If one word could describe the Southern Vermont Arts Center “Yester House 2021 Solo Exhibitions,” it is eclectic. In two words, wonderfully diverse. On view until September 26, the popular exhibition includes work by 10 artists selected to have their work shown in individually dedicated galleries. Works ranging across various media share the creative use of photography, welded metal art, egg tempera painting, ceramics, Japanese woodblock printing and more. Charlotte Ghiorse’s work, with its large installation “Polling Place” and black-and-white images about poverty, convey social justice art. She was inspired by her relationship with the Fire Department of New York in the 1990s, which led to her portrayal of the events of 9/11 in Manhattan. Christian Schoenig’s “Forged Scales” reveal fish sculptures and welded metal art that transforms industrial bits and cast-off metal pieces … [Read more...] about WONDERFULLY DIVERSE AND ECLECTIC: 1O ARTIST SHOW AT SOUTHERN VERMONT ARTS CENTER
September/October 2021
“AN ARTIST’S WORK IS NEVER DONE”: FARRELL’S TEMPORARY ROOTS AT THE KINGSTON
Born and bred in New Orleans, 34-year-old sculptor Louise Farrell was a newly-single mother of two when she arrived in Brookline, Massachusetts. Her path had led from a Catholic women’s college outside Chicago to Omaha, Nebraska, to Boulder, Colorado, and then the Five College area around Amherst, Massachusetts. Along the way, she was a resident artist at Creighton University, campaigned for Eugene McCarthy, started an underground newspaper, married a fellow activist, opened a bookstore and raised prize-winning English mastiffs. Before getting her masters at Mass College of Art in the late 1980s, her figurative forms cast in bronze and polyester resin were already feminist in their themes and environmental in their formal demands. “Fate,” Farrell’s opus of the last three years, will hang floor-to- ceiling at Kingston Gallery in Boston’s SoWa District in September. An imposing … [Read more...] about “AN ARTIST’S WORK IS NEVER DONE”: FARRELL’S TEMPORARY ROOTS AT THE KINGSTON
SEASONAL WARMTH AT CASTLE HILL: JOHNSON CAPTURES TRURO’S SPECIAL TEXTURES AND COLORS
Purple, green, pink and turquoise are colors you think you may see on the sharp gem facet edges of North Truro’s colonial houses, because when Mitchell Johnson paints them, they seem logical, not fanciful, but real. Indeed, color and shape seem to be the point rather than the subjects themselves. The houses and landscapes Johnson paints are, in a way, excuses to express colors. One wonders, is he suggesting our world is just color and form? And yet those colors and forms evoke the essence of place: his European vistas are somehow, well, so European. His vistas of New York, are utterly New York; those of San Francisco as from Russian Hill, could only be San Francisco. So, too, his Cape Cod vistas essentialize the Cape. You can inhale the sea and the musty scent of a pearly gray-blue sky. You can see Johnson’s homage to the Cape’s town of Truro at his exhibit, “Sixteen Years in … [Read more...] about SEASONAL WARMTH AT CASTLE HILL: JOHNSON CAPTURES TRURO’S SPECIAL TEXTURES AND COLORS
PEELING BACK THE CURTAIN: AI WEIWEI’S HUMANITARIAN ART ACTIVISM IN SPRINGFIELD
“Once you’ve tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country.” — Ai Weiwei The life of Ai Weiwei (b. 1957) speaks to the beauty and resilience of the poetic soul. Born in Beijing, China, Ai Weiwei’s mother is writer Gao Ying. Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing (1910-1996), was a noted poet and intellectual, active under the Communist rule of chairman Mao Zedong. In retaliation for the elder Ai’s perceived political beliefs, the family was sent into exile in northwest China when Ai Weiwei was barely one year old; first to a labor camp, then to Shihezi, Xinjiang, in the Gobi Desert where the family lived until Ai Weiwei was 17. He has described the conditions while in exile as “extremely harsh.” His father was forced to perform hard labor, including cleaning the communal latrines. The family was allowed to keep one book, an … [Read more...] about PEELING BACK THE CURTAIN: AI WEIWEI’S HUMANITARIAN ART ACTIVISM IN SPRINGFIELD
RHODE ISLAND I.M.A.G.I.N.E.S PEACE: MELTED-DOWN GUNS MAKE LOUD STATEMENT
“Rhode Island I.M.A.G.I.N.E.s Peace,” curated by Boris Bally, Victoria Gao, Sara Picard and Dianne Reilly, is an exhibition slated for October 7 through 29 at Rhode Island College’s Bannister Gallery. The exhibition features actual guns re-contextualized to stimulate conversation about the topic of gun violence. Imbedded in its title is metalsmith Boris Bally’s anagram: Innovative Merger of Art and Guns to Inspire New Expressions of Peace. Working in metal, Bally has made it his mission over many years to advocate for better gun laws. Here, he collaborates with Dianne Reilly, a metalsmith and professor at Rhode Island College (RIC); Victoria Gao, director of the Bannister Gallery, and Sara Picard, Associate Professor of Art History at RIC to ultimately create an invitational show comprised of 22 artists called upon to re-contextualize guns. Gao oversaw development for the show and … [Read more...] about RHODE ISLAND I.M.A.G.I.N.E.S PEACE: MELTED-DOWN GUNS MAKE LOUD STATEMENT
ROBERTO LUGO AT THE CURRIER: MULTICULTURAL MASH-UPS WITH A 21ST CENTURY TWIST
Roberto Lugo is one of the good guys. He could don the Superman cape and get away with it. Why? Because he’s earned it. The “good guy” title and joy borne of adversity. Born in Philadelphia, of Puerto Rican descent, Lugo’s parents are first generation immigrants. He was brought up in Phily in a time that saw prevalent drug use, gang activity and many houses in his neighborhood abandoned due to the crack epidemic. His mother and father married young. Both had a middle school education — and lots of grit. Maribel Lugo worked in school cafeterias and other part-time jobs to keep the family afloat. Gilberto Lugo was a Pentecostal preacher who would often bike to town for work to generate income for the family. And yet it was a struggle. Marginalized on the outskirts of American culture, Lugo was a quiet child, devoutly Christian, with a thick Spanish accent. He wrestled with … [Read more...] about ROBERTO LUGO AT THE CURRIER: MULTICULTURAL MASH-UPS WITH A 21ST CENTURY TWIST