With work ranging from paintings, mixed-media and graphics and sculpture, digital art and photography, the Rockport Art Association & Museum’s Experimental Group holds its 12th group exhibition, “Unexpected No. Twelve,” from November 2 through 17 at the Rockport Art Association and Museum, 12 Main St., Rockport, Massachusetts. “The Experimental Group is a creative forum whose main mission is to increase public awareness and to foster self-expression by bringing artists together to explore and share ideas that cultivate creative freedom.” The exhibition is followed by the Rockport Art Association and Museum’s National Show 2019 which opens on November 23 and continues through January 1. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and on Sunday from noon-5 p.m.
Elegant landscapes and still life paintings, evocative portraits and painted nudes, beguiling drawings and powerful bronze sculptures, the culmination of 20 years of work, are featured in “Pamela Pindell: Sleight of Hand,” which opens November 2 and runs through December 7 at the Guild of Boston Artists, 162 Newbury St., Boston, Massachusetts. Her work shows a deep understanding of anatomy, and rich emotional ties to her subjects. “My hope is that my work translates the beauty I see, is perhaps universal, and that I get to tell my story while my viewers tell their own,” said Pindell, whose desire to communicate and to express emotion is matched only by her technical mastery of her craft and ceaseless energy to create. On Saturday, November 16 at 1 p.m., she’ll be at the gallery for an artist demonstration.
A fine art and environmental photographer, James Hunt’s artwork explores the interface between society and the environment, and the tension within that relationship. For his latest exhibition, “Deindustrialization,” Hunt documented the once thriving textile mills that populated the Blackstone River Valley in central Massachusetts and Rhode Island that now sit abandoned, burned, repurposed, or left waiting. “This series of images is intended to convey the spirit and hazards of ‘boom and bust’ economics and raise questions regarding the costs incurred by industrialization without consideration of the long-term impacts.” The exhibition will be on view from November 7 through January 10, 2020, at the Hollister Gallery, Babson College, 231 Forest St., Wellesley, Massachusetts.
“Collective Ecologies,” works by Sandra Baker, Sarah Gately, Ricardo Maldonado, Marc Newton, Ponnapa Prakkamakul, Pam Roberts, Irene Stapleford and Joanne Tarlin, who through their art “scrutinize the natural world through unique perspectives that reveal its depth and the diversity of ways in which humans observe and revere it,” takes place from November 8 through December 20 at the Brookline Arts Center, 86 Monmouth St., Brookline, Massachusetts. Simultaneously, BAC will also be featuring “We Used to Be Workingglass,” unique glass works by John Bassett.
“Abstract Alchemy,” a collection of new work by Rosalie Cuticchia, a member of the National Association of Women Artists, will be on view from November 12 through 24 at the Newburyport Art Association (NAA), 65 Water St., Newburyport, Massachusetts. The show celebrates the alchemy of turning paints into artistic gold. “Cuticchia’s intuitive work focuses on color, form, texture, movement and line, and pays homage to the complexities of painting in the abstract style.” The NAA’s Annual Holiday Gift Show and Sale follows from November 29 through December 24.
Featuring sculptures and paintings that explore identity, gender, and emotional spaces through a visual language of curvilinear forms and bold colors that link her works across media, “Wylie Garcia: Radical Softness” opens on November 20 with a reception from 12-1pm and continues through December 19 at the Danforth Gallery at the University of Maine at Augusta, 46 University Drive, Augusta, Maine. The exhibition, which spans a decade of work, got its name from a quote by poet Lora Mathis, “Radical Softness as a Weapon” — which Garcia said serves as “a reminder for me that I am strongest when I tap into my softness…when I give a voice to my vulnerability… [when I] connect to something beyond myself.” The collection on view will feature her sculptural dresses of rich satins and gauze, subtle drawings in graphite and gouache, and recent monumental paintings resembling textiles and tapestries. “This focused look at a decade of artistic practice demonstrates Garcia’s encompassing vision across media and her engagement with the personal as political.”
“Terra Incognita – Exploring New Terrain,” an exhibition of new large-scale digital and mixed-media prints by Mary Doering, remain on view through November 17 at the Cotuit Center for the Arts, 4404 Falmouth Rd. (Route 28), Cotuit, Massachusetts. “Known for her abstract prints and prizewinning photographs, Doering has dramatically altered the scale of her work. These new prints will surprise and astonish the viewer with their scope, color and ingenuity.” Accustomed to creating smaller works, this dramatic alteration in scale let Doering use “mystery, spontaneity and unpredictability to dictate the direction of the process.”
Artists from around the United States join the likes of Boston artists Mimi Kirchner — who draws on the circus sideshows of the past with her tattooed strongman dolls — and sculptor Skunkadelia and his family of robot figures made from discarded metal parts for “Child’s Play” from November 21 through January 18, 2020 at the Society of Arts + Crafts, 100 Pier 4 Blvd., second floor, in Boston’s Seaport District. These unique works “exploring the markers of childhood through the lens of adulthood” will be complemented by vintage toys from the Wenham Museum. “The contrast between perception and reality in this show is clear in both the concepts and the executions of these works,” said executive director Brigitte Martin, who joined SA+C in March.
