Pigeons, a common name for gray doves, symbolizes peace. They often roam urban epicenters and make home wherever they land. The resilience of their spirit is often overlooked because we see them often. Dina Nazmi Khorchid’s textile and installation work draws from the metaphor of the pigeon to talk about her migration story. Khorchid is like what surrealistic blues poet aja monet calls “born of distance between now and then” as the sediments of inherited trauma and migratory patterns influence Khorchid. She migrated from Lebanon to the United Arab Emirates then Lebanon, again, and then the United States. While her story is deeply personal, it connects to a broader narrative of her Palestinian culture. I wish we did not have to admire her for her strength because strength is a burden. Her vulnerability is on display through her recent pigeon series. Pigeons started appearing in her work … [Read more...] about SOARING SOLILOQUIES OF HOME: DINA NAZMI KHORCHID’S PALESTINIAN-ROOTED ART
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CORNERED: MIRA CANTOR
Mira Cantor has taught color theory, drawing and painting for 40 years, 25 of them as a tenured professor in the Art and Architecture Department at Northeastern University. She has always been driven to learn as well as to teach through her art. Artscope Magazine’s Elizabeth Michelman “Cornered” Cantor in her studio a month before her March 2024 exhibition at Boston’s Kingston Gallery to discuss the paintings and drawings she’d completed during her 2023 sabbatical. Cantor has spent the last 17 summers in County Clare, western Ireland, teaching an art semester abroad in the village of Ballyvaughan. She paints the world in a studio near the historical and geological refuge of The Burren, on the lip of the Atlantic Ocean. Over the years she has hiked the beaches, caves and riven pavements throughout this upthrust primeval seabed. From the eroding cliffs of its rolling limestone terrain, … [Read more...] about CORNERED: MIRA CANTOR
PAINTING JOY THROUGH PAIN: BETHANY NOËL “CONTROLS” MIGRAINES THROUGH HER ART
“There are three types of days. Days where I can do everything, days where I’m fine but can’t do it all, and days where I’m interrupted, and we have to start again.” Clad in paint-spattered coveralls, artist Bethany Noël shows me around her 500-square-foot Holliston Mills studio in Holliston, Massachusetts. We’re “supervised” by her four-legged studio mate and trail companion, Sargent, a large and soulful-eyed German Shepherd mix. “He’s named after the painter,” she confirmed. Under filtered winter light, a series of squiggly black-and-white plein air ink sketches rest in loose rows on a table running half the length of the studio’s windowed wall. She pulls a palm-sized one off the table and shows me. “This is the source sketch for ‘Joy,’” she said. The finished painting, currently on view at the Open Door Arts Gallery at the Worcester Art Museum, in Worcester, Massachusetts, is a … [Read more...] about PAINTING JOY THROUGH PAIN: BETHANY NOËL “CONTROLS” MIGRAINES THROUGH HER ART
A PLATFORM TO SPEAK THEIR TRUTHS: THE MYTH OF NORMAL: MASSART AT 150
“The Myth of Normal: A Celebration of Authentic Expression,” currently on view at MassArt Art Museum, was inspired by guest curator Mari Spirito’s reading of “The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture,” a 2022 book by Gabor Maté (written with Daniel Maté). The show, which reopens after the Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s winter break on January 18, is a platform for artists to speak their truths. The exhibition is a globally inclusive distillation of contemporary zeitgeist. It offers a sensory antidote to what the exhibition notes mention as, “beliefs and behaviors that are generally con- sidered normal even though they are in fact making us emotionally and physically sick [think of] human beings contorting themselves in order to survive day to day life.” The curatorial choices of Spirito (MassArt Class of ‘92), reflect an understanding that ours is … [Read more...] about A PLATFORM TO SPEAK THEIR TRUTHS: THE MYTH OF NORMAL: MASSART AT 150
STOLEN MOMENTS AT RIC: AMY MONTALI’S MOVING IMAGES AT BANNISTER GALLERY
I recently visited photographer Amy Montali at her Providence, Rhode Island studio where we sat with each other discussing her art. She had purposefully arranged on a table between us a scale-model, or miniature version, of her upcoming solo exhibition, “Amy Montali: Thief,” that will be on view from November 9 through December 8 at the Bannister Gallery at Rhode Island College. Using the scale-model as a tool, Montali was in the midst of making placement decisions among the included photographs, controlling sight lines in advance. Montali described her photography approach as aligned mostly with ways in which dance and theater are made, explaining that her work shares with these art forms a sensibility for isolating gestures, developing new phrases, as the method for building content. She mentioned an affinity for “Samuel Beckett, for the mix and cross play of epic, mundane and … [Read more...] about STOLEN MOMENTS AT RIC: AMY MONTALI’S MOVING IMAGES AT BANNISTER GALLERY
STILL TEACHING: FAITH RINGGOLD’S LIFE STORIES IN WORCESTER
While featuring only 16 artworks, don’t let the size of the “Faith Ringgold: Freedom to Say What I Please” exhibition stop you from making a trip to the Worcester Art Museum during its six-month run. Each piece has its own intricate story and, judging by the audience reaction to its first month on exhibit, each person attending brings their own personal experience with Ringgold’s art to the space. The show was organized by Samantha Cataldo, the museum’s Associate Curator of Art, who built the show around Ringgold’s 1991 “Picasso’s Studio” narrative quilt from the museum’s collection. “WAM acquired the ‘Picasso’s Studio’ quilt soon after it was made,” Cataldo said. “It is a reflection on the museum at the time. Ten years later, other museums were catching up. They (WAM) had the good foresight to acquire it in the ‘90s.” The quilt hadn’t been exhibited at WAM for at least 10 … [Read more...] about STILL TEACHING: FAITH RINGGOLD’S LIFE STORIES IN WORCESTER