skin deep x in search of the muse x the storm in the sea of galilée
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Lana Z Caplan- Peach Blossom Spring
(Mountain View UFO)
When: On view through February 01, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday, January 10, 6 – 8 pm
Where: Gallery NAGA, 67 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Gallery NAGA ushers in the new year with the exciting pairing of Lana Z Caplan and Benjamin Evans. Both artists present shows that explore the theme of complex relationships: humans interacting with the environment and humans interacting with each other. These two young artists offer the viewer an honest and unflinching look at the human condition and the way we live now.”
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Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick- Truppe Fledermaus
When: On view through February 28, 2014
Where: Carroll and Sons, 450 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
Also on view..
Greg Mencoff – Interim
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Wild and Woolly
(Kernel, Deborah Oropallo)
When: On view through February 21, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday January 10, 2014 6:00-8:30PM
Where: New Art Center, 61 Washington Park, Newtonville, MA 02460
How: Official Website
What/Why: “No other nation has taken a time and place from its past and produced a construct of the imagination equal to America’s creation of the West.” -Historian David Murdoch
The Wild West and America’s frontier history are considered cornerstones of national imagination and identity. Often the West, as promoted in American popular culture, distorts history by blurring myth and reality and excluding the histories of more marginalized groups. Wild and Woolly exalts and satirizes celebrated western narratives and imagery through the work of five artists Sean Downey, Olivier Laude, David Lefkowitz, Robin Myers and Deborah Oropallo who blend fact and fiction to re-imagine the frontier landscape and its peoples.
The exhibition’s title, Wild and Woolly, is an American expression that originated after the California Gold Rush era of the 1850s to describe the ‘wild’ west of the country. The term refers to the violent, lawless and uncivilized character of the frontier. Within a fine arts context, the phrase is alluring for its rich descriptive and physical properties, as relating to surface and texture.The exhibition title also references the 1917 silent film of the same name, which tells the story of one man’s personal odyssey from sophisticated Easterner to Western tough guy. The film captures the tropes and charms of the American West in order to subvert the Western genre.
Popular and material culture also play a role in the artwork on view. Sean Downey and Olivier Laude use ideas of the West as popularly portrayed in cinema and literature to create a fictional place of colorful and unsavory characters. Deborah Oropallo’s digitally constructed paintings are created entirely from images mined from internet sources and masterfully manipulated to re-present the stereotype of the rodeo cowgirl as victorious heroine. Combining materials like lumber, cardboard, and sheetrock with imagery depicted in oil paint or other media, David Lefkowitz creates trompe-l’oeil objects that re-connect natural resource to material product, calling attention to deforestation and development simultaneously.The photographs of Robin Myers extend the frontier to outer space. Using astronomical glass-plate negatives from Harvard University’s archives, Myers re-photographed the galaxy using a 20×24 large format Polaroid camera. Myers’ photographs trigger our deepest desires to explore, drift and dream.”
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Zelený Les Artist Residency: Works 2011-2013
When: On view through January 26, 2014
Where: Mobius, 55 Norfolk St.. Cambridge, MA 02139
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Zelený Les Artist Residency: Works 2011-2013 will show 3 years of documentation and work by resident artists, displaying video, sculpture, photography, sound, writing, and performance.”
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James Lentz: Is/Isn’t
When: On view through February 02, 2014
Where: Bromfield Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Corporeal and overt sculptures of unreality. James Lentz lives near Providence, RI, and he received his BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2012 with a focus on sculpture.”
Also on view..
Kim Carlino: The Artifice of Geometry
What/Why: “Imagined worlds arise from nothingness. Linear constructions bubble out of fluid forms, while geometry asserts itself into an improvised landscape.
Kim Carlino lives and works in Easthampton, MA, and she received her BFA in 2011 from University of Massachusetts Amherst. “
Also on view..
Helen Payne: Here I Sit, Brokenhearted
What/Why: “An installation on bathroom tiles where drawings make visceral vignettes, showing moments ranging from giving birth to getting booked. A shape-shifting protagonist emerges from the tiles. She morphs in time and race and limps along at odds with expectations but at one with viscera.
