Daniela Rivera explores labor, landscape and identity in her exhibition “Labored Landscapes (where hand meets ground)” at the Fitchburg Art Museum (FAM), and with this exploration, Rivera presents the interconnectedness apparent in labor, laborer and what she designates as the labored surface — either the physical ground that is toiled, or the ground or surface of a painting. Born in Santiago, Chile, Rivera moved to the Boston area in 2002, received her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Boston, in 2006, and has been associate professor of studio art at Wellesley College for the past 11 years. Her native Chile provides the context for works that are both highly conceptual, visually commanding and intellectually provocative. Organized by FAM curator Lisa Crossman with Terrana Curatorial Fellow Marjorie Rawle, the exhibition is comprised of three … [Read more...] about DISORIENTATED VIEWS: DANIELA RIVERA’S LABORED LANDSCAPES
gold
Michele Ratté’s Circle of Life
All That Glitters... by Elizabeth Michelman The shimmer of Michele Ratté’s gold-infused sculptures and prints is not just decorative veneer. Precious, permanent and pure, gold in her hands is not just a physical material, but a transcendent one. It is an ideal medium for cross-referencing the natural and archetypical cycles of birth, death and rebirth that frame our existence on this planet. At an early age, Ratté accompanied her father, a hydro-geologist, on treks into the Arizona deserts in search of signs of water. As he mapped, she picked up mica and fools-gold from the sands. Later he taught marine geology in the Virgin Islands, where she kept up with high school classes by correspondence and swam with schools of fish among the coral reefs. Ratté’s feeling for form is instinctive in her fingertips. Her mother sewed the children’s clothes by hand, and Ratté remembers … [Read more...] about Michele Ratté’s Circle of Life