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May/June 2019

Humberto Ramirez, "4-23-18," 2019, acrylic on canvas, 24” x 24”.

BOTANICAL ABSTRACTION: HUMBERTO RAMIREZ CREATES SPACE AT ARTISTREE

// Current Issue, Issue Articles, May/June 2019

by Elayne Clift

Whether he is painting, teaching, curating or creating a video, multimedia artist Humberto Ramirez is likely to be thinking about social issues and the power of art in shaping values and perceptions. In his exhibit at the ArtisTree Community Arts Center in South Pomfret, Vermont, on view from May 17 through June 1, Ramirez’s abstract paintings allude to botanical gardens that use the conventions of abstraction but go further, delving into the deeply rooted experience of the body and the world. In a way, he explained, “they are less a radical denial of social reality than a reaffirmation of the desire for creative space and autonomy. The works are about form, space, light and color,” he added. “They point to the corporeal world and seek to transcend it.” If this concept seems difficult to grasp, it may be because Ramirez is trained in both the sciences and the humanities, and he … [Read more...] about BOTANICAL ABSTRACTION: HUMBERTO RAMIREZ CREATES SPACE AT ARTISTREE

Sheila Gallagher, "Mantilla 1," 2017, ink on paper, 40” x 52”.

AN INTRIGUING MELANGE: SHEILA GALLAGHER’S SOUL-PULLING PAINTINGS

// Current Issue, Issue Articles, May/June 2019

by Beth Neville

Art that investigates human mourning and grief drives our most basic creative instincts. Buried in our DNA, the tears shed over death can even be seen evolutionarily in mammals and birds. Humans build tumuli, erect memorial statues, plant trees, make death masks, wear black and even throw themselves on funeral pyres. Sheila Gallagher’s art invents new materials and icons to help us grieve over death due to starvation, disease, warfare gassing and guns. Not surprisingly, her choice of media tends toward black, gray and white. There is little in her work to reassure us or bring happy memories to mind. Past atrocities recorded in her art may spur us to work to avoid historically destructive activities, but her art is not resistance, not therapy and not overtly political. The recently discovered deaths by starvation and neglect of up to 796 children at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home … [Read more...] about AN INTRIGUING MELANGE: SHEILA GALLAGHER’S SOUL-PULLING PAINTINGS

Suzanne M. Packer, "Yellow Glimmer," 2018, oil on canvas, 24” x 36”, featured in Cape Waters Abstracted II at Cultural Center of Cape Cod. Photograph by Robert Nash.

ARTIST, TEACHER, MUSE: PACKER PAINTS, BONDS CAPE COD’S HEARTBEAT

// Current Issue, Issue Articles, May/June 2019

by Lee Roscoe

Suzanne M. Packer showed her first artwork at the San Francisco Museum of Art when she was five years old. Some of her earliest memories are of spending her Saturdays sitting at the dining table painting watercolors and drawing with her dad, A.S. Packer, noted illustrator for Parade magazine, as her mother, teacher and school principal, encouraged her. She grew up in a suburb near Manhattan and was taken to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MOMA and the Frick Collection. She says art runs in the family. One grandchild is a working artist. Her “very supportive” husband, Dick McGarr, is a painter. They live in a uniquely artistic house designed by Nina Wolff, with wide pine panel floors, stressed-wood doors and exposed beams. Married with children and freelancing as a graphics designer — for which she had trained at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in the 1960s — she opened … [Read more...] about ARTIST, TEACHER, MUSE: PACKER PAINTS, BONDS CAPE COD’S HEARTBEAT

Lorraine Trenholm painting of Suzanne M. Packer painting on the 21 retreat.

ELECTRIFIED BUT RUSTIC: TWENTY-ONE IN TRURO’S CAHOON RETREAT

// Current Issue, Issue Articles, May/June 2019

by Lee Roscoe

They have different backgrounds, influences, subject matter and mediums, but they are united in supportiveness and mutual respect as the “Twenty-One in Truro.” The group started in 1999 when two women thought the Corn Hill cottages in Truro, Cape Cod, would make a great artists’ retreat. Within about a week, 21 women, all the place had room for, had signed on. The venue for their annual week-long retreat at the end of September into October changed years back, from the dunes overlooking the bay, to the south-facing side of Truro’s Pamet River at the five Sladeville Cabins (which themselves have an artistic history going back to the 1920s). “It’s electrified but rustic,” said Kate Nelson. “We have to prepare for 20- to 80-degree weather, bring boots for mud, bring food and artist’s materials, but it’s great; you get to leave your husband and kids, and be yourself.” In their … [Read more...] about ELECTRIFIED BUT RUSTIC: TWENTY-ONE IN TRURO’S CAHOON RETREAT

Carl Lopes, "Tranquility 2," 2018, acrylics and holographic papers on wood panel, 42” H x 30” W x 3” D. Photograph by Carl Lopes.

HERITAGE CELEBRATION: WORLD CLASS ARTISTS OF COLOR AT ZION UNION

// Current Issue, Issue Articles, May/June 2019

by Lee Roscoe

Three world-class artists of color in residence at Zion Union Heritage Museum in Cape Cod — Joseph Diggs, Carl Lopes and Robin J. Miller — share a pride in their African-American heritage which informs their art, but their styles and techniques differ widely. All practiced art full-time after other careers. Miller was an award-winning art teacher at P.S. 108 in the Bronx. Lopes was the beloved director of visual arts at Barnstable High School. Diggs was a flight attendant, which enabled him to see the world and its museums. Lopes said, “During 35 years, I taught 3,500 students, which gave me insight into my own work.” When Miller created a hands-on history project, for which her students made a mixed-media collage on paper in the style of a “jazz quilt,” honoring African-American quilting women and jazzmen, it inspired her to create her own framed “narrative quilts.” (Diggs is also … [Read more...] about HERITAGE CELEBRATION: WORLD CLASS ARTISTS OF COLOR AT ZION UNION

Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907–1954), "My Grandparents, My Parents, and I (Family Tree)," 1936, oil and tempera on zinc. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Allan Roos, M.D., and B. Mathieu Roos, 1976. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY. © 2019 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

STILL CONTEMPORARY: FRIDA KAHLO IN BOSTON AND BROOKLYN

// Current Issue, Issue Articles, May/June 2019

by Nancy Nesvet

Frida Kahlo was a contemporary artist, even by today’s standards. Her multidisciplinary art practice was a predecessor to today’s public relations creation of celebrity. Kahlo introduced feminism to a field sorely unequal in its treatment of women artists, and let the world know that a physical disability and pain could propel art, not limit it. Her art stood for feminism, recognition of the ability of the disabled, her politics and ethnic and cultural heritage, making her an example and heroine for women, and all people, everywhere. Her art was entirely autobiographical. The paintings told the story of her life, loves and losses. She was proud to paint her mestizo heritage — inherited from her mother — and the artificial leg she wore, making it a fashion accessory. “Appearances Can Be Deceiving” at the Brooklyn Museum and “Frida Kahlo and Arte Popular” at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts … [Read more...] about STILL CONTEMPORARY: FRIDA KAHLO IN BOSTON AND BROOKLYN