“Here I Sit, Brokenhearted” is about the ill fit of the body and how our most private moments can play out in the public sphere. “
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Wilson Lawrence: Skin Deep
(One, In a Befitting Manner)
When: On view January 11 – February 8, 2014
Where: Carol Schlosberg Alumni Gallery, 23 Essex St. Beverly, MA 01915
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Montserrat College of Art presents Skin Deep featuring Rhode Island-based artist, Wilson Lawrence in the Carol Schlosberg Alumni Gallery. The reality of what’s familiar is not always the most dynamic (walking down the street, entering an empty room). Lawrence’s practice, is just the opposite. By drawing, digging into and building out of the gallery wall, an otherwise basic structure, Lawrence recontextualizes it. A shift which begs the question, “what lies beneath”?
Lawrence’s practice is a meeting between the minimal and the gestural. He adopts Minimalist characteristics such as seriality, geometric forms that explore properties of physical space and truth to materials. The artist maintains the identity of the subject through essential forms, but breaks new ground in his ability to create from a previously existing structure. Rather than constructing new forms, Lawrence deconstructs and reshapes the present moment.
Square merges the geometrical exactness with the physical touch. Lawrence cuts the top horizontal and right vertical planes forming a right angle. Deep enough to lift the top layers of sheetrock from the wall, he then peels back the corner downward, or that the free corner folds over and hangs to complete a full square. Viewing the work from an angle communicates how sculptural Lawrence’s process can be. Peeling back a layer from the wall and the dimensionality it creates contradicts the static planar surface an audience sees from a straight-on perspective. Connected by a diagonal shadow where the two planes meet, the opposing tensions of geometry and free form blend in harmony.
Wilson Lawrence received his BA from Hampshire College and his MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Lawrence currently lives and works in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He has received selected publications and interviews in Big Red & Shiny, The Boston Globe, Art Forum and Ink Magazine. Wilson will exhibit in a group exhibition at Bannistar Gallery at Rhode Island College in Providence, in 2014.
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John Dilg: This Land is Your Land
When: On view through February 01, 2014
Where: Steven Zevitas Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave., Boston, Massachusetts, 02118
How: Official Website
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IV: Luanne E Witkowski
(BlueGranite )
When: On view through February 02, 2014
Opening Reception: January 10 – 5:30-7:30 PM
Where: Kingston Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave. #43, Boston, Massachusetts, 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Working intuitively to create abstract contemplative pieces rooted in & extracted from landscape & experience, this work is a process-driven visual and tangible response to the experiences of creating and documenting environmental installations. Traditional and nontraditional media are used to mingle the place in the piece & piece in the place to capture a perceptual & spiritual relationship as locus for recognition of & solace for the self. This traditional American approach to the identification of the individual with landscape is enlarged by a desire to discover & contact the particular indwelling essence or energy of a particular place.”
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Best in Show
(Massachusetts’ Premier Ecological Engineer, David Buckley Borden)
When: On view through January 31, 2014
Closing Reception: January 31, 2014 6:00-9:00PM
Where: Aviary Gallery, 48 South Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Please join us at the Aviary Gallery for the Opening Reception of “BEST IN SHOW: An exhibition of art inspired by animals, both real & imagined.”
This show brings together a wide variety of animal themed art made by a group of local and national artists. Work ranges from screen prints and photos to drawings and textiles. Inspired by our love of animals, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to support the Animal Rescue League of Boston. The hope is to bring a little warmth to a chilly New England winter and start off the new year with a dynamic group show to support a great cause. This event is FREE and all-ages. “
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Erstwhile
(We Buy Gold, Will Sears)
When: On view through February 28, 2014
Opening Reception: January 10, 2014 7:00-11:00PM
Where: Lot F Gallery, 145 Pearl Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02110
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Lot F Gallery is pleased to present Erstwhile this January, with new works by Portland, ME artists Tessa Greene O’Brien and Will Sears. Being a sign painter by trade, Sears hones in on his skills to create beautiful assemblage pieces and paintings with a focus on typography. O’Brien, who is also a sign painter, is showing an oil and watercolor painting series based on vintage synchronized swimming ladies in a pinup-esque fashion.
