NEW CANAAN — An artist reception for Jessica Gaddis will take place at Rosie, a restaurant/gallery located at 27 Elm Street in New Canaan, on Friday, April 10, from 5 to 9 pm. “Secrets — A Story of Integration” features paintings and ceramic wall hangings by Ms Gaddis, a 2005 graduate of Newtown High School.

Ms Gaddis received her BFA in Painting and Drawing from SUNY New Paltz in 2009. She worked for Earthship Biotecture in Taos, N.M., a sustainable off-grid construction company, for two years.

“This changed my perspective on object making and the world in general,” Ms Gaddis recently told The Newtown Bee. While living in Taos, Ms Gaddis took a women’s welding workshop with artist Christina Sporrong, and worked for a potter.

She returned to Boston a year and a half ago, upon being accepted to the Harvard Ceramics Program. She currently works as a teacher’s assistant and lab technician in that program. She and has been accepted to the artist residency Here-In-Residency in Iceland, for the summer of 2015. She also plans to go to graduate school for her MFA in the fall of 2016.

“I have been furiously producing work,” Ms Gaddis said, including works on canvas, ceramics, and other found materials. According to her artist’s statement her work is inspired “by the recent findings on atmospheric cycles on neighboring moons and planets. These fantastical worlds began on canvas, and have recently been explored with clay. Carving and digging has allowed for the focus to shift away from the external world moving inward beneath the surface into the uncharted landscape of the soul. She hopes to create dramatic and fantastical landscapes that evoke a place people want to be; environments that seem foreign, but seem strangely familiar… Her work is about bringing the view from the top of the mountain down to the viewer.”

The public is welcome to attend the April 10 artist’s reception. Wine from DiGrazia Vineyards in Brookfield will be served, and there will be live music.

“Secrets” will remain on view at Rosie through the end of June, and the art work is available for purchase.

For more information visit www.jessicagaddis.com.