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Artscope Magazine | November/December 2020

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Amherst

SHUTAN’S PLAYFUL ELEMENTS: ARTIST’S VISION MATERIALIZES AT UMASS AMHERST

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, Featured, Featured, September/October 2019

by J. Fatima Martins

Suzan Shutan is a multidimensional thinker who works naturally with geometric space, being able to visualize the possibilities and limitations within unique installation areas. “Where Waters Meet” a tar paper landscape that meanders across the two walls and the entire floor, that was on exhibit at Kaneko in Omaha, Nebraska, in 2016, and “Slicey Dicey,” a three-dimensional math inspired arrangement featuring “pom poms,” that will be on view at UMass Amherst this September, are examples of her signature process: creating first in the studio and then taking the various components into the gallery architecture to problem solve and arrange the pieces into a site specific sculptural installation environment that is open to flexible interpretation. “My work is as much about process and visceral transformation, as it is driven by a conceptual exploration of our human condition,” she explains … [Read more...] about SHUTAN’S PLAYFUL ELEMENTS: ARTIST’S VISION MATERIALIZES AT UMASS AMHERST

Ellen Grobman, Last Minute, 2017, oil on wood.

CORNERED: ELLEN GROBMAN AT HAMPDEN GALLERY, UMASS AMHERST

// Artscope Online, Cornered, Exhibits, Interview, Visual Arts

by Brian Goslow

Amherst, MA - For Amherst, Massachusetts-based painter Ellen Grobman, painting sounds like an exhausting and exhilarating process in which she starts with an idea, aims to pull it in a new direction and then sees what’s left when she tries to leave as little of the original thought as possible by the time she’s finish. Her website describes her work as being powered by, “This drive to bring something into being, disrupt it, and then flirt with its destruction — the boundary of something existing and then not.” Depending on the piece, there are touches of 19th century furniture wallpaper patterns, abstract expressionism, fauvism, symbolism and whatever connections each swash of paint ignites in her mind. These explorations continue in her current exhibition, “There, Not There,” on view through March 31 at Hampden Gallery in the Southwest Residential Area at the University of … [Read more...] about CORNERED: ELLEN GROBMAN AT HAMPDEN GALLERY, UMASS AMHERST

Playing Hide and Seek in Amherst

// Current Exhibits, Current Issue, Exhibits, July/August 2016, Visual Arts

The Magical Art of Eric Carle by John P. Stapleton As an artist with close to household name status from his children’s books, it’s not a surprise that Eric Carle would be putting so much of his family into his images. At the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, they’ve got a new exhibit called “Hide and Seek” that sheds light on the little family references he’s hidden in various pieces. “Easter Eggs,” as they’re called, are small pieces of a work that blend in, but are a direct reference to an outside subject. In Pixar movies, you’ll see Buzz Lightyear get thrown around in movies that aren’t Toy Story as a cute reminder of that classic movie, seamlessly dropped into the background of that new world. For Carle, he was a fan of initials, but didn’t shy away from the route of reusing characters for minor moments in his work. The Hungry Caterpillar himself … [Read more...] about Playing Hide and Seek in Amherst

Head At Umass Amherst

// November/December 2015

Portraits Take It From The Top by John Paul Stapleton The Hampden Gallery is almost hidden in the city that is UMass Amherst’s south- west residential area. Its current show, “Head,” fits right in with this setting, as if it were in a metropolitan arts district. Curator D. Dominick Lombardi has brought together contemporary work from all over the United States, Europe and Asia. Every piece shows the breadth of representation that comes with portraiture. Lombardi placed textile pieces by China Marks as the colorful lure to the first room of the gallery. “Drive He Said” centers around a head made up of landscape features against various scenes of cars on the road. Travel is obviously the formative point for the subject, with a head made up of the scenes that can be found on a long road trip. On the opposite wall, Lombardi’s “Sacco and Vanzetti” is another surreal … [Read more...] about Head At Umass Amherst