings that hover between abstraction and figuration. The session will conclude in the classroom for a hands-on activity and slide presentation exploring the wide range of influences on Diamond’s work.

January 28: A Garden of Promise and Dissent, part one

Paradise [Lost]:

Participants will explore gardens as life-giving, healing environments, examining contemporary works in the show in the context of art historical precedents. Beginning in the studio, we’ll consider gardens as paradises, analyze the symbolism of certain plants in art history, and focus on the relationship between women and plant cultivation. The class will conclude in the galleries and participants will look closely at works that relate to the theme of healing, nourishment, and protection.

February 4: A Garden of Promise and Dissent, part two

Art[ifice] in the Garden:

This class will focus on gardens as artificial constructs created, maintained, and completed by humans. Through a slide presentation, we will consider the garden in art history, considering the way cultivation reflects imperial aspirations, trade, and the imposition of social controls. The class will conclude with an examination of works in the exhibition that relate to artifice, whether in materials, subject, or method of creation

Kristen Erickson has been teaching art history and curating exhibitions for the past three decades. She spent eight years working in the curatorial field at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Smith College Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art before turning to teaching. Kristen currently teaches art history at Greenwich Academy, where she also runs the campus art gallery. She holds degrees in French and art history from Vassar College and Oxford University. A resident of Ridgefield, Kristen loves making contemporary art come alive for new audiences.