TAKING HISTORY TO HEART Kristin Nord Brian Walters’ metal sculptures have been stored over the years behind a stand of old-fashioned lilac bushes on the Bethel, Conn. property where he grew up. Even in winter, the bushes provide a natural screen of branches and buds that protects his works-in-progress. Within the next few days, works from his “Urban Totem” series will be loaded up and transported to Hartford’s ArtSpace Gallery for a month-long exhibition that uses “Behind the Lilac Bush” as its title and its cue for collaboration. Curated by poet Jim Whitten and more than a year and a half in the making, this show will give visitors the chance to encounter fractals, or recurring patterns of beauty that surface in nature, and sun-drenched color that will change as sunlight traverses origami sculptor Ben Parker’s 90-foot sheets of rice paper. Abstract landscape painter … [Read more...] about 11 for 11: Brian Walters
Issue Articles
11 for 11: Duken Delpe
MOSAIC OF ART AND SCIENCE Lisa Mikulski Artist Duken Delpe is a very busy man these days, with a spate of international and local events. In 2016, Delpe designed the main stage for the South Shore Indie Music Festival with the theme “Art Sustains Us,” and he will do the same for the 2017 show. Also this year, the award-winning artist will participate in Art Olympia in Tokyo, Japan while also undertaking his long list of submissions and projects. With a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Massachusetts, it is not the first time an artist has combined scientific and artistic vision, but as Delpe explains, he not only uses his scientific background for artistic methodology and technique, but also in the selection of his materials. Using recyclable and found objects, he sands, shapes and weaves together thin strips of metal from aluminum cans and utilizes … [Read more...] about 11 for 11: Duken Delpe
2017 WHEATON BIENNIAL
PRINTMAKING REIMAGINED Brian Goslow The “2017 Wheaton Biennial: Printmaking Reimagined,” featuring work by 60 artists from 30 states, Canada and Sweden, is an exciting show thanks to the many facets and techniques of the printmaking genre it presents . From traditional linocuts and lithographs to the more modern relief prints and works presented on tissue, cot ton and Asian-made papers that have found a welcoming audience in the expanding craft shows and markets that have blossomed over the past decade, along with the screen prints that became such a major part of the art and culture component of the 1960s and are making a comeback, as both an advertising and political tool, plus works created in the new frontier of digital and 3-D printmaking, this show promises to be a rich experience for its viewers. When the call for entries for the 2017 Wheaton Biennial went out in … [Read more...] about 2017 WHEATON BIENNIAL
IT’S THE BOM
A GALLERY OF ENERGIZED CONTENT Suzanne Volmer Yunmin and Kurt Zala debuted Gallery BOM in Boston’s SoWa District in November 2016 with a two-part exhibition of works by Jung Woo Cho, the highlight of which was Cho’s installation, “Purity,” that explored the idea of water’s renewable potential and related to the artist’s nuanced spiritual understanding of earth as habitat. A series of accompanying aqueouslooking wall reliefs offered a compelling invitation for audiences to step inside Gallery BOM for a closer look and perhaps begin a conversation about the meaning behind the work. It also signaled the gallery’s intentions in moving forward. Although large in size, “Purity” was intriguingly compact enough for residential placement. Yunmin Zala is BOM’s director, and her vision drives the direction of the gallery’s content. She and husband Kurt attended the Art Week Miami … [Read more...] about IT’S THE BOM
11 for 11: Krzysztof Wodiczko
PROJECTING LIGHT ON SOCIAL ISSUES Nancy Nesvet Krzysztof Wodiczko, Harvard University Graduate School of Design’s professor in residence of art, design and the public domain, who also works with the Interrogative Design Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), combines art and technology with emerging social issues to produce creative projects involving veterans of war, disasters and other trauma. His artistic practice, which he calls interrogative design, incorporates sound production, projections, specially constructed robots and other forms to give the viewing and listening public an unparalleled awareness of the issues he presents, and offer an impetus to change their perspectives and future actions. “The monument is a mission to change, in a productive versus a destructive way,” Wodiczko said. He has found, in projection, a methodology that … [Read more...] about 11 for 11: Krzysztof Wodiczko
11 for 11: Roya Amigh
IMAGINATION MEETS MEMORY Elizabeth Michelman I first met Iranian artist Roya Amigh on a July afternoon in a converted horse barn in Ghent, New York. I was visiting the open studios of Art OMI, an international artists’ residency in the Hudson River Valley. The sweaty bodies and the mid-day heat were overwhelming, so I ducked into a dark stall to catch my breath. As my eyes adjusted, the scanty light revealed clouds of paper scraps — white, pale pink and rusty yellow — enmeshed in threads that stretched from floor to ceiling and across shadowy corners of the room. Next to a debrisstrewn kitchen table stood the artist herself, at ease with her work. Amigh came to Boston University from Tehran in 2010 for a second M.F.A. At first exploring luminous color under neo-expressionist painter John Walker, she soon turned to making gestural line drawings reminiscent of the Persian … [Read more...] about 11 for 11: Roya Amigh