In his day job, Noah Loesberg is a woodworker, constructing cabinetry for homes and art institutions, and has become acquainted with what he calls “the methods of the built environment.”
“An architect might draw a cube but the builder has to decide how to build that cube using standard materials and standard ways of using materials. It’s the juncture of the overall design of architecture, interpreted through the lens of these standards,” Loesberg says. “It’s not the overt design of a building but the ways the building had to be built based on standards.”
Loesberg, whose work is on the walls at Real Art Ways in Hartford, saw a semblance of the built environment one day when he saw a stack of Jersey barriers beside a road.
“The stack caught my eye. … If you assign the highway guys to put all these barriers somewhere they stack them as tall and safely and as efficiently as they can,” he said. “It’s elegant efficiency, it’s simplicity, not part of design of highway barrier.”
Loesberg’s artworks are drawings, with oil stick and wax, and sculptural constructions of stacks of Jersey barriers. The sculptures hew to the simplicity of the roadside stack, but Loesberg’s drawings show the Jersey barriers willy-nilly, in a variety of much more inefficient configurations.
He cited as an inspiration for his work the art of Rachel Whiteread, the British sculptor who creates casts of everyday objects, such as furniture and architectural elements, to capture the essence of the objects.
His construction work helps fuel his projects, he says.
“My jobs bring me to those places where there is always a new source of material to look at.”
NOAH LOESBERG: NIGHT WORK is at Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor St. in Hartford, starting July 19, with a reception at 6 p.m., until Sept. 9. realartways.org.
On Other Walls
“Freedom Dreams,” an exhibit of work by four local artists who came to Hartford as refugees — Georges Annan Kingsley from Ivory Coast, Adeebah Alnemar from Syria, Marc Yves-Regis from Haiti and Pah Lu from Burma — will be at Hartford Public library, 500 Main St. in Hartford, starting on July 20, with a reception from 1 to 2 p.m. The reception will follow a performance from noon to 1 p.m. by Mona Golabek, the star of Hartford Stage’s “The Pianist of Willesden Lane.” www.hplct.org.
The Mary C. Daly RSM Art Gallery at Mercy by the Sea, 167 Neck Road in Madison, will show photography by Elisabeth J Levy until Aug. 15. mercybythesea.org.
Spectrum Gallery, 61 Main St. in the Centerbrook section of Essex, presents “The Road Less Taken“ from July 20, with a reception from 6:30 to 9 p.m., until Sept. 9 Artists include Aleta Gudelski, Rosemary Webber, Gigi Liverant, Carol Dunn Christopher Brown, Pam Carlson, Gabriella DuCharme, Pat Tanger, Mark Rich, Gigi Genovese, Jane Penfield, Rita Bond, Amanda Merritt, Catherine Satsuk, Denise Gaffney Hartz, Diane Cadrain, Deborah Simmons, Heidi Coleman, Marsha Borden, Margaret vonKleist Edmond, Dianne Roberts, Faith Bilansky, George Fellner, Howard Margules, Larry Bilansky, Paul Ramsey, Sally Perreten, Robert Thomas and Maryann Flick. spectrumartgallery.org.
“Robert Cronin: Imaginary Paintings” is at David M. Hunt Library, 63 Main St. in the Falls Village section of Canaan, from July 21, opening with a reception from 4 to 6 p.m., until Aug. 11. huntlibrary.org.
