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

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

The Armenian Museum of America, located in Watertown, Massachusetts, not only contextualizes Armenia’s lengthy and turmoiled past, but it also presents a more contemporary view of Armenian people today. Treasures are unveiled in “Gandzaran! Notable Selections from our Collection”, threading generations of people together through modern interpretations of a shared culture. Shadows, carvings, etchings and textiles all permanently engrave the history of a displaced country onto a physical plain, memorializing the lives that were lost to a genocide. Melkon Hovhannisyan’s impressionistic paintings are earthy and moody, with vibrant colors that bleed into one another and subjects that are almost indistinguishable from their background. “The Walk,” 1995, is a momentary glimpse of two figures, faceless and limbless yet they still feel alive. It seems as though the two people are moving forward … [Read more...] about ARMENIAN MUSEUM OF AMERICA’S “GANDZARAN!: NOTABLE SELECTIONS FROM OUR COLLECTION”