Erstwhile, which is the artists first time showing at Lot F Gallery, has a vintage quality throughout and will run from January 10th to February 28th, 2014. The public is welcome to experience the exhibition first hand, with an opening reception on Friday, January 10th, 2014, from 7 to 11 pm at their Pearl Street location. Lot F Gallery has open hours on Saturdays, during the exhibition, from noon to 4pm, and is also open by appointment.”
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GUTS: Greenwood / Renadette / Taylor / Wehrli
When: On view Tuesday January 14 – Saturday February 8
Where: 119 Gallery, 119 Chelmsford St, Lowell, Massachusetts 01851
How: Official Website
What/Why: More information on the exhibition here.
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Sophie Dickenson, EDT, Vio/Miré, Tooms
When: Sunday January 12, 20214, 7:00pm – 10:00pm
Where: Washington Street Art Center, 321 Washington St, Somerville, Massachusetts
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Sophie Dickinson-CASSETTES & HARP
EDT (Emily Dix Thomas)-Cello goddess from Portland, ME This will seriously make your inside guts spill out onto the floor. Vintage delay/loop pedals and everything.
Vio/Miré –Folk/Chamber from Providence, RI
Tooms-Local drone that will put you in a coma
Show must be over by 10pm so please come on time!! $5 suggested donation! “
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Black/White
When: On view through February 22, 2014
Opening Reception: Saturday January 12, 2014 6:00-8:00PM
Where: Lamontagne Gallery, 555 East Second St., Boston, Massachusetts 02127
How: Official Website
What/Why: “BLACK/WHITE, the first gallery exhibition co-curated by artists BRIAN ALFRED and SHAY KUN, will be presented at LaMontagne Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts from January 11 through February 22, 2014. The group exhibition of twenty five artists working from New York to Los Angeles will feature works in very different methods and with a wide variety of media and content all within a palette of black and white.”
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Swell — A Flat File and Installation exhibition
When: On view through March 01, 2014
Opening Reception: Saturday January 12, 12:00-9:00PM
Where: GRIN, 60 Valley Street # 3, Providence, Rhode Island
How: Official Website
What/Why: “GRIN is thrilled to announce SWELL, a flatfile and installation series featuring 35 local and international artists. This is the first iteration of a series of events and exhibitions intended to expand our program and exposure of art across mediums.”
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Doodle
When: On view through January 26, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday, January 10, 2014, 6 pm-8 pm
Where: Nave Gallery Annex (Davis Square), 53 Chester St, Somerville, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “First used in the Middle Ages to describe the sketching of a subject for a piece of art, cartooning has evolved over time to serve a number of purposes–from entertainment to advertising to political and social commentary. Doodle is a show on cartooning in all of its forms.”
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Symbiotic: The Art of Relationships
When: On view through February 02, 2014
Where: Studios at Porter Mill, 95 Rantoul Street, Beverly, Massachusetts 01915
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Symbiotic: The Art of Relationships is an exhibition of local illustrators, featuring the work of Peter Bergamo Jr., Paul Demakes, Ewelina Kara, Jordan Pomazon, and Corinne Reid. The exhibit explores various kinds of relationships created through and within art, revolving around the common themes of interaction and conversation. Each artist examines a different kind of relationship in their work, expressing their unique perspective to create ultimate harmony throughout the exhibit.”
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Journey: Sculpture, Painting, and Photography by Tristan Govignon
When: On view through March 02, 2014
Where: Adelson Galleries Boston, 520 Harrison Ave, Boston, Massachusetts 02118
How: Official Website
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Jo-Ann Boback: The Wire We Walk
When: On view through January 29, 2014
Opening Reception: January 10, 6:00-8:00PM
Where: Galatea Fine Art, 460 B, Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “My work is abstract, focusing on layer of color, structure, and its relationship to the canvas. I am inspired by life’s influences, positive as well as negative, imagination, and the infinite possibilities of both.
