(serendipity ensues)
nature vive x raising the gaze x kingdom come x nature morte
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Lowell Open Studios
(Ye Olde Tyme, Markus Haala)
When: Saturday October 6th-Sunday October 7th, 11:00AM-5:00PM
Where: Lowell Open Studios, 122 Western Avenue #350 Lowell, MA 01851
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Welcome to the 12th Annual Lowell Open Studios. This year’s event features more than 140 artists who live and work in this renaissance city; including fiber artists, painters, multi-media artists, sculptors, potters, jewelers, filmmakers, photographers, and more.
Open Studios lets you meet artists where they work, view their art, talk with and ask questions of them. It’s a great opportunity to purchase works of art directly from the artists creating them…all while enjoying our beautiful and historic city.”
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My Dakota
When: On view through October 27th, 2012
Where: Ars Libri, 500 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “For the past fifteen years, Rebecca Norris Webb has been using her camera to explore the complicated relationship between people and the natural world. Originally a poet, Norris Webb graduated from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in 1989. She published her first book of photographs, The Glass Between Us, in 2006. Norris Webb’s work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, among others. Her photographs have also appeared in Time, Le Monde Magazine, and Orion.”
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sea-coast / sea-ghost
When: On view through October 31st, 2012
Where: The Hallway Gallery, 66a South Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
How: Official Website
What/Why: ““The line created where the sky meets the sea, usually represents a space that seems physical, yet is somewhere that can never really be reached. Its a places that represents the extreme workings of nature, along with emotional contexts, from the metaphorical to the sublime. In this installation of images, I contemplate the different ways to look at the vastness of such a space. These images offer different ways to think about the physicality of the horizon line, using various methods of photographic arts.””
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Retrieval Cues – New Paintings by Jennifer Caine
When: On view through October 27th, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday October 5th, 2012 – 5:30-7:30PM
Where: Soprafina Gallery, 55 Thayer Street, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “In my work I explore the relationship between the physical world and its parallel in memory, thought, and emotion. For me, the function of art is to act as a bridge between these external and internal worlds.
In the Retrieval paintings, I look to my own memory and to some of the most poignant moments in my past, memories that reside at a preverbal level, retrieved only as fleeting glimpses. Without verbal recall, corroboration by others, or a place in the linear narrative of my life, these memories appear unpredictably in my consciousness. Powerful yet elusive, they seem to fuse past and present, time and space.
Using an abstract language of mark and color, I seek to evoke the emotion and psychological state associated with them and the lucid yet dreamlike awareness that marked the moments in which they were born. As memory is ever-changing and shaped by both the past and the present, so are my paintings, informed by current decisions as well as by the history of the underlying layers. As I paint, I bury and unearth fragments of previous iterations. These fragments gain new meaning when revisited in the context of the evolving painting, until the accumulation of layers and marks crystallize to create a bridge between my initial inspiration and the physical reality of the painting.”
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Kingdom Come
(prior work by Enamel Kingdom)
When: On view through October 26th, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday, October 5th, 2012 7:00pm to 11:00pm
Where: Lot F Gallery, 145 Pearl Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02110
How: Official Website
What/Why: “October at Lot F Gallery will feature a range of new works by local favorite, EnamelKingdom aka Ryan Lombardi in his solo exhibition, “Kingdom Come”. Mainly influenced by his instantly recognizable work with animals, his latest collection reflects a new level of technique and polished craft. His exploration in sign painting, script, and lettering has transformed his attention to detail into a seemingly effortless contrast of power and grace.
EnamelKingdom is a graduate of the Art Institute of Philadelphia, with a background in graphic design, graffiti, and painting. He illustrates an iconic style, working with various enamels transforming reclaimed objects into impactful pieces of art. His work has been exhibited in Boston, Rhode Island, New York, Montreal and Australia.”
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Charles A. Hauck Retrospective
When: On view through October 28th, 2012
Where: Opening Reception, Saturday October 6th, 7-10PM
How: Official Website
What/Why: “You are invited to attend a celebration for Chuck Hauck, one of our original founders, and his retrospective of a lifetime of creations infused with whimsy and humor and a serious dose of razor-sharp wit.”
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The BIG BAD
When: On view through October 28th, 2012
Opening Reception: Saturday October 6th, 2012, 5–7 p.m.
