What do you think is the average time museum-goers spend looking at art? A study in 2001 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art indicated the average time spent looking at great works of art  was 27.2 seconds. Fast forward to 2017, when the Art Institute of Chicago conducted the same study and found an increase to 28.63 seconds. I predict a current exhibition at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire, will skew the numbers of those studies. Upward. Iranian artist Arghavan Khosravi’s first museum exhibition — at the Currier — won’t be her last museum show. She creates surrealist images that explore themes of exile, suppression and empowerment. Her enigmatic compositions center on female protagonists and allude to the restrictions of human rights, particularly those of women and immigrants. Usually, I have no problem describing a piece of art — and its medium or … [Read more...] about TRULY EXCEPTIONAL: ARGHAVAN KHOSRAVI’S POTENT PAINTINGS AT THE CURRIER

Providence painter Kirstin Lamb’s early paintings were mushrooming accumulations of appropriated images referencing the history of domestic décor, portraiture and still life. Rendered in a style of artless caricature that masked her superior drafting skill, the encyclopedic scope of her imagery always suggested richer undercurrents. Lamb’s early paintings and drawings reflected the vanitas tradition of Dutch Master still life. She tossed in every kind of object or image that might grace a home or studio’s walls, complicating these collections with her own striped and dotted abstract designs and adding repetitive textilepatterns and floral displays copied from collected ephemera, historical compilations of home décor and references to domestic and feminine-identified crafts. These led to burgeoning 3D installations in the studio of individual works and groupings copied from her … [Read more...] about ‘A PAINTING IS A PRACTICE’: KIRSTIN LAMB’S FLORAL REMIX AT THE TERZIAN GALLERY

“The Evocative Mark Twain Inspires the Printmakers’ Network of Southern New England” is an immensely impressive exhibit featuring a wide breadth of accomplished veteran artists. Taking place at The Mark Twain House & Museum in West Hartford, Connecticut, the exhibition consists of 18 Printmakers’ Network of Southern New England (PNSNE) artists. Members of the PNSNE, an intimate, loosely organized group of 25 contemporary printmakers in total, each picked a quote from Mark Twain’s exhaustive writings and responded in their personal visual vocabulary. The witty Twain, born Samuel Clemens, was never one to disappoint with a sharp one-liner. Known for pioneering American letters, Twain also took an interest in visual aesthetics: “You know I like color and flummery and all such things — I was born red-headed — maybe that accounts for my passion for the gorgeous and ornamental.” (To … [Read more...] about PRINT INSPIRING MORE PRINT: MARK TWAIN HOUSE & MUSEUM HOSTS PNSNE PRINTMAKERS

Inspired by Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, the Fuller Craft Museum, built in 1969, fits snugly into New England’s wooded landscape as an important note of modernist architecture that exists in harmony with nature. Its architectural signature is its twin-fountain reflecting poolabutting a large pond. Among other things, the pool centers the building’s design. Founder Myron Fuller’s intention was to create a place “to enrich the lives of the people of Brockton” which remains vital among Fuller Craft Museum’s core values today. The museum’s exterior and overall floor plan relates unpretentious serenity, calm precursor and framing environment to the “wow” factor audiences experience surrounded by the exquisite contemporary craft displayed. Each exhibition is innovatively curated and masterfully installed. The total experience makes this a South Shore gem that consistently … [Read more...] about ‘THE NEXUS OF CONTEMPORARY CRAFT’: MCGOUGH LEADS FULLER CRAFT TO ITS NEXT CHAPTER

Using blackout-curtain fabric as her canvas, things happen to the pigments on its surface which suggest skin, parchment, old maps, architectural paper; things happen to the paint because of the material: for instance, blackish acrylic tint blurs at the top — which leads artist Jackie Reeves onwards to expand the work’s realization. The material, process, and ideas evolve and change together, one inspiring the other, interacting with each other so that she is never quite sure what accident or intention will birth what result. The joy Reeves takes in her art is this kind of spontaneous discovery, of play. “It’s what I, and my siblings have been doing, since we were children in Canada; it’s what I know how to do best.” She likes not being in control. What results from this play is powerful and moving. Reeves, formally trained, and experientially self-taught as well, started out … [Read more...] about A BELATED CELEBRATION: ART COMPLEX 50+1 INCLUDES JACKIE REEVES’ BIG PLANS

As a child, Aaron Slater watched a PBS documentary film about glass artist Dale Chihuly. Soon, he was melting beer bottles and breaking glass in the basement, fascinated by what he had seen in Chihuly’s early work. That led to taking a variety of art classes in school. Later, he discovered the work of Rick Satava, whose glass jellyfish are known worldwide, and Paul Stankard, famous for his glass paper weights. He was also inspired by American glass pipe makers who pushed the art of flameworking forward in the early 2000s, when he began his own career as a glass artist. For a time, writing diverted Slater’s attention and he earned a BFA in creative writing with a minor in film at Emerson College, which led to him reading scripts in Los Angeles before he returned to glass art. He never looked back and began teaching himself glass art. “Being self-taught was not easy,” he admitted. “I … [Read more...] about BALANCING NATURE AND ART: GLASSMAKER AARON SLATER RESETTLES IN VERMONT