FULLER CRAFT SUMMONS GODS AND MONSTERS The gods and goddesses have been summoned to Brockton. “The Stories We Tell” at the Fuller Craft Museum presents three wood-centric artists who present distinct mythologies taken from world culture, or create modern pantheons of their own, or blend them together in some sort of a cosmological Cuisinart. The exhibition is striking in that it is easy to see a clear, common thread in the symbolically loaded art of Binh Pho, Michelle Holzapfel and Tommy Simpson as they engage in symbolic conversation with gods of their own invention, or reference European, Asian and Native-American deities, or pay homage to magical creatures, pixies, spirits and avatars of domesticity and the wild, of love and violence, and of nature and culture. But that common thread only stretches so far before it snaps and the very different dynamics of the trinity of … [Read more...] about The Stories We Tell

LARGER THAN LIFE David Kasman kicks off his first solo show at the Copley Society, “Continuum,” in dramatic fashion. Larger-than-life sculptures will dominate the space, their forms magnificent and brutish. Smaller, accessible bronze pieces will round out the collection, mirroring the coarseness and motion of their large-scale counterparts. You may be familiar with the public work of Boston area native Kasman. His towering 2011 “Resurgence,” which perches regally in front of the José Mateo Ballet Theatre at the Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Harvard Square, captures a ballerina en pointe, her left leg raised in a perfect arabesque, her chest full and proud, her arms cast joyfully above her head. Kasman himself is a longtime student of ballet. The reverence he has for the practice, his awe of the athleticism and the grace of the performers continue to inform his work as a sculptor … [Read more...] about David Kasman

Berta Walker Gallery opens its 25th season on May 23 with the exhibition, “Going Fishing, A Tribute to Our Industry,” which was also the theme of its first opening. In 1989, Walker, a former Manhattan gallery director and art museum administrator, was in Provincetown, a place where she’d come since early childhood for some R&R. During her stay, she got tapped to be the emergency acting director of the Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC), having been its chairman of the board for over a decade. At the end of her tenure at FAWC, she decided to stay and open her Provincetown gallery with a show benefiting the Blessing of the Fleet. “It was an amazing beginning for what has turned into 25 years thus far,” she said. “I can’t believe it!” Having spent her summers in Provincetown her whole life, Walker has been inspired to create many shows that honor the fishermen and the world that they … [Read more...] about Gone Fishing: a Tribute to our Industry

JANE DAHMEN TAKES A PEEK It’s been 10 years since Jane Dahmen moved to her home in the small seaside town of Newcastle, Maine — but she has yet to tire of the ocean, river and woods that serve as her daily backdrop. In fact, just the opposite: Her surroundings have inspired and enriched her work for the past decade. “Everywhere I walk, I see paintings,” said Dahmen. “It’s a very beautiful part of the world here.” It’s a part of the world she’ll share in her upcoming solo exhibition, “Through the Trees,” at Powers Gallery in Acton, Mass. The show will feature more than two dozen of her paintings, including multi-panel works, that reflect her wanderings around the seashore, Damariscotta River, and vast conservation lands near her home. For example, the two-panel, 72” x 60” “Clear View” presents an unconventional view of the Maine coast — instead of frothy waves roiling … [Read more...] about Through the Trees

BUILDING A HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG Since its completion in 1949, Philip Johnson’s Glass House has captured the views of the New Canaan property in carefully curated vignettes, much as a videographer might. While the building, with its minimal structure, geometry and proportion, ushered the nomenclature of the International Style into American residential architecture, people who spend a day or an evening at The Glass House experience it first-hand as a personal paean to the natural world. Some 60-plus years later, it’s not hard to imagine Johnson and his longtime partner, David Whitney, issuing orders to groundsmen from walkie-talkies. As the property expanded from its initial five- acre parcel into the 49 acres now maintained by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, work toward creating a cohesive Edenic landscape began. Existing vernacular 18th and 19th century stone walls, … [Read more...] about Fujiko Nakaya: Veil

FREDERICO URIBE REFLECTS “I don’t have a drawing in my head, I have a feeling, and I build it,” said Columbia-born, Miami-based, internationally exhibiting Federico Uribe during a telephone interview describing his work methods. The starting point of his highly organized compositions is “mindfulness,” which he attempts to achieve during countless hours of meditation. The word “emotion” rises up often during conversation, as does the body-mind holistic concept where all the senses are united during creative play. The result of this active centering and psychological analysis is an explosion of focused, multilayered, obsessively composed narrative and theatrical installations that fill entire gallery spaces — ceiling, floor and walls — and are transformed into energetic passion plays. Uribe’s final forms evoke large-scale pop-up books. The three-dimensional realism is … [Read more...] about Objects in a Mirror