Where: The Nave GalleryClarendon Hill Presbyterian Church,155 Powderhouse Blvd., Somerville, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “The most wicked adversaries of our imagination return again and again—Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s The Master, Mayor Richard Wilkins III, Glory, The First; Dr. Who’s the Daleks, the Cybermen, Bad Wolf; Harry Potter’s He Who Must Not Be Named; and Battlestar Galactica’s “all this has happened before, and all this will happen again.” Never mind the classic agents of nightmares—the Devil, the Grim Reaper, the Undead, and untold more. And while our mayor may not ascend into an actual enormous snake, and our lovers do not usually turn to soulless vampires bent on destroying the world via demon-resurrection, and our best friend’s eyes don’t normally flick to black due to dark magic, there is some authenticity in those images.
In a land not so far away, where everything seems quite big and terribly bad, The Nave Gallery presents visions of The BIG BAD. Whether it be the repo man, banks, politicians, the ex, the evil step-parent, the monster in the closet, the tick-tock of a bad heart—The BIG BAD explores the true representations of the foes that wreck our homes, our health, our families, our childhoods. The bump in the dark of night, the shadow lurking in the corner of your eye, those things that haunt us even if we’ve buried it four times over, The BIG BAD aspires to show that the real-world adversaries threatening our ruin are close companions to the phantoms locked in our imaginations.”
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Recent Acquisitions, Part III: Kerry James Marshall
When: On view October 9th through December 29th, 2012
Where: Sackler Museum, Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Kerry James Marshall is best known for his large-scale narrative paintings depicting the historically and socially potent struggles of African Americans during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. This installation features a 2007 acquisition, Marshall’s monumental 12-panel woodcut print Untitled(1998/2007), which, in its portrayal of domestic activity, references the art historical tradition of 17th-century genre scenes. Yet in depicting six African American men chatting quietly over food and coffee, the artist brings attention to society’s lingering and embedded racism, particularly as evidenced in its image culture, by defying expectations of what an assembled group of black figures might signify in viewers’ minds. Organized by Susan Dackerman, Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Curator of Prints, Division of European and American Art, Harvard Art Museums.”
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Cape Ann Artisans Open Studios
(Marty Morgan)
When: Saturday October 6th-Sunday October 7th, 10AM-5PM
Where: Map of participating studios here.
How: Official Website
What/Why: Cape Ann Artisan brochure here.
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Roxbury Open Studios
(The work of Mary Churchill)
When: October 4th-7th, 2012
Where: List of participating studios here.
How: Official Website
What/Why: “All eyes on Roxbury Open Studios! This annual event is an opportunity for Roxbury’s visual artists to welcome the public to view and purchase paintings, drawings, sculptures, textiles, jewelry and other studio crafts. The event also provides a means for individual creativity to play its part in the cultural and economic development of Roxbury.”
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BLANC Gallery Opening Show
When: Saturday October 6th, 2012 6-8PM
Where: Blanc Gallery, 110 Brookline Street, Cambridge, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Our opening reception will be October 6th, 2012. There will be live music provided by DJ’s MADdelish and Jordan Galvan. Drinks will be provided by Sierra Nevada. Come help make good things last!”
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Nature Vive and Nature Morte
(Desire, Mary Dondero)
When: On view October 9th-November 8th, 2012
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 11th 5:00-7:00PM
Where: Simmons College, Trustman Art Gallery, 300 the Fenway, Boston, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Simmons College presents Nature Vive and Nature Morte from October 9 – November 8 at the Trustman Art Gallery, located on the fourth floor, Main College Building, 300 the Fenway in Boston. A reception from 5–7 p.m. will be held on Thursday, October 11. The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public.
Inspiration from the natural world manifests itself very differently in the works of Mary Dondero, Constanze Kirmse, Mary O’Malley and Brenda Star. The art by turns is sensually tactile, colorful and intricate, prompting rumination on the cycle of life. The artists generate a frisson, a realization that life is fleeting, allowing us to pause within the moment.”
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Fashion Forward
When: Friday October 5th, 2012 5-10PM
Where: ICA Boston, 100 Northern Avenue Boston, MA 02210
How: Official Website
Cost: $15 for non-members
What/Why: “The runway comes to the ICA for ICA First Fridays: Fashion Forward, an exciting evening of art and creativity celebrating some of Boston’s most visionary boutiques, stylists, and designers. See unique styles by Louis Boston, Riccardi, Serenella, Turtle, and Uniform—all inspired by the rich color and vibrant pattern found in the work of Brazilian artists Os Gemeos. Hair and make-up takes an equally creative turn with bold looks by Salon Mario Russo.
