By Brian Goslow
With approximately 30 mem- bers, New England Wax’s mis- sion is “to promote excellence in fine art made with encaustic” through professional, juried exhi- bitions. “Shifts: Approaching Encaustic from All Angles,” on view through November 26 at the Fuller Craft Museum, 455 Oak St., Brockton, Mass., was curated by Dedee Shattuck Gallery chief curator Ben Shattuck. “No other medium has as much ver- satility as encaustic, which can encompass two dimensions with depth via its translucency and a build-up of layers, or sculpted and altered while still warm.”
“Inner Beauty,” an exhibition of works by AJ Oishi and Jung Hur, continues through November 27 at Gallery BOM, 460 Harrison Ave. B-7, Boston. Oishi’s multicol- ored circular designs, which reveal a relaxingly endless intensity the more you look at them, are created with the eraser side of a #2 pencil and a steady hand is needed to produce each of her work’s thou- sands of dots. Hur’s artist statement notes that his paintings have long featured a collection of keys and keyholes. “A single keyhole is a model for single-point perspec- tive; it is like a lens,” he explained. “It implies several ideas: a thing, a person looking at that thing, and the perspective that defines the physical and optical relationship between them.” Both collections feature spectacular showpieces that would stand out in almost any setting.
The American School for the Deaf in West Hartford, birthplace of American Sign Language, is celebrating its bicentennial in
2017; the New Britain Museum of American Art, 56 Lexington St., New Britain, Conn., is holding a unique exhibition concurrent to that celebration. “NEW/NOW fea- tures new and existing works on paper and videos by Chilean artist Francisca Benítez, documenting the artist’s exploration of American and Chilean sign languages in the context of poetry, music, dance and visual art. The show opens on November 30 and remains on view through April 29, 2018.
Drawing inspiration from the mind-bending graphic designs of M.C. Escher and Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “Fantasy Architectures: Sculptural Boxes by Jay Rogers” is a collection of 12 wooden boxes filled with intri- cate detail holding hidden rooms, secret compartments and the luxury of opening parts of your imagination that haven’t worked in years. Rogers has been creating his little worlds since he was a teen- ager; since that time, he estimates he’s made thousands of sculptural boxes. “I’m interested in exploring the dualities of light versus dark, of exterior versus interior, of hidden versus exposed, and of openness versus containment,” he writes on his website. The show contin- ues through January 6, 2018 at the Society of Arts and Crafts, 100 Pier 4 Boulevard, Suite 200, Boston, Mass.
“Small Kingdoms,” a show featuring 3-D artists Jamie Johnston, Boyan Moskov and Don Williams, opens December 14 at Kelley Stelling Contemporary, 221 Hanover St., Manchester,
New Hampshire. Williams utilizes clay and found objects in his wall pieces and sculptures; Johnston takes advantage of a long career in furniture design and construc- tion in creating his wall pieces that mix intense color and finely marked specialty woods; and Bulgaria-born Moskov, who now lives in Hopkinton, N.H., makes intensely unique and eye-catching ceramic pots. This new gallery, owned by Bill Stelling and Karina Kelley, is devoted to showing the work of emerging artists from New England and beyond. “Small Kingdoms” continues through January 14, 2018.