This body of work was influenced by great music, every day life, and the subconscious images that form that connective trance between myself and the canvas without a pre-planned intention.
Each stroke, drip, scrape and layer forms a relationship, a relationship that is outside of myself and yet completely connected to me.
My intent is that the viewer will understand that the abstract can and does closely define reality.”– Jo-Ann Boback
Also on view..
Barbara Eskin: The Scandal and the Beauty of It
Also on view..
Carolyn Newberger: In Search of The Muse
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Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz: Locations Unknown
When: On view through February 04, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday January 10, 2014
Where: Miller Yezerski Gallery, 460 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “In her sixth and final series referencing the after-affects of war and political violence, Spatz-Rabinowitz moves away from literal depiction and toward abstraction. Using cast, pigmented plaster embedded with found and made objects of ambiguous scale, the work embodies a visceral sense of violence – suggestively, through materiality and physicality. Inspired originally by the artist’s own photographs of a seemingly banal patch of earth taken at Auschwitz, and by newspaper photographs of bombsites elsewhere, the bas reliefs in “Locations Unknown” serve as metaphors for scarred and scorched earth everywhere.”
Also on view..
John Coplans: Hands
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Bridge
When: On view through February 22, 2014
Where: Drive-by Projects, 81 Spring Street, Watertown, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Drive-By Projects will open it’s 2014 season with Bridge, an exhibition including Allison Bianco’s panoramic print Mantunuck!, photographs from Kevin Thrasher’s Brown’s Island Series, and Lisa Young’s inkjet print Bridge.”
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Chromogenic
When: On view through February 22, 2014
Opening Reception: Opening Reception: Saturday January 11, 6-9pm
Where: The Hallway Gallery, 66a South Street, Jamaica Plain, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “The Hallway Gallery is excited to announce its first solo exhibition of 2014, featuring new work from Boston-based artist Clint Baclawski. Chromogenic, a site-specific installation, features a 30-foot wall photographic light mural stretching the length of the entire gallery.”
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Works by Violet Byrd
When: On view January 13 to February 14, 2014
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 16, 6 to 8 pm
Where: Maud Morgan Arts, 20A Sacramento Street – Cambridge, MA 02138
How: Official Website
What/Why: Learn more about the exhibition here.
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Steps – Liz Shepherd
(Gone)
When: On view through February 02, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday January 10, 6-8PM
Where: Boston Sculptors Gallery, 486 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: More information on the exhibition here.
Also on view..
Cures For Cancer and other tall tales-Dennis Svoronos
(Hard to Swallow)
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Carlos Jiminez Cahua – Neoplasms & Pleonasms
(Untitled #75.1)
When: On view through February 28, 2014
Where: Samsøn Projects, 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “I think one’s reality is the result of your intention and your attention: it’s a pretty spiritual practice that I’ve recognized my own impermanence, my own irrelevance: the fact that, I’m just a person shuffling through life. I ain’t really no different now than when I was a little kid. I don’t want that feeling in my stomach that people are being treated badly. I don’t want the feeling that people are being exploited; people need to lead spiritual lives: all of us. I’m a person, and it’s good to have access to the infinite consciousness that is available to all people, but through the five senses is delineated: keeping us trapped on a material plane. We think reality is what we can apportion through the limited instruments of the senses but reality is of course far beyond that spiritual data. We don’t have the correct instruments to receive it and we live primarily in the realm of the senses. .” read the rest of the essay here.
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Clues
(Last Seen (Rembrandt, The Storm in the Sea of Galilée), Sophie Calle)
When: On view through February 01, 2014
Where: Barbara Krakow Gallery, 10 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02116
How: Official Website
What/Why: More information about the exhibition here.
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First Wrap-Up of the New Year!
This one is extra packed since SoWa First Fridays has become Second Fridays thanks to last week’s snow-splosion.
BUT, it’s in the 40’s-50’s this weekend so be sure to get some vitamin D..see some art..aand make me this.
please. ♥