Straight off the debut of their new collections at Boston Fashion Week, designers Michael De Paulo and Tonya Mezrich of mike&ton and designer Daniela Corte join ICA First Fridays: Fashion Forward to introduce styles from their Spring/Summer 2013 collections.
Editors from the culture magazine Bad Day will also be on site to fete the launch of their latest issue, featuring the designer agnès b”
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Katina Huston
(Not Glenn Gould)
When: On view through October 28th, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday October 5th, 6-8PM
Where: Chase Young Gallery, 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “My goal is to make the invisible tangible, even dimensional. The ways in which humans organize their experiences—more specifically, how I organize my experiences into knowledge—is the focus of this work. Sometimes meaning is revealed through events, sometimes meaning is imposed. Capturing shadows documents experience defined in memory from the unique perspective of the person watching.
The shadow drawings began as research on this subject. I sought to collect visual by- products of human experience. Once collected, they could be examined and organized in search of their meaning. I wanted to literally peel the shadows up off the ground using mylar as a substrate. I imagined dozens of rubbery car shadows stacked like pancakes.
One day on the street I saw three crippled bicycles chained to a post. Missing seats and one front wheel bent in half*. In the morning light, it cast a strange and brilliant shadow, so I captured the image in ink.
Bicycle shadows became my primary subject. Over the past six years, this focus has worked into a whole range of abstract compositions. Weirdly, whole bikes become figurative. But, grouped together, they convey a sense of motion and become almost playful.
In this process, technique grows richer. Ink is three-dimensional. As I lay down two thin lines, the lines create borders that can be filled like a pool or channel. While wet, each new line that meets it becomes a tributary. Inks that are light in color have a greater physical density so when a light line meets a dark pool the light evacuates the area bleaching its path. Layering new images on old, the new line washes away its predecessor.
The resulting drawings use twenty shades of ink on Mylar focusing on mechanical elements repeated from several angles to create a complex and mysterious whole. Thus, six-foot drawings of shadows of bicycles made from ink pooled, poured and drawn into familiar yet elusive forms also speaks of geological experience. Liquid ink evaporates, leaving rings of a drying lakebed. Multiple inks create unexpected moments of physics where heavy ink pushes light back, bleaching the pool to white. In other instances, puddles flow to low ground creating random wells of darkness, which then shatter when dry. Fine draftsmanship magnifies the tension between control and chance.
The shadow drawings are interesting from a conceptual viewpoint not because they are of shadows or bikes but because they represent very physical engagement with these materials and tools and document the effort of me chasing shadows. Moments of effort include crawling over the mylar, scratches, spills, a creased corner, gouges from tumbling bikes. They mark the field…and they should.
On the wall these works appear pristine in our imagination. They are not. To make them so takes away part of the art. Removing the marks of the human interaction would reduce the drawings.
In my most recent works, I play between organized and chaotic compositions examining the ways in which lining up the shadows in clean order results in a straight forward inventory. When piled up the same objects become an ominous heap. Others organized in radiating circles become sources of visual energy.
In works like “Dissemble,” I remove a section from a composition and show it separately. All of the drama carries, but none of the context. Beyond bicycles, new elements like chairs, chandeliers, trees, and Cyclone fence shadows are new starting points for my drawings.”
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Raising the Gaze
(From the screened porch, Auburndale)
When: On view through October 28th, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday October 5th, 2012 5:30-8:30PM
Where: Kingston Gallery, 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “In this exhibition, the artist raises her gaze and her camera lens from the surface of water to encompass the space of ordinary life, of earth, trees, and sky. From New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to Oregon and California, and the artist’s backyard in Newton, these new photographs evoke the same feeling of groundlessness which characterized her water images. The external forms and atmosphere resonate with an internal state of mind in the viewer. Lang’s work has long been informed by her Buddhist meditation practice. Raising the gaze also refers to a meditation technique of mixing mind and space, cultivating inseparability between inner psychological space and exterior physical space.”
Also on view..
