The Pulp Gallery, 80 Race Street Holyoke MA, is a treasure box.
Artist and founder Dean Brown opened Pulp in April 2019 and named it to honor paper, the primary product of Holyoke, Massachusetts. Pulp is the interim product between trees and paper. Perhaps the gallery is the interim between artists, their works, their admirers and collectors.
In 2019, Patrick O’Connor of the Springfield Republican celebrated the opening with an article in which Brown describes a gallery as the “white box” where artists want to display their works. Not surprisingly Pulp’s walls are all painted white. In a succession of rooms including the W.C., art is displayed with plenty of breathing room, alongside a scatter of Brown’s Holyoke artifacts, and his collection of Outsider and folk art.
Brown also maintains a cabinet of flat works of multiple artists. He posts images of all gallery artists online on the Pulp website (pulpholyoke.com) and in the gallery. Visiting last month, I viewed a newly filled drawer of paintings by a contemporary Russian woman, whose charming rural landscapes are realized in a dark palette as if drawn from fading memories.
The current exhibit runs through December 8. It celebrates Dale Anderson’s wire sculptures, both wall-hung drawings of elaborate fish, soft eyed animal faces, family combinations, and a whimsey of 3-D animals imaginary and real which dance on shelves and pedestals. They greet you as you enter the gallery, parading on the showroom lintel. Anderson’s works may include screening, chicken wire and wire in multiple weights, like the Outsider artists he promoted professionally for years, he works with what is at hand.
Brantner DeAtley’s richly painted sculptures are carved from detritus, many of them birds remembered from long woodland walks. All are knockouts. Some are stacked in twos or threes like Mexican folk art. Some are very rough and monotoned imitations of degraded time devoured cast metal or perhaps ceramics. There is homage to Outsiders in his works, but he is a certified Insider who graduated from the Boston Museum School.
Large abstract paintings by Celeste Henriquez, who is based in Portland, Maine, are beautifully composed and fill the gallery with grace. The gestural shapes and demure color palette are lovely to spend time with from afar or close-up. A selection of smaller paintings with collage elements by David Hornung recall Diebenkorn’s cigar box series and are very compelling each with their own strong eclectic wander.
If you visit the bathroom, you will get lost in a wondrous collection on the surrounding walls. These include several paintings by Joanne Holtje, who has a series of plein air paintings of the Holyoke mills and river included on the Pulp gallery site. With painterly reverence, her works record the aging spine of this foundational New England City.
Brown’s studio in the basement is like entering a kitchen in a five-star restaurant where the magic happens. A series composed of geometric colored tiles titled “Under Cover” is laid out on the floor and finished works are on the walls. A large table covered with source materials is an invitation to lock the door and play. This series has an aura of calm, evoked by masterful use of shape and color where the individual parts side by side with straight line boundaries all get along” in their new whole.
Visit when you can, and I guarantee you will “get along” with all the art you encounter.
(The Celeste Henriquez, Brantner DeAtley, David Hornung and Dale Anderson exhibition continues through Sunday, December 8 at the Pulp Gallery, 80 Race Street Holyoke Massachusetts. The gallery is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Its next show, “LOCALS NO. 1” opens on December 14. For more information, visit pulpholyoke.com.)