The much-anticipated Members’ Exhibition, on view at Attleboro Arts Museum through January 27, is an annual event that provides an opportunity for members of all ages and artistic backgrounds to exhibit up to three artworks with guaranteed inclusion. Always an interesting percolation of ideas and trends, the current iteration of the survey includes 411 artworks by 201 artists. 2023 happens to be Attleboro Arts Museum’s 100th Anniversary and the Members’ Exhibition is certainly a signature event to begin an auspicious year. Zachary M. White, executive director of Gallery X in New Bedford, Massachusetts, was the awards juror for the show. His choices followed the museum’s template of Best Abstract ($100), Best Representational ($100), six Juror’s Awards ($50 each), four Blick Materials Awards ($50 value each) and 12 Merit Awards (certificates). Reinforcing these honors, in her remarks … [Read more...] about A REFLECTION OF THE TIMES
Reviews
AN AFFIRMATION OF LIFE
The experience of the annual Juried Exhibition at the Catamount Arts Center begins about an hour before you get there. Sure, you could take the highway for most of the route, but you would miss out on immersion into the desolate beauty of this northern life. If you opt for the back roads, unplug from your devices, and listen only to the white noise of your radiator fan, you’ll find yourself surrendering to the pleasures of quiet contemplation. You will be guided by the meandering curves of the road that offer up snow-encased hills and valleys, the occasional red barn leaning into the wind, signs of agrarian routine on winter’s hiatus, an old farmhouse with a 1950s fridge and life’s detritus relegated to the front porch and, of course, a satellite dish arching toward news of the outside world. Winter in this part of the country is harsh and living here requires a good bit of coping … [Read more...] about AN AFFIRMATION OF LIFE
SMALL FRAGMENTS OF MEMORY
All the senses will trigger memory, but for many people, a visual image opens a locked door to personal history, often forgotten or detached from the routines and obligations of daily living. Gail Winbury’s extensive body of work currently at the Southern Vermont Arts Center is a powerhouse exhibit that explores the joys and struggles that we all experience as we add layer upon layer of history to the being that transitions from childhood to adulthood to old age. The show, “The Girl Who Drew Memories,” invites the viewers to probe their own personal histories by interacting with the paintings, poetry and objects on display. Winbury was inspired by a close, immersive look into the details — the small fragments of memory — that have guided the events and choices of a narrative that is unique to her own life and yet capable of unlocking the repositories of the mind in her viewers. The … [Read more...] about SMALL FRAGMENTS OF MEMORY
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
ROMANTIC ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
Everyone lives their lives with vivid memories of “how I spent the Covid years!” Sarah Meyers Brent ground out the Covid chaos by combing her home and the town dumps for debris to create romantic, entangling wall sculptures. Brent is an artist with an unerring sense for compositional line, texture and color, evidenced by her solo exhibition, “Out Growth,” at The Art Complex Museum in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Brent’s “masterpiece” is one of her smaller works, “Portrait of a WomanandMotherDuringaPandemic.”Clearlyasculpturalself- portrait, the work invokes the swirling, “topsy-turvy” conflicted life of an artist and mother. To make this work she collected materials including a toy dinosaur, jewelry, plastic floral leaves and breast- like globules. But the star of the chaotic swirl is a dismembered Barbie doll, who twirls, crotch-up, above the fray. The diverse objects are united by an … [Read more...] about ROMANTIC ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM