JOO LEE KANG QUESTIONS NATURE Initially one is struck by the detailed, precisioned control Joo Lee Kang exercises over her medium — a Bic ballpoint pen. Her renderings draw you in for a closer look as you marvel at the shading, the anatomical precision of the insects, animals and plant life she has executed with such depth of detail. But what stops you in your tracks are the grotesque and mutated flora and fauna that emerge with a closer observation. Boston-based artist Kang’s work has an overriding Victorian motif — an opulence of delicate laces, festooned swags and the feminine use of lush abundance. But the fascination fades quickly when malformed animals with multiple appendages, misshapen features and mutated double heads begin to emerge. Kang, 30, who was born in South Korea and earned her MFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University, said, … [Read more...] about Unnaturally Beautiful
November/December 2014
To Borrow, Cut, Copy, and Steal
AARON T STEPHAN LAUGHS WITH US Aaron T Stephan’s work critiques the exclusivity of the art world with a dose of satire and a splash of eccentricity. A bit like a court jester, Stephan gets us to laugh about the art world while simultaneously acknowledging and appreciating its majesty. He invites viewers to be a part of the experience, encouraging them to find the humor in art institutions that, by accident or design, many find to be intimidating. Stephan’s first solo exhibition at Maine’s Portland Museum of Art, on view through February 8, features works that exemplify his sardonic spin on traditional art. Two installations greet visitors upon entering the museum, setting an impish tone. “Off Mark” is a grouping of sculptural pedestals bent in bows that could either be reverent or ironic. The ubiquitous pedestals do not support sculptures — in “Off Mark,” they become the … [Read more...] about To Borrow, Cut, Copy, and Steal
Cover Story: Two Painters
KEHOE AND GOSCH ARE BREAKING BAD The so-called “bad painting” movement, as championed and celebrated by alternative art publications such as Hi-Fructose and Juxtapoz, certainly has less adherents in the often aesthetically conservative galleries of southeastern New England, especially outside of hotspots such as Providence, Pawtucket and New Bedford. However, in the small, pastoral border town of Tiverton, Rhode Island, the Van Vessem Gallery is exhibiting the works of Marc Kehoe and Dan Gosch, two extraordinary practitioners of the genre who are both alum of the Rhode Island School of Design. Kehoe’s work is a knowing and sly “wink-wink, nod-nod” elevation of kitschy subject matter and painting styles to something more cerebral and challenging. Taking influence from thrift store finds, trashy romance novel covers and mild, old-school erotica, he twists the viewer’s expectations … [Read more...] about Cover Story: Two Painters
On Her Own Terms
CLARA LIEU EXPLORES HER HEART OF DARKNESS Images of people in states of extreme suffering evoke a range of responses: sadness, anxiety, fear, empathy and, sometimes, instinctive recoil. When approaching the grimacing faces and contorted fullfigure female portraits by Clara Lieu that will be on view concurrently at Simmons College and Framingham State University, it can be upsetting and even frightening to engage with these images. Yet, encountering them in a teaching environment, we are encouraged to inquire further, “What kind of suffering is this, and what can I learn from these images?” The drawings, mezzotint prints, photographs and sculptures of Lieu’s opus “Falling,” over four years in the making, were born of her own experience of depression and her wish to make something of her intense inward pain communicable to others. Withholding her personal narrative, she focuses our … [Read more...] about On Her Own Terms
70 Years of Printmaking
Clare Romano and John Ross are major figures in the world of printmaking as both artists and educators, with independent voices that share subject focus. Their target is structure, and their language is line, color and space. Ross’ 1984 master collagraph ”Homage to the City,” a 30” x 67” triptych printed to the very edge on black paper, shows the artist’s clear devotion and appreciation for the clean lines and minimal expression of architectural design. It’s a layered and complicated work. Alternately, we have the bold, colorful figurative work by Romano, equally as complex: “On the Grass,” another collagraph, is one of two beach scenes along with “On the Blanket,” 1978,depicting anatomy from an odd perspective arranged in a jigsaw puzzle manner. Romano achieves a strong representation that is about shape and space; like Ross, she’s communicating object bulk, but from a very … [Read more...] about 70 Years of Printmaking
Castellology
MADORE SHATTERS THE SPECTRUM Michael Madore claims he began as a furtive artist, drawing in the seclusion of the woods, in the garage, or sometimes up in a tree. Family life was fractious and cacophonous for the young man, the eldest of seven, with hypersensitivities to both noise and smell. And his obsessive toe tapping, uncontrollable giggling and unintentional grimacing was known to drive his classroom teachers batty. “It seemed I spent much of the sixth to eighth grade sitting in the principal’s or guidance counselor’s office,” he said in a recent telephone interview, for a constellation of behaviors that had no firm diagnosis. Madore lived through decades of draconian interventions, overmedication and psychiatric hospitalizations before a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome in 2000 began to lead him to a gradual understanding and awareness. In the interim his art-making … [Read more...] about Castellology