Exploring the relationships and interaction of figures and how they can be expressed in form and color in prints, “Shadows,” the latest exhibition of works by Michael H. Zack, runs through November 24 at City Gallery, 994 State St., New Haven, Connecticut. “The interrelationships and movement within the panoramas are supported by a vibrant, subtle and nuanced range of colors. Shorn of distinguishing facial features and clothing detail, his figures become anyone and everyone, yet they are uniquely individual and somewhat mysterious.” But, are they based in reality? “They are frequently, but not always, based on people I know and have had the opportunity to observe as they go about their daily lives,” Zack said. “Taken out of those contexts and rearranged into a panorama that has a narrative all its own, each composition allows the viewer to interpretthis world in his or her own way.” City Gallery is open Thursday through Sunday from 12-4 p.m.
The 10th annual Flying Horse Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit, featuring over 50 works by artists working in a variety of mediums and styles, remains on view through November 30 on the 100-acre campus of Pingree School, 537 Highland St., South Hamilton, Massachusetts. Located just minutes from the popular North Shore seaside communities of Gloucester, Rockport and Ipswich, it’s a unique setting to see artists whose works have been displayed at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Chesterwood, The Mount, The Crane Estate and in galleries throughout the country. Visitors to the free, seven days a week from duskto- dawn exhibition can pick up a full-color catalog from a campus mailbox or see a full list of participating sculptors at pingree.org/sculpture-show.
Claudine Bing’s “Cosmic History” exhibition, which runs through December 1 at Galatea Fine Art, 460 Harrison Ave. #B- 6, Boston, Massachusetts, is “an imaginative exploration of stars, planets, gravitational waves and black holes.” Noting that while a scientist uses telescopes and mathematics to answer questions about our origins and about our human place in space and time, Bing stated that, as an artist, she dreams about how our cosmos began involved and transfers those fantasies into paintings. “I study and imaginatively transform the facts of astrophysics. I paint about the passing of time, the accumulation of memories, our possible origins.” Indeed, there may also be many psychological and emotional forces at work in the human subconsciousness and in these paintings, Bing encourages you to question the origins of our thoughts and actions — and whether part of the DNA in our memory banks holds a view of the origin of our planet. Also on view at Galatea in November: “Marsha Nouritza Odabashian: Stir: Drawings and Paintings from the Onion Pot” and “Vicki Kocher Paret: Among Trees.”
The combination of strong research work by art scholars and generous loans by holders of the work of William Trost Richards (1833-1905) made the current “Hieroglyphs of Landscape” exhibition that remains on view through December 8 at the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College, 2101 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, Massachusetts, possible. The show is the first monographic look at the 19th century landscape painter’s art to be shown in the city and features more than 190 oil paintings, watercolors, drawings and sketchbooks — some loaned by direct descendants of the artist. Exhibition curator and Boston College Professor Emeritus of Art History, Jeffery Howe, said that Richard’s paintings, “reveal an obsessive concern to depict the external world honestly and with scrupulously observed detail, reflecting the influence of Victorian era English art critic John Ruskin. Radiant with beauty, his landscapes are increasingly relevant for their environmental implications.”
“The Light Collectors,” figurative paintings and abstract collages by Catalina Viejo Lopez de Roda, go on view on December 7 and remain on view through January 18 at HallSpace, 950 Dorchester Ave., Dorchester, Massachusetts. “This collection focuses on images taken from my memories, dreams and experiences of female intimacy. The rainbow often weaves itself through the paintings and collages as a symbol of inner light and connection,” Viejo Lopez de Roda said. “Many of my paintings require the participation of the viewer by opening and closing wooden panels built on the paintings’ surface (similar to diptychs and triptychs). The works merge painting with three-dimensional elements and often present a bright palette within a darker psychological context.”
Combining and transforming hand-stitched pieces of old cloth into new contexts — with some inspired by their histories, and others by formal concerns or visual associations, “Janie Cohen: Rogue Cloth Work,” an exhibition of textile assemblages created by artist, curator and museum director Cohen over many years, is a unique collection of compelling stories that are on view through December 27 at the Vermont Supreme Court Gallery, 111 State St., Montpelier, Vermont. “Cloth has long attracted and fascinated me as an artistic medium,” Cohen said. “Old cloth, which is chiefly what I work with, holds so much history in its origins and design, its traces of age and use. It offers an endlessly rich starting point and can lead me to surprising places.” Which this gallery is, presented in a unique setting. The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.- 4:30 p.m. and will be open during the Montpelier Art Walk on December 6 from 4-7 p.m.
“The View from Here: Local Landscapes” by Jennifer Hubbard will be on exhibit through December 27 at the Gallery at River Arts, 74 Pleasant St., Morrisville, Vermont. Hubbard, who studied painting and drawing at the Mitchell School of Fine Arts, and the Maryland Institute College of Art, moved to Vermont in 2009. “Her oil paintings feature scenes from Lamoille and Orleans counties, and capture barns and agricultural subjects in the vivid illumination of late afternoon light. In some paintings, she tweaks her color palette to add a contemporary, surreal twist on traditional rural landscape painting. The resulting paintings merge realistic, recognizable scenes with a touch of painterly abstraction.” The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m.-4 p.m.