Mad Dog Studios has played a pioneering role in the growing Pawtucket arts community by offering artists an affordable place to work on a bi-monthly basis. “Mad Dog March” is a collaborative show being held from March 3 through 29 at the Coastal Living Gallery, 83 Brown St., North Kingstown (Historic Wickford), Rhode Island. Curators Shari Rubeck and Karen Murtha recently chose for the exhibit a selection of sculpture, drawings, ceramics, fiber art, painting and encaustic works made by Mad Dog artists Dianne Miller, Lena Georas, Samantha Papaioannou, Amanda May Amoroso, Laura White-Carpenter, Alejandra Peralta, Silver Hippo, Bonnie Buck, Anna Fleischer and Taleen Batalian.
The Arts & Business Council of Boston (A&BC) celebrates the opening of its Walter Feldman Gallery at Midway Studios (15 Channel Center Street #103, Boston) from March 2 through April 7 with “Kelly Carmody: Deeper Sense,” a solo exhibition of largescale portraits in oil, punctuated by intimate still-life paintings and a suite of miniature portraits in ink by the Waltham, Mass.-based artist. While honoring the principles of classical painting — “composition, simplification of masses, manipulation of value and color” — she brings the traditional genre into contemporary times with works that are “compelling, powerful, and enigmatic depictions of humble, everyday subjects.”
The latest collection of “masterly crafted large scale ceramics” by Stephen Procter will be showcased in “Scale and Presence” from March 5 through April 26 at Mitchell•Giddings Fine Arts, 183 Main Street, Brattleboro, Vermont. “Known for the disciplined lines and unglazed surfaces of his historically- inspired monumental vessels, Procter’s more recent work revels in the sensuality of curves and the painterly effects of layered glazes,” said gallery manager Margaret Shipman. The show will also introduce a series of smaller Procter pieces and non-traditional shapes, including colorful wall pieces, called “orphan lids.”
Conrad Guertin said he went completely out of his comfort level to learn new ways of painting with self-made tools in creating his latest exploratory paintings for his “We Live By What We Leave Behind” exhibition at ArtSpace Maynard, 63 Summer St., Maynard, Mass., from March 11 through April 3. “My process is spontaneous, influenced by Kline and Motherwell and the abstract expressionists. In previous years, the use of black and white were most prevalent for contrast, but in these more recent paintings, I’ve begun to introduce slightly more color.” The new process has allowed him “to analyze the current situation of challenges more clearly” and create “a more dynamic composition.”
With 2015 being the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the 70th anniversary of the end of the Jewish Holocaust and the 40th anniversary of the Cambodian Genocide, the Whistler House Museum of Art, 243 Worthen Street, Lowell, Mass., put out a call for artwork to draw attention to genocide — the systematic and widespread extermination or attempted extermination of an entire national, racial, religious or ethnic group — and help raise awareness of man’s capability for inhumane acts. The resulting “Pursuing Justice Through Art – 2015” exhibition will run from March 18 through April 25. “It was inspired by Arshile Gorky, the Father of Abstract Expressionism, who is one of the artists in Whistler House’s art collection,” said Whistler House Museum’s president and executive director Sara Bogosian. “Gorky is considered to be one of the most famous survivors of the Armenian Genocide.”
“Primum,” the first exhibition by the newly formed Autus artist collective, features work by founding artists Sarah Baldwin, Julie K. Gray, Tina Guay and Keiren Valentine that can be seen through March 21 at Engine, 265 Main St., Biddeford, Maine. The four emerging and mid-career artists explore their relationships wit the themes of both physical and psychological “space” and “place.” Autus’ goal is to encourage local and international artistic collaboration with a focus on emerging and experimental talent.
The New Art Center in Newton’s Curatorial Opportunity Program gives both first-time and established curators the opportunity to explore experimental approaches to presenting contemporary art. Its next offering, “Excavations,” was curated by Adrienne Jacobson and explores, “the relationship between artwork, geology, landscape and time” through the works of Laura Evans, Candice Ivy, Ken Landauer, Shannon Rankin, Jill Slosburg-Ackerman and August Ventimiglia, whose diverse works range from drawings and altered books to maps and furniture. The show opens March 22 and continues through May 9 at the New Art Center in Newton, 61 Washington Park, Newtonville, Mass.
Surveying the use of animals in different genres of Japanese woodblock prints, textiles and fashionable objects, “Nature, Pleasure, Myth: Animals in the Art of Japan,” currently on view at the Mead Art Museum, offers “a view into the ‘floating world’ of Edo Japan.” Whether portrayed on “embroidered robes of courtesans” or “fascinating secret calendars,” or through folklore storytelling or kabuki performances combining dance and drama, domestic, wild and fantastical animals are celebrated through June 28 on the campus of Amherst College, Route 9 & 116, Amherst, Mass.
Consisting of approximately 92 artistic works spanning two centuries of American coastal art and featuring such noted artists as Thomas Hart Benton, William J. Bradford, William Partridge Burpee, Sears Gallagher, Rockwell Kent and Paul Pollaro, traveling to southern New England to see “Over Life’s Waters: The Coastal Art Collection of Charles and Irene Hamm,” on view through April 12 at the New Britain Museum of American Art, 56 Lexington Street, New Britain, Conn., would make for a spectacular early spring excursion. “Visitors may recognize some familiar scenes, as the exhibition highlights several of the most inspirational destinations for artists, notably Monhegan and Mount Desert Islands in Maine and Gloucester, Mass.”
World renowned pianist and composer Michael Nyman, who recently released “Symphony 11:
Hillsborough Memorial” as a tribute to the 96 Liverpool Football Club fans who died during a stampede in 1989, also has a visual arts pedigree that is being introduced to U.S. audiences through “Images Were Introduced: An Exhibition of Film and Photography,” on view through May 17 at the Tufts University Art Gallery at Aidekman Arts Center, 40 Talbot Ave., Medford, Mass. “An immersive, 12-channel cinematic installation,” including short films from Nyman’s “Cine Opera” series and photographs from his “Day of the Dead” series, is accompanied by a newly composed score.