“Artists for Ukraine: Transforming Ammo Boxes into Icons,” a powerful installation of three Ukrainian icons painted on the boards of ammunition boxes by Oleksandr Klymenko and Sofia Atlantova, a husband-wife artistic team from Kyiv, Ukraine, will be on view from November 3 through February 13, 2023, at the Museum of Russian Icons, 203 Union St., Clinton, Massachusetts. They’re part of the ongoing “Buy an Icon — Save a Life” project originally created in response to Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine after Klymenko found empty wooden ammunition boxes from combat zones and noted their resemblance to icon boards (doski). By repurposing the panels, the project strives, in the artist’s words, to “transform death (symbolized by ammo boxes) into life (traditionally symbolized by icons in Ukrainian culture). The goal, this victory of life over death, happens not only on the figurative and … [Read more...] about CAPSULE PREVIEWS: November/December 2022
Artscope Issues
A MAGNIFICENT GLOBAL ART EXPERIENCE
“Live life with no excuses. Travel with no regret.” — Oscar Wilde The art of travel is traveling with art! Are we there yet? While traveling, experiencing the world through the eyes of artists has always provided me with a safe method to understand the context and experience events that instantly connect me closer to the local culture. Inspired by the hiatus provided by the virus spread, with gratitude to science, the traveling industry is bouncing back. This past summer was the perfect setting to bid the international art world hello, again! As I satisfied my cravings for exploration of the global art world in person, my adventures included Ireland, Scotland and London. I ventured through some less-traveled and some heavily traveled roads, and the arts were always my guiding star. In Ireland, among my local discoveries were the hand weavers from the River Avoca. The little town of … [Read more...] about A MAGNIFICENT GLOBAL ART EXPERIENCE
AN INNER SENSE OF WHOLENESS
Olivia Bernard’s exhibition of sculpture and two-dimensional work spreads out under the sloping roof of The Stoneleigh- Burnham School’s Geissler Gallery. Hanging sheets of white scrim bound the space on one side, separating her work from that of another well-known installation artist, Karen Dolmanisth. Bernard’s self-curated selections, which span her output of the last 26 years, combine earlier with later works to propose more of a gist than a direct path connecting the lot. Each sculpture demands enough space that, when one is in its presence, the next one hovering nearby does not impinge on one’s sense of being alone with another being. Each piece holds its own, capturing the viewer’s attention and indeed anxiety. As with Giacometti’s figures, one finds that on more intimate approach the works feel larger and more charged. The abstract work is grounded in cumulative experiences … [Read more...] about AN INNER SENSE OF WHOLENESS
BEAUTY AND MORTALITY
t’s probably not a coincidence that Vaughn Sills’ exhibition opened the day after the area’s first frost warning, the warm tones of “This Precious Life” bringing needed heat to those in attendance at its opening reception in the Art Center Gallery at Anna Maria College in the Central Massachusetts town of Paxton. The exhibition, billed as “a select retrospective view of the last 40 years of a photographic life,” is broken into four portions: “Knowing Our Distance” (images exploring the past and present in Sills’ life), “Beyond Words” (utilizing objects and plants found outside her grandparents’ Prince Edward Island cottage), “True Poems Flee” (photographs taken of structures and atmospheric events in P.E.I.) and “Inside Outside” (still-life floral settings infront of photographs from P.E.I., an act she calls, “the juxtaposition of the human-inhabited environment with the wild, untamed … [Read more...] about BEAUTY AND MORTALITY
HIPPOS AND ICEBERGS
To get to Lawrence Academy from Cambridge, you must fly over the super-highways of Route 2 (West) and 495 (North), then bear, with some patience, the horse and carriage — and sometimes tractor from a local farm — pace of Route 119 (North, again) to cover around 50 miles in just under an hour — with a few glances at our colorful New England foliage, before arriving in truly picturesque Groton, Massachusetts. Curator Laurie McGovern hailed us from the top of the Richardson-Meese Performing Arts Center steps and graciously guided us into the Conant Gallery, showing us around the exhibition of two, in my opinion, super-star artists. The first work to draw my attention was photographer Peter Roos’ “Mirror Water #3.” I looked at it for several minutes until I felt somewhat like I saw, or even was seeing at that very moment, what Peter saw in the diminishing grandeur of an iceberg in … [Read more...] about HIPPOS AND ICEBERGS
AN INTENSITY OF COLOR
If, as an adult, you have read Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” you will remember that Alice is confronted with paradoxes, contradictions in logic, disorientation of time and generally puzzlement at her place in that bewildering environment. The book you may have read in middle school as a fantastical tale takes on deeper, more introspective layers of meaning in the seasoned reading and may have prepared you for the current exhibits at Burlington’s BCA Gallery. The central figure in Valerie Hird’s show “The Garden of Absolute Truths” is Alice, in the form of an avatar. This avatar appears as a hand drawn paper cutout in a video, in works on paper and in a series of book sculptures — three-dimensional collaged boxes. This more contemporary Alice explores and examines her knowledge, assumptions and orientation toward such global issues as migration, social … [Read more...] about AN INTENSITY OF COLOR