The title says a lot, as far as words go, to point in the direction of artist Evelyn Davis-Walker’s “House + Wife Revisited” installation currently at the Thompson Gallery of the Cambridge School of Weston. Better, since it is visual art, to go see it. Better yet to help install it as students will be, and probably are doing as I write. Walker-Davis is a graphic artist using collage to make the point of feminine subservience as a societal norm promulgated vigorously during the Depression and war years of the last century — roughly from the 1930s through the 1950s. Most important to a collage installation is that the point sticks. And so thoroughly does Davis-Walker stick to her point that no surface of the housewife’s armamentum escapes a pointed collage. Eight milk bottles in their metal cage are propped on a column like a piece of sculpture, each one tattooed with the breathy … [Read more...] about HAPPY DAYS REVISITED: DAVIS-WALKER’S TONGUE-IN-CHEEK HAPPY HOUSE
January/February 2019
INTERSECTION OF SCALE: NEW PERSPECTIVES AT THE WHEELER SCHOOL
“Intersection of Scale,” on view January 17 through February 6 at the Chazan Gallery at Wheeler in Providence, Rhode Island presents a macro discussion about micro-scale, evidence-based art practices featuring maquettes by Doug Bosch, painting, drawings and prints by Damon Campagna and electron microscope-facilitated photography by Geoff Williams. In some cases, Bosch’s small sculptures look like circuit boards. They might even seem like paired-down remains of the still-popular electronic board game, “Operation,” that will buzz interactively at the slightest movement of an unsure hand. Looking at his work on his dining room table prior to the exhibition’s installation, Bosch explained that a number of the maquettes he will display at Chazan Gallery are conceptually inspired by the instruments Italian physicist Leopoldo Nobili developed to advance the fields of thermodynamics and … [Read more...] about INTERSECTION OF SCALE: NEW PERSPECTIVES AT THE WHEELER SCHOOL
ADDING LIFE TO LONG-FORGOTTEN SPACES: SKINNER MAKES DECAY BEAUTIFUL
In Rebecca Skinner’s two exhibits, at 6 Bridges Gallery and the Brookline Arts Center, striking images depict abandoned mills and factories in total ruin. Decay has thoroughly set in. Elements of nature have begun to re-establish their territory. Her photographs portray spaces once bustling with workers and loaded with products of every description, now standing, after years of neglect, totally dilapidated. Some words come to mind in observing Skinner’s images of these buildings: curiosity, exploration, observation, documentation, reverence. Her extensive and varied works reflect a progression in her sensibilities from the enthusiasm of her first discovery of an abandoned location to the respect she feels when reflecting on the lives lived amid the humming activity of the once-thriving factory. For Skinner, the portrayal of these locations is a summation of their history and their … [Read more...] about ADDING LIFE TO LONG-FORGOTTEN SPACES: SKINNER MAKES DECAY BEAUTIFUL
IMPACT ON INNOCENCE: THE BLACK & WHITE OF MASS INCARCERATION
Deborah McDuff’s exhibition, “Impact on Innocence: Mass Incarceration,” on show from February 1 through 22 at the Augusta Savage Gallery at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, couldn’t be more timely or urgent. Using charcoal on canvas, McDuff’s larger than life portraits of women, children and men of color who experience the trauma of prison reveal the pain of incarceration experienced not only by those who are imprisoned but by their loved ones, especially children. Theirs are the faces of loss, abandonment and a burdened life that leave their mark on viewers. “Children do not choose their parents,” the California artist said. “Why should they endure a life sentence too?” McDuff, who earned an MFA in Visual Arts from Lesley University College of Art and Design, clearly feels passionately about the travesties of imprisonment, including the use of virtually unpaid labor and the … [Read more...] about IMPACT ON INNOCENCE: THE BLACK & WHITE OF MASS INCARCERATION
ART ESTATES: THE RISING TIDE OF THE WORK LEFT BEHIND
American architect Thom Mayne once said, “The huge problem in our society is the enormous ignorance of the ideas that underlie modern art.” You would think that was bad enough. But, what about unsold art? Art is made. Art is exhibited. Art is sold. And, yes, art accumulates. There is more art made than sold (For this article, art refers specifically to painting). In their lifetime, the excess is stored under artist’s beds, in their closets and their studios. This is problematic enough when the artist is alive. But it reaches an entirely different level when the artist dies and, there are scores of artists, known and unknown, successful and otherwise who have left countless unseen and unsold paintings behind. In the parallel world of wine, there is a virtual place where surplus wine is stored and sold for the purpose of making industrial alcohol. Both good and bad wine ends up here. … [Read more...] about ART ESTATES: THE RISING TIDE OF THE WORK LEFT BEHIND
WORKING CLASS HERO: CROTTY MAKES THE GRITTY MAGNIFICENT
Twenty-five years ago, Vincent Crotty left his native Ireland and emigrated to Dorchester where he discovered a “land of opportunity” and a mentor who recognized his painting talents and counseled, “If you want to be an artist, start working on it now!” He picked up his brushes and has been developing his skills ever since. Eight years ago, he became an American citizen. Recording American cities’ back alleys and working-class life dates back to the early 20th century New York-based “Ashcan School” of Robert Henri and George Luks; Crotty continues this tradition through his own works. He paints outside on location in the mode of plein air painting but his strongest work breaks away from its romantic scenes. He paints Boston’s working-class houses and streets, and the economic struggles and the hard-work ethic of people who live there. Edward Hopper’s lonely-person paintings immediately … [Read more...] about WORKING CLASS HERO: CROTTY MAKES THE GRITTY MAGNIFICENT