Oskar Friedl Gallery has brought art to life in Bridgeport through its rich variety of artists and presentations. With a focus on multi-media works, abstract painting and photography, the open-air environment with high ceilings, wood beams and angled walls allows for such abstract and varied work to move and be seen in dynamic ways among different people.

Represented artists include Andre Ferrella, whose 2003 "Spirits" show used subtlety and scale to evoke an interactive experience that brought bodily images of spirits to life, or, rather, something like life. The in and out of focus, depending on one's vantage point, merged with notions of being in/out of reality or even in/out of life. Such moves away from object-oriented artworks lead the gallery toward a focus on an artist-centric experience, a focus that the gallery prides itself on. Viewers can expect that this emphasis will translate into a more viewer-centric experience as well.

Also represented is Cuban-born painter Paul Sierra, who produces figurative and landscape paintings in dynamic colors which seem to bring together stories from far-away places with fairytale-like lighting and detail. While not typically called "interactive," these types of paintings combine melting imagery and an emotional intensity that quickly results in a vigorous dreamlike curiosity. Consistently, the work presented at Oskar Friedl prompts this reaction, a specific yet wide-reaching one that keeps its audience looking for what questions and interactions each new show may stir up.

Oskar Friedl Gallery is housed in the Zhou B. Center arts complex, a Bridgeport arts staple run by Chinese-American artists the Zhou Brothers, who also show their massive and abstract historically inspired paintings at Oskar Friedl. The Zhou B. Center thrives as a home to several other galleries and studios, an art appraiser and the Curatorial Resource Network (CRN), a service devoted to a range of resources from curating to collecting.

Centerstage Reviewer: Heather Blaha