With dim alleyways and pop-art stylized still-lifes, printmaker Armin Landeck’s architectural influence was shaped by the Americana modernism of urban cityscapes. On view now through April 26 at the Art Complex Museum (ACM) in Duxbury, Massachusetts, “Armin Landeck: Rooftops and More” is a collection of 19 prints and illustrations that trace history and remind us that where there’s a shadow, there’s always light. Landeck’s works were donated to the Art Complex Museum by the artist’s daughter, who happened to be an ACM volunteer. They remain a part of the museum’s permanent collection, amongst the likes of American printmaking contemporaries Edward Hopper and Martin Lewis. Julia Courtney, Collections Curator and Deputy Director of the Art Complex Museum, told me that this exhibit felt timely, with a lightness in both subject and content. Returning to the United States from Europe during … [Read more...] about ARMIN LANDECK

First, there is beauty — graceful in its singularity, unmarred and untouchable. Then comes a state of paradox: beauty that sits in a glass box, dripping with stimuli and barraged by stones. One cannot exist without the other, and more often than not, Aaron Brodeur finds himself creating within the latter. The result is “Vitamin Chlorine,” his most recent exhibition for the Mary Cosgrove Dolphin Gallery at Worcester State University. The show’s title leads the onlooker down the right path. Born a “Xennial,” Brodeur’s perspective draws on two cultural epochs divided by a “digital transformation that reshaped human experience.” For him, this shift was far from easy. “Vitamin Chlorine speaks to the condition that we find ourselves within. We're promised improvements and progression and stability, but ultimately, we’re in a system that we didn't quite ask for,” Brodeur shared, “I'm … [Read more...] about AARON BRODEUR

The creativity of Gail Gelburd is multifold, as an art historian, author, professor, curator, artist and activist. She has curated exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, taught at Hofstra University and received Rockefeller Foundation grants. She was justelected to the Council for the Arts at MIT. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and is an artist who is coming into her own with a burst. Gelburd moved from New York City to Otis, Massachusetts 35 years ago to a rundown watermill that she and her husband refurbished. Here, she said, she’s able to think about how a drop of water comes down, merges with a river and waterfall, heads to the ocean, then rises to the sky before coming down again as rain. Whether the process is calm or raging, moves or stagnates and dies, the life of a drop of water represents our own inner life and stages of mortal life — and by this … [Read more...] about GAIL GELBURD

Enamel is an alchemical dance between glass and metal. Jennifer Davis Carey is an enamel artist whose artwork is all about seeing and remembering. Seeing the patterns, seeing the unseen, seeing the small, seeing the unnoticed, seeing beyond the obvious. Can we pause and see all the details? This might include small gestures, the night sky, insects and hidden stories. The colors are vibrant, the patterns electric and the themes are current as well as ageless. She is also about remembering, remembering collective and individual identities, particularly within the African Diaspora. Her “Insect Series” is about being present with the small parts of life. Her celestial pieces refer to her great love of the night sky; she is an avid fan of the natural dark skies that are taken from us by electric lights. We miss that we are just a tiny part of the greater universe visible only in the few … [Read more...] about JENNIFER DAVIS CAREY

Janet Kawada is a sculptor, fiber artist, teacher and activist who uses the power of art as a tool for community engagement. A lifetime Boston area resident, she, for 25 years, taught generations of new artists in the Fiber Department at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Through sculpture and installations, Kawada explores community in all its permutations: family, students, fellow artists and urban neighbors. Kawada attended MassArt as an undergraduate and maintains strong ties to the institution. “I had so many great teachers and mentors at MassArt” she commented, “like Marilyn Pappas, Janna Longacre and Ann Wessmann.” After joining the Fiber Department faculty herself, she taught many different approaches to fiber art, including surface design and flexible structures. “A fiber teacher at that time had to have a very broad way of looking at, interpreting, and then teaching … [Read more...] about JANET KAWADA