FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Underwater Kite: Gallery Launch

“Tar & Feathers”, is the inaugural exhibition of Underwater Kite, the new avant-garde gallery and arts educational space in Windsor, Connecticut, which opened on June 20th, 2026. The exhibit is a salon-style group show featuring 78 artists from across New York, New England and the Midwest. “Tar & Feathers” brings together the most compelling artworks of the region in the disciplines of painting, sculpture, photography, video, and installation art. With a tip of the hat to the concept of cancel culture - both past and present - some of the work in this show reflects current events, while many of the selections explore more personal issues - as well as pure celebrations of color, form and concept. Art-making has always been activism, and especially in these times, the creation and presentation of art is at the heart of cultural discourse.

UWK is the brainchild of Antony Zito, portrait artist, mural painter, and former Associate Director/Curator of Parkville Art Gallery. Zito’s experience as a curator and gallery director spans three decades including Zito Studio Gallery in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and his time as a Founding Director Emeritus of the NYC nonprofit, 4heads Inc, which presented Portal/Governors Island Art Fair in NY Harbor from 2008 - 2019. Pulling from his immersion in the NY and CT art scenes, Zito has culled together what he considers the cream of the crop for the very first public invitation into Underwater Kite. Six of the artists whose work is featured in “Tar & Feathers” are no longer with us, and UWK has chosen to include selections of their work as a tribute to their memory. All of the artists in the show will contribute one or more pieces to the main exhibition as well as to the Underwater ArtShop, a retail space for small works, prints, books, and apparel.

To ensure the architecture and foundation of Underwater Kite, Zito has partnered with Cynthia Bulaong, the Executive Director of the nonprofit, Artists in Real Time, Inc. To those familiar with the Connecticut art scene, Cynthia’s name is synonymous with masterful, large-scale event production. A.R.T. presents the annual, sprawling Open Studio Hartford event, as well as Art in the Park Manchester, and many more regional cultural experiences. Cynthia and Antony joined forces over the goal to fill the need for a new art gallery in the Greater Hartford area - one with a decidedly dynamic aesthetic vision.

“Underwater Kite is a purposefully curated white-box gallery,” says Zito, “part of the new renaissance that the town of Windsor is currently in the midst of. We aim to provide an anchor of support for the local arts community - featuring art that is not so formally traditional, or heady and over-conceptualized - but work that takes chances, is more bold and vital - rich in ideas, color and emotional depth."