Thirteen large-scale works in oil by Vermont- and Massachusetts- based David Brewster — who says his creative process has always “sought out a kind of theater, often choosing opulent interiors and sylvan landscapes that are somehow distressed” — are featured in “Power- line” from November 4 through 28 at Chase Young Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave. #57, Boston. “Throughout my development I have continued to revisit these same scenarios, with their heightened sense of drama, movement and collapse, inviting the spectator to cross a threshold to confront aspects of our culture that are evolving or perishing.”
Bayda Asbridge, a graduate of Syria’s Tishreen University, had one prerequisite for artists submit- ting work for her “Healing Fibers: War and Peace” group exhibition on view from November 7 through 28 at the Sprinkler Factory, 38 Harlow Street, Worcester, Mass. — fiber had to be included. “Why fiber? I’m Syrian and my country is famous for its textiles,” she said. “There is even a type of fabric named after our capital, Damascus — damask.” The show, which will be open Saturday and Sunday from noon – 4 p.m. throughout its duration, will feature daily speakers with visitors invited to join in the dialogue; sales and donations to the show will be distributed to Syrian refugees through Doctors Without Borders. “I believe
David Brewster, Ville Canal, at Chase Young Gallery. that the only way society’s gaps can be bridged is by tightening the threads that interweave us as human beings. By bringing awareness and prompting interest in important issues, change may take place,” Asbridge said.
“Call of the Ancestors,” featuring work by ceramic artists Jan McKeachie Johnston, Irina Okula and Jill Solomon and photographer Heather McGrath, is on view through November 29 at the Lexicon Gallery, 15 Lexington Ave. #1, in the small Gloucester village of Magnolia, Mass. Okula and Solomon fire their work in saggar clay containers surrounded with oxide-soaked straw, sawdust and other organic materials that combust and dance upon the clay, leaving random marks and patterns evocative of geologic formations and nature’s fiery chaos. Johnston wood- fires her textured and curvaceous sculptural pieces in a Japanese-style Anagama Kiln, resulting in “gorgeous red and orange tones flecked with ash deposits in golden hues calling to mind ancient fires of cultures and civilizations gone by”; they are complemented by McGrath’s series of “raw organic sets of human in landscape” photographs.
After falling in love with the light at ocean’s edge, Rachael Eastman began to steep herself in experiential knowledge of Maine’s coast- line: “In the summers of 2014 and Irina Parfenova, Grant City Parable, at the Sprinkler Factory.
2015, I arose before 4 a.m. every morning, and went down to the beach to experience 130 consecutive dawns, establishing a sensory memory of sunrise amid the ocean’s movements,” she explained. “I took photographs and sketches, studying each dawn through every change of weather, light and tide. Walking through the waves ritualistically meant gathering every sight, sensation and sound in order to ‘remember them into paint’ once back in my studio.” The end result, her “Ocean Ritual” solo exhibition, can be seen through December 10 at the Robert E. White Gallery at Husson University, 1 College Circle, Bangor, Maine.
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| Brian Goslow