By JUDY LEE
“MENAGERIE”
Exhibit by Bailey Gillreath-Brown
Delaney’s Pub Side Gallery
883 Whalley Ave.
New Haven
May 6, 2026
A bear towered over me as I walked around Delaney’s Pub’s Side Gallery Wednesday evening. It was too busy gorging on blueberries to notice me looking up. I took a moment to enjoy the whimsy of the moment, as I was probably infiltrating its blueberry scavenging. Besides, when else would I see a bear dripping in gold paint?
I was looking at a painting called “Fat Bear,”,a piece in artist Bailey Gillreath-Brown’s first solo exhibit, MENAGERIE, held during this week’s annual Westville’s Art Walk.
In her own words, MENAGERIE refers to a grouping of collected pieces, and, I soon learned, of a collection of animals. The paintings and illustrations were naturally divided into two sections by a large window that let some light in despite the cloudy weather that evening.
On the far wall were paintings of solely animals, on carefully-peeled-back and gessoed, repurposed surfaces.
“I also have a theme of sustainability, where everything, all the canvases, all the frames, are all thrifted and repurposed. That used to be a ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ sign,” Gillreath-Brown recounted, pointing to a painting of three moths. “I thrift everything.” She motioned to her own outfit that day. “That’s just really my ethos in life, so I wanted to bring that to my art.”
Animals are a more recent fascination of Gillreath-Browns. Her fascination was born as an act of resistance against AI when a Beatrix Potter art generator was trending online. As she incorporated aniamls more into her work, she found the interest made sense, as she had always loved children’s books and fairytales. She dreams of writing and illustrating her own in the near future.
I discovered there was a narrative, no matter how small, to many of the pieces. The fox in “The Bounding Fox and the Circle of Life” was surrounded by all living things smaller than he was: a mouse burrowed underground, a worm carving out a path to the surface, bees pollinating, and a nest cradling unhatched eggs. “Checkered Woodpecker on a Checkerboard” made me smile, and intrigued me by its habitat peeking through a few thickly-painted squares. A delightful reminder of how working with what we have can give us inspiration and artistic opportunity.
On another wall were more varied illustrations, all fitting to Gillreath-Brown’s love of playfulness, magic, and folklore. “Anne of Green Gables through the Alphabet,” an ambitious twenty-six piece series, was thoughtfully teased with two pieces; below them, artgoers were redirected to Gillreath-Brown’s active social media for more, which we both agreed was a move perhaps necessary in this day and age.
There is an innate kindness and delight in many of Gillreath-Brown’s works, which sobered me up immensely from the dreary spring day outside. I said my final goodbyes to the “Fat Bear” to no response, of course, and headed out.