Close Observation – Ann Wessmann
(Enduring Ephemera #11(detail))
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Lost in Time
(The Invisibles)
When: On view through October 28th, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday October 5th, 2012 6-8PM
Where: Galatea Fine Art, 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “What is that which always is and has no becoming; and what is that which is always becoming and never is?” Plato, Timaeus
Myths and legends: fact or fiction? This question inspires a creative quest for artist Elizabeth Hathaway. With the evolution of archeology, radio carbon dating, DNA, magnetic and thermal imaging, fantasy worlds have become reality. Oral memories of civilization lost in time revealed as truth.
In Hathaway’s paintings, abstract meets representational. An excursion narrative, including Homer’s Iliad, Atlantis Calling, Rapa Nui, Stonehenge, and Tiahuanaco, were painted spontaneously. Ruins are exposed, woven with color, ancient text or artifacts are, informed by classical writers, oral memory, archeological excavations, and geophysical imagery. ‘Atlantis Calling’, was informed by a digitized satellite image, evocative of the underlying science of discovery. ‘Rapa Nui’, reveals a present day indigenous Polynesian remnant, collaging current politics with ancient text, artifacts and map. ‘Homer’s Iliad’, recreates Troy over found ruins, painted in tones of ancient pottery and imagery.
These ancient cultures lost in time through conquest, climate change, and sustainability give thought to our present.”
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Thingificiation
When: On view through October 27th, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday October 5th, 2012 6-8:30PM
Where: Bromfield Gallery, 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA
How: Official Website
What/Why: “the eye/is an ear/an untethered tongue/a finger/folded/fragrant/in the mouth/of the other/the third/eye
Thingification, a word nicked from poet Kevin Young’s Introduction to his The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness, represents, in my work, a gathering of fetishes—images, paint, text, nails, tape, LPs, CDs, and etcetera etcetera. These ritual rectangles form talismanic objects that resemble paintings.
Irreverent and reverent, oracular, existing in and travelling through time, they hang in the present moment, proceeding at once, into the ten directions. They are a kind of history painting, informed by music, musicians, poems, and poets. They are dedications and elegies. These works, these objects, employ images and elements with (his)stories, or, rather, identities of their own.
I am interested in what happens when they come together in a kind of spell, a conjuration… of myth, of memory, of a continuously shuffling, sometimes ambling history that is mine, that is ours, is elusive, and sometimes, it seems, is too easy to hold?”
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Opening Our Doors
(The work of Ori Gersht, currently on view at MFA)
When: Monday October 8th, 2012 10:00AM-4:00PM
Where: 23 participating locations in Boston
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Opening Our Doors in the Fenway brings together many of Boston’s best cultural and academic institutions, community organizations and business partners in a wonderfully diverse day of free cultural activities for the whole family.Events range from music and dance performances to historical tours, lectures, walking tours of the Fenway, glass blowing demonstrations, indoor kite flying and much more!
Opening our Doors is and annual event, occurring on Columbus Day. The day officially kicks off with an opening ceremony and performance at 10AM. Events continue throughout the day until 4PM. It is the largest single day of free culture experiences in all of Great Boston.”
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Liette Marcil: The Mimih Effect on Me
When: On view through October 21st, 2012
Where: Laconia Gallery, 433 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Laconia Gallery is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Liette Marcil. Marcil creates exuberant, lyrical works using patterning and an intuitive color sense to reference the abstractions of aboriginal cultures. Born in Montreal, Canada and a Laconia Resident since 2005, her work reveals her own connections to Native American culture (her father is part Native American) along with a keen interest in the repetition and directness of Northern Australian Aboriginal art and other “primitive” cultures, where the artist says “abstraction originated”. Drawing with pencil and pastel onto flat areas of mixed media oil or acrylic Marcil embraces a playful open-minded creative process. Using a consistent scale and a dulled out, earthy palette the artist generates complex compositional shifts which reference printed textiles and pottery while hand drawn elements retain a childlike casualness. Color and outline drive the shifting foreground and background relationships. Chance and experimentation team up with an esoteric confidence that uses the serial format to create both a context and a subtle narrative.”
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Instant Messaging: The Performances
When: Saturday October 6th, 2012 7-9PM
Where: Anthony Greaney, 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Instant Messaging: An Information Cluster.
