In a season dedicated to family gatherings, Roz Sommer’s “Foremothers and Forefathers” series of family portraits on view through December 6 at the Maud Morgan Arts’ Chandler Gallery, is a visual heartfelt embrace for all family members who have passed. The vividly painted portraits are based on two black and white photos from 1929, where 20 family members gathered to face the camera. Sommer’s American grandparents and six-year-old mother were visiting in Poland. Every Polish relative — children, elders, young and old couples — died in the Holocaust. Sommer is a master of paint; in this series, she used gauche on Yupo. She invented the colors that bring her ancestors back life. Their terrible demise is subtly foreshadowed in the coloration and stern stares, but their individual identities are portrayed with deep longing, awe and reverence. Each portrait is so vital that one could … [Read more...] about FOREMOTHERS AND FOREFATHERS: ROZ SOMMER RESURRECTS HER FAMILY IN PAINT AT MAUD MORGAN ARTS
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HEALING THROUGH ART: DANIELLE MAILER’S AUTUMN REVERIES ON VIEW AT CONNECTICUT LIBRARY
Danielle Mailer is not author Norman Mailer and painter Adele Morales’s daughter for nothing. She shares the same socio-political sensibilities as her late father, but expresses them in a very different voice, through her visual art. She shares the same Latin American soul as her mother and highs and lows of heart. (She’s the second eldest of Mailer’s nine children by varied wives, who remarkably are all very close and very talented.) Danielle has put together an exhibition, "Autumn Reveries" of some 20 pieces — paintings, sculptures, print and collages and a new experiment, shadow boxes, all of which were birthed out of concern for the upcoming election. The exhibition which opens October 30 and runs through December 20 at the Jamie Gagarin Gallery at the Oliver Wolcott Library, 160 South St., Litchfield, Connecticut, has an opening reception on Thursday, November 7 from 5-7 … [Read more...] about HEALING THROUGH ART: DANIELLE MAILER’S AUTUMN REVERIES ON VIEW AT CONNECTICUT LIBRARY
“Lost Weekend” In Snapshots: Pang Shows Photographs 50 Years On
50 years ago, on a late-August night, standing naked out on his apartment’s balcony in Manhattan, John Lennon watched a UFO crawl by. May Pang, Lennon’s assistant and lover at the time, was getting dressed for a late-night pizza dinner when he called her out. Gawking as the spaceship moseyed down the river, Pang and the ex-Beatle got off shots from two cameras, though none of the images came out legible. In the liner notes of his then soon to be released studio album, “Walls and Bridges,” Lennon wrote: “On the 23rd Aug. 1974 at 9 o’clock I saw a U.F.O.” Pang’s time with Lennon occurred during his “lost weekend,” an 18 month-long affair that found her assisting the songwriter through the composition and production of “Walls” slick, dreamy sound. Spanning between New York and Los Angeles, the “weekend” was an extravagant time filled with both debauchery and glamor; glittering mid-70s … [Read more...] about “Lost Weekend” In Snapshots: Pang Shows Photographs 50 Years On
SAND TO SPLENDOR: VERMONT GLASS GUILD ARTISTS’ FAR-REACHING SHOW AT SVAC
Following a long, ascending road up the side of a mountain eventually leads to the campus of the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester. Along the way, one finds installations of outdoor sculptures peppered amidst the trees and vast grassy meadows surrounding the complex. Getting out of the car, one feels instantly to be in a very welcoming place, buildings very accessible, and walking trails within easy reach. The 120 acres of land houses several buildings: The Yester House is the main building, built in 1917 as a private estate of the Webster family. It was bought by the Southern Vermont Artists in 1950, a mansion with endless rooms devoted to rotating exhibitions, including the iconic Solo Exhibition program. The Elizabeth De C. Wilson Museum is relatively new, having been built in 2000, a contemporary space which not only features rotating exhibitions, but also houses the … [Read more...] about SAND TO SPLENDOR: VERMONT GLASS GUILD ARTISTS’ FAR-REACHING SHOW AT SVAC
BELONGINGS WITH A PERPETUAL SEAM: CONTEMPORARY ART FILLS WILLIAMSTOWN’S NORTH LOOP GALLERY
Bottom row, left to right: Rodell Warner, “Artificial Archive SCRYING INTIMACIES, View from the Portal IV,” 2024, giclee print on Hahnemuhle paper, 8” x 8”. Ariana Gomez, “Where There Was Clay,” 2024, C=cyanotypes on silk Organza dim, variable sizes. Phoebe Shuman-Goodier, “Fallen,” 2022, archival ink jet print, 20” x 24”. Alexandre Pepin, Sunset in Bed, 2024, oil and sand on canvas, 30” x 40”. On a well-traveled street in Williamstown, Massachusetts is an apex of contemporary art in the area, the North Loop Gallery. Co-founded by Izzy Lee and Laurel Brown, both with ties to Williams College, the gallery was named for the Austin, Texas neighborhood where both lived while pursuing graduate degrees in art history at the University of Texas. The gallery has hosted many well-curated exhibitions in the few years that it has been open, and for the current shows, that will be open for Labor … [Read more...] about BELONGINGS WITH A PERPETUAL SEAM: CONTEMPORARY ART FILLS WILLIAMSTOWN’S NORTH LOOP GALLERY
PERFECT TIMING: FREE SPEECH: ART AND ACTIVISM AT LEXART
The call for art for “Free Speech: Art and Activism,” on view through August 25 at the Lexington Arts and Crafts Society in Lexington, Massachusetts, invited artists who are “passionate about our National Dialog and create artwork that challenges norms, ignites conversation, and sheds light on diverse political narratives.” Juror Chenoa Baker, a frequent Artscope Magazine contributor, made the selections and awarded prizes. She has worked with many major regional institutions, including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. Of her own artistic passions, she writes that “Materiality, visual research and ecologies of kinship shape her work.” In her statement about the exhibit as its juror, Baker wrote, “I love how craft is the media of dissent because it often goes under the radar in some circles but has a … [Read more...] about PERFECT TIMING: FREE SPEECH: ART AND ACTIVISM AT LEXART