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 … [Read more...] about CAPSULE PREVIEWS: November/December 2019
Current Issue
CELEBRATED AT BIRTH: WORCESTER EXHIBITION EXPLORES THE ART OF MOTHERHOOD
Anxiety, fear, joy and hope are all possible emotions women experience when anticipating the birth of a child. In the not too distant past, fear of dying was also mingled in mix and is still a possibility. The current “With Child: Otto Dix/Carmen Winant” exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum brings all these joys and fears into focus. Brilliantly researched by guest curator Marcia Lagerwey, the three-part exhibit is a must-see, with the possible exception of children and teens. A bonus exhibit, “Reflections on Pregnancy and Birth,” is alone worth the trip to WAM. Featuring superb paintings, prints and poetry by local artists, the subjects run the gamut from screaming babies to dreamy mothers-to-be floating in the sea under starry skies. All three exhibits are timely, bringing the Dix and Winant works to public attention at precisely the moment when the civic discussion of women’s body … [Read more...] about CELEBRATED AT BIRTH: WORCESTER EXHIBITION EXPLORES THE ART OF MOTHERHOOD
PORTRAIT PERFECT: A FACE TO FACE REVIEW IN NEW BRITAIN
Artists. We know their work, but we don’t always know their faces. In “For America: Paintings from the National Academy of Design,” on view through January 20 at the New Britain Museum of American Art, over 90 paintings spanning from 1809 to the present featuring the artist’s face in self-portrait form or as portraits by other artists are presented with examples of their representative work, personalizing what the artist makes as art, with who they are as people. The exhibition was organized to highlight the National Academy of Design’s (NAD) expansive collection, and to remind audiences of the Academy’s fundamental mission and educational goals as a teaching and collecting institution that is a “forward-thinking” place to train artists in the best academic practices and promote and exhibit their work. What’s important is the historical fact that from 1839 to 1994, the NAD required … [Read more...] about PORTRAIT PERFECT: A FACE TO FACE REVIEW IN NEW BRITAIN
STAYING CONTEMPORARY: ARTIST PROGRAM MAINTAINS THE GARDNER’S HERITAGE
With a gala air, the Gardner Museum prepares its sparkling Renzo Piano wing for “In the Company of Artists: 25 Years of Artists-in- Residence.” Laura Owens’s giant gold-and-magenta banner winks with a smiley face on the museum’s façade: “ShowTime.” In the Hostetter Gallery, photographers complete their shots of newly installed works by the seven returning resident artists. Lee Mingwei, creator of the museum’s Living Room, hovers near its door in a floor-length robe of charcoal silk, protecting the artists being interviewed within. In the distance, Lee’s “Sonic Blossom” singers are practicing Schubert’s Lieder with which to surprise gallery guests. In the garden, the mobile artist Charmaine Wheatley chats with a guard while sketching his portrait. Pieranna Cavalchini, the Gardner’s curator of contemporary art and director of the residency program, glides along the stairways and … [Read more...] about STAYING CONTEMPORARY: ARTIST PROGRAM MAINTAINS THE GARDNER’S HERITAGE
Welcome Statement Nov/Dec 2019
Welcome to our final issue of 2019! We compiled its contents knowing that what you’re holding will be sitting front and center at our official exhibitors’ booth at Art Basel Miami Beach from December 5 through 9 at the Miami Beach Convention Center and that it’s a unique opportunity for us to bring the New England region’s artists, museums, galleries and cultural organizations to the attention of the art patrons, collectors, and major museum and gallery stakeholders in attendance. It’s equally as important to direct you, our readers, to the artists, exhibitions and venues whose works continue to rise above the chatter of the day to inspire our cultural communities to gather, share experiences and bond together as one in working for a better world. That’s never easy during the period of the year when the first fall shows are coming down and the new ones are going up just as we’re … [Read more...] about Welcome Statement Nov/Dec 2019
THE CHIPS HAVE FALLEN: HARTSHORN’S STRETCHES GRAPHIC DESIGN AT CCRI
With one hand on the tiller and the other on the mainsheet, the sailor tests the wind, sensing the speed of the boat and the air slipping against his face. He shifts his weight and adjusts his course, and the sail billows around the landmarks in his field of vision. A moment of calm: then, swifter than a gull, he glides through an ever-changing perspective of his own invention. A rising star in Boston’s world of corporate advertising, Mark Hartshorn began to weary of sacrificing his creative freedom to the demands of the client. Leaving his career as art director with hardly a glance behind, he returned to the Art Institute of Boston, now Lesley University College of Art and Design, to get his M.F.A. in interdisciplinary forms and works on paper. An identity crisis flared again when the Community College of Rhode Island asked him to teach 4D design and web design. He was forced to … [Read more...] about THE CHIPS HAVE FALLEN: HARTSHORN’S STRETCHES GRAPHIC DESIGN AT CCRI