To say that the community of artists and creatives in New Bedford is tight knit is an understatement. Layers of relationships — professor and student, patron and artist, parent and child — have come together over decades to build a foundation for the arts in the city.
At its 16th Anniversary Exhibit, the Judith Klein Gallery and Studio features 18 artists with ties to the region and who contribute to the South Coast’s flourishing and ever-growing arts scene.
But these artists have another connecting thread — one that leads back to artist and gallery owner Judith Klein herself.
Standing in the center of a gallery buzzing with conversation, Klein said that while many artists featured in this exhibition have shown their work with her “on and off” over the past 16 years, she always tries to “introduce a couple new artists.”
Azorean-American painter and performance artist Mimi Pinherio was one of these “new artists” who found a spot on the gallery wall next to South Coast mainstays.
Like a Salon wall, her bright, expressive nudes painted in oils and pastel mounted onto metallic wrapping paper and enclosed in found frames hung in the golden light of the gallery among other works in wide-ranging mediums from woodblock prints and collage to porcelain ceramics and jewelry.
Pinheiro has worked with the Collective Grupo Suma in Mexico City where she studied under Mexican painter Jose “Pepe” Barbosa. Pinheiro now has a space in the Kilburn Mill — along with several other area artists — and has displayed in New Bedford previously as a part of the city’s Seaport Art Walk and in the now-defunct UMass Dartmouth Star Store Gallery.
According to Klein, she found her “niche” in displaying artists with ties to New Bedford.
“It’s such a great pool of artists in the area,” said Klein. “I developed friendships with all these artists over the years by showing their work.”
In addition to Pinheiro and Klein, the 16th Anniversary Exhibit includes artists Alma Cummings, Mary Hurwitz, Robert Feingold, Kat Knutsen, Kathy M. Miraglia, Anthony Miraglia, Sheila Oliveira, Anita Trezvant, Suzanne Volmer, Michael Hubert, Ron Lister, Theresea Manning, Matthew Phillips, Deb Smook, Patricia White and Adrian Tio.
Before keen readers’ eyes flit back up to my byline — yes, Deb Smook is my mother. She has three mixed media works hanging on the walls of the Judith Klein Gallery that I have seen many times in many different states from ideation, to troubleshooting, to final product. While I hesitate to take up space writing about my own mother’s art, the experience of growing up in an artist’s house has presented a unique opportunity to reflect on how someone’s artwork can change just within the process of one piece, let alone how it can change over decades.
Klein too has seen changes in these artists’ work over the 16 years they have displayed with her. She pointed to former UMass Dartmouth professor Anthony Miraglia, whose rich monochromatic paintings in black and white with strings of script scrawled, etched and painted throughout, have evolved from his previous work.
“Years ago, when I started showing him, he was very colorful and different. [He used] a lot of collage work and a lot of color,” said Klein. “Everybody’s changing … and that’s a good thing.
With its 16th Anniversary Show, the Judith Klein Gallery presents a cross-section of the relationships and the evolutions of some South Coast artists and casts its sight into the future with each new artist on display.
“The world changes around you, and you change, and you have to express this in your own art,” said Klein.
(The 16th Anniversary Exhibit at the Judith Klein Gallery and Studio runs through Friday, January 10, 2025. The gallery will be open from 4 to 6 p.m. during New Bedford’s monthly AHA! Night on Thursday, Dec. 12. The Judith Klein Gallery is located in Suite 287 on the second floor of the Kilburn Mill, 127 West Rodney French Blvd. Old mill buildings can be tricky to navigate, take a right at the first fork after arriving on the second floor.)