Every generation misfires at a speed necessary to insure a combustion rate that ignites a certain few. The flare-ups are distinctly lighted spectacles, like signals. They raise a glow, a lantern-like fire. These messages are intrinsic and meant to be of limited attraction. The lights are networked like cell phone towers except they connect only the
connected.
DEAD ART STAR documents these connections in a series of Polaroids, which seek to capture the very essence of the moment. And to be very clear, it is never the moment before, or the moment after. It is immediate and irredeemable, a perfectly timed information cluster that establishes the present. Circumstance edits the content and informs the composition. It is what is happening now. Yet despite this immediacy, the photographs are iconic, and loaded with the past. Everything essential to the moment has withered away but luckily recognizable traces remain.
Lucy Watson signals out into the world via her toys. And like any well-schooled bomb-maker she handles the point of knowing her materials well. Occupational safety aside, in Watson’s hands, toys are fraught and dangerous things. Never mind choking hazards: Watson imbues her work with a demonic intensity that is brutally frank, sexualized, and confrontational. In her hands, toys become a message board for a litany of societal complaints and less directly, an appealing argument for decadence.
What’s interesting here is the flow of information and how unencumbered it is by the absence of technology. This lightening-quick transmission of experience that both artists are able to establish runs counter to the artificial construct measured by social media.”
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Monster Party
When: On view through October 31st, 2012
Opening Reception: Saturday October 6th 5-8PM
Where: Jamestown Arts Center, 18 Valley Street, Jamestown, RI 02835
How: Official Website
What/Why: “The Studio Miners and the Jamestown Arts Center present Monster Party, a friendly celebration of monsters for the whole family, opening on Saturday, October 6 and running until October 31. The exhibition will feature artwork from prominent New England artists in the main gallery, with the inclusion of monster-centric doodles and drawings made by local children in the front gallery space. In addition to the artwork, there will be a monster mini-golf hole, a photobooth, face painting, a 30 foot mural, an 8 foot monster sculpture, costumes from Providence-based character creators, the Big Nazo, and many other monster surprises.
The curators of Monster Party are the Studio Miners, a duo who document the wonderfully exciting world of artists, collectors and creatives of all kinds on their website, studiominers.com. ForMonster Party, they hope to bring the RI community and beyond together in a fun, accessible and exciting event where people of all ages will enjoy themselves in an interactive and light-hearted atmosphere.”
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The Possibles
When: On view through October 23rd, 2012
Where: Howard Yezerski, 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
How: Official Website
What/Why: “Howard Yezerski Gallery is proud to present a show in our back gallery of Jennifer Amadeo-Holl’s latest paintings, The Possibles. In the series Amadeo-Holl explores the potential for simple shapes to trigger memories and emotions, and the familiarity and strangeness inherent in abstraction.
Their first impression is of simplicity, as when one recognizes a friend from far away by the distinctness of their shape alone. Then comes the trickle of reflections, leading to thoughts no longer simple. So that to look again at the shape on the horizon, or to look again at the painting on the wall, would be to feel that while we may have only glimpsed a bit of matter, a shadow of something, we have also visited a place where image and energy alternately fuse and divide.
The result is a group of tender but formidable, paradoxically harmonic paintings that are inexplicable and yet speak.”
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PRC Benefit Auction Preview Exhibition
(Dead Flamingoes, Lisa Kessler)
When: On view through October 12th, 2012
Benefit Date: Saturday, October 13, 2012 -5:00PM
Where: 808 Gallery At Boston University, 808 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA
How: Official Website
Cost: Ticket purchasing info here.
What/Why: “The PRC auction is an opportunity for the photography, art, collecting, and gallery communities to purchase outstanding art and celebrate our important Boston-based cultural institution–the Photographic Resource Center. By showing your support, the PRC can continue its compelling work of providing quality programming to support fine art and creative photography in New England.”
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Did I forget something? Let me know..
♂/☺/♫
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So, I know it isn’t Friday yet..(I won’t tell if you won’t tell), but I figured you might want an extra day to plan your adventures.
(people v places)
At some point this week, October happened; I welcome the hoodies, cider, pumpkins, colorful leaves, and all the autumnal goodness that makes the New England winters a bit more bearable with open arms.
So many great exhibits/openings in the Wrap-Up. Will I see you at First Fridays?
I’ll be there keeping warm with a fine Dixie-Cup® of Merlot.
Whatever your adventure, have a great weekend and stay sweet.♥
