A Place I’ve Been
Paintings by Andre Rochester, Food by Daryeal Murphy
The Table & Gallery
New Haven
Sept. 27
Staring out to the viewer are two wide-awake eyes, seeming to take in visions from dimensions beyond our comprehension. The deepest interior reveals an exterior; inside the pupils are clouds, making the streaky blues and greens of the iris appear like the tops of a forest in a fisheye lens.
If their piercing stare seems at odds with the painting’s title, “Eyes Haven’t Seen,” that’s because it is just one element of a bigger picture. The series this painting belongs to, called “A Place I’ve Been,” was created over the past two years by artist, educator, and creative consultant Andre Rochester to depict visions he had following a four-day coma in 2023.
“I felt I wasn’t allowed to see what I went through,” he said, “But I felt everything.”
It was the latest installment at The Table & Gallery, an art gallery and culinary event space on Chapel Street in Downtown New Haven. Rochester’s paintings were tastefully paired with the works of Chef Daryeal Murphy, who named his menu “The Greater Purpose Dinner.” Attendees spent the first half of the evening admiring the artwork, and then they settled in for dinner and conversation.
Rochester started his painting series in October 2023. His coma was only one month prior, in September, following a surgery that went well until it didn’t.
“I tried to breathe. It didn’t work out,” Rochester explained simply. As he gasped for air, his lungs collapsed and filled with fluid. The doctors put him under a medically induced coma as they stabilized him over the next four days.
In the meantime, Rochester was on a spiritual journey deep inside. His piece “Reaper’s Reach” underscores the dire stakes.
In the painting, a mysterious figure is reaching out, but he isn’t able to grasp the object of his desire. Something is blocking him: the practical limitations between a canvas and its viewer, as well as the spiritual protections Rochester felt around him in his most uncertain moments.
The striking white ring around the pupils in “Eyes Haven’t Seen” reveal another layer in Rochester’s symbolism. The reference, he told me, comes from an image of an eclipse. Not a regular eclipse viewed from our planet. It was an image of an eclipse as viewed from the moon, with the Earth blocking the sun.
The celestial component adds to the mystery of Rochester’s allusions to the “Place I’ve Been.” Wherever it was, it seems it cannot be explained by the rules of the everyday.
“Push, and Pull,” a painting of a figure in the middle of a journey on a light-beam through the clouds, illustrates Rochester’s journey as a multidirectional one. It shows an in-between space, where a limp figure could either progress or return.
Rochester, it seems, was destined to return.
“There’s so much more in store for me,” Rochester said, celebrating new possibilities as attendees tucked in to the multi-course meal.
Murphy went through a journey of his own that prompted him to reshape his outlook on the world. As we ate, he told us about his divorce and the death of his mother, which happened in quick succession. “It shook my reality,” he said.
What was important to him now was “us communing and us being of service to each other.”
Murphy described his style of cooking as simple and rustic. Rather than take the ingredients too far from their original form, Murphy celebrates each element’s truth. “I want you to see the things you’re eating,” he said.
The result is hearty and exquisite, a thoughtful mix of flavors blending together in rich harmony.
Murphy’s scallion vinaigrette Brussels sprout starter blessed diners with a heavenly ratio of savory and sweet, melting on the tongue. The dessert, dubbed “Andre’s Chocolate Cake,” was a heartfelt take on a well-loved classic, the moist cake paired with a smooth, light cream.
Murphy was generous enough to reveal the secret ingredient in his fragrant mulligatawny soup: Granny Smith apples.
They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but Murphy’s apples are generally in cahoots with medical staff. Murphy is the executive chef at Griffin Health, a small acute-care community hospital in Derby.
The modest size of the hospital means Murphy is able to cook meals from scratch. Having seen my fair share of bland hospital food, I felt a surge of happiness knowing Griffin Health’s patients were getting quality eats.
When Rochester awoke from his coma, he was in a different hospital than the one he last remembered entering. He was confused and disoriented. One day later, he sent The Table & Gallery owner Sonal Soveni an important text, explaining that he almost died. He had been scheduled to have an art show at the space, but as the date approached Soveni suddenly found herself unable to reach him.
He was, to put it simply, somewhere else.
Two paintings in Rochester’s series, Passage 1 and Passage 2, might look at first like twins. They both depict lines of light through a dark background, like the lights going by as you drive through a tunnel.
A closer look reveals key differences. Passage 1 has a matte finish, while Passage 2 is glossy. The second painting is larger in length than the first.
After talking to Rochester, I realized the two were actually symbolic opposites. Passage 1 was, to the artist, an entrance, while Passage 2 was an exit.
“Had I not been an artist,” Rochester said, “It would have been a lot harder” to deal with the feelings he had upon waking. He remembers a certain safeness, an absence of worrying and fear. But those memories were complicated by visions of being pulled in opposing directions.
The resolute, wondrous gaze in Eyes Haven’t Seen are perhaps a step toward Rochester’s trust in his own outlook on life and death. For a while after he woke up, he didn’t know how to explain what he went through. He didn’t want to seem like he had lost his grip on reality.
The eyes in Rochester’s painting do not apologize or shy away from what they are seeing. They simply look. Their clear, illustrative outlines give them an otherwordly effect, but organic details like the delicate, sparse lower lashes bring them back into this plane of existence.
Revisiting the opportunity to exhibit work at The Table & Gallery this year, Rochester said, was a “bit of closure” and a “lot of healing.”
“My dream almost ended,” Rochester reflected. Now he has another chance to see it come true.
