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Artscope Magazine | November/December 2020

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NATURAL SURROUNDINGS AT THREE STONES GALLERY

// Artscope Online, Current Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Olivia MacDonald

Like a brook trout swimming towards a feathery fly lure in a Berkshire stream, visitors of Three Stones Gallery in Concord, Massachusetts will find themselves reeled into the colorful watercolor paintings of such delicate flies by Gail Burr. Each painting is unique, featuring a hyper-realistic rendition of fishing flies with their reflective metal hooks, poly-yarn and feather quills. Some look spiky and menacing, like “Sparkle Soft Hackle” with long dark strands protruding from its body of green fibers, while others like “Backcountry Kinky Muddler” appear softer with a light gray fur deep green eye at the front. Three Stones gallery manager Lyca Blume described how watercolor paintings generally cover a larger area or landscape with noticeable brush strokes, but Burr’s collection uses watercolor in each careful detail. The artist herself “appreciate[s] that each fly is a tiny unique … [Read more...] about NATURAL SURROUNDINGS AT THREE STONES GALLERY

A STUNNING HOMECOMING: N.C. WYETH’S MASTERFUL PORTLAND RETROSPECTIVE

// Current Exhibits, November/December 2019, November/December 2019, Visual Arts

by Taryn Plumb

Boats both rowed and sailed converge on a distinctly Maine island: a hump of rock, with some scrubs of trees but mostly barren, a simple residence located at its central, northernmost point. The sailboats anchor in the turquoise sea; the rowboats dragged up by their mates clutter the drab sand of the shore; and several indistinct figures make their way to the house surrounded by a makeshift maze of stone walls, a muted, impassive sky above. It is a crisp, solemn depiction, the island version of one of life’s few sureties — death. But the 1939, egg tempera and oil on hardboard, “Island Funeral,” is also illustrative of its artist’s range of style and emotion. Described aptly as an “ideal marriage of illustration and modern painting,” it is one of the central pieces of “N.C. Wyeth: New Perspectives,” at the Portland Museum of Art. On view through January 12, 2020, the traveling … [Read more...] about A STUNNING HOMECOMING: N.C. WYETH’S MASTERFUL PORTLAND RETROSPECTIVE

PORTRAIT PERFECT: A FACE TO FACE REVIEW IN NEW BRITAIN

// Current Issue, Exhibits, Featured, November/December 2019, November/December 2019, Visual Arts

by J. Fatima Martins

Artists. We know their work, but we don’t always know their faces. In “For America: Paintings from the National Academy of Design,” on view through January 20 at the New Britain Museum of American Art, over 90 paintings spanning from 1809 to the present featuring the artist’s face in self-portrait form or as portraits by other artists are presented with examples of their representative work, personalizing what the artist makes as art, with who they are as people. The exhibition was organized to highlight the National Academy of Design’s (NAD) expansive collection, and to remind audiences of the Academy’s fundamental mission and educational goals as a teaching and collecting institution that is a “forward-thinking” place to train artists in the best academic practices and promote and exhibit their work. What’s important is the historical fact that from 1839 to 1994, the NAD required … [Read more...] about PORTRAIT PERFECT: A FACE TO FACE REVIEW IN NEW BRITAIN

RE-PIECING THE SHELL: DARWIN “BROKEN, BUT NOT BAD” AT REGIS

// Artscope Online, Current Exhibits, Exhibits, Featured, September/October 2019, Visual Arts

by Beth Neville

What does an artist do after a devastating divorce and death of her mother? With the invention of psychoanalytical theory by Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler and others, the path was open for artists to make emotional self-examination a physical reality in painting, sculpture and the arts. Susan Darwin’s inventive oil paintings, that open the fall exhibition schedule at Regis College’s Carney Gallery, flow directly from the emotional highs and lows that she has faced in life. Her paintings belong to the genre of biographical artwork that has been in fashion for most of the modern era. Darwin’s “100 Broken Shells” explicitly deal with her unhappy divorce and the depression that resulted. While in a sad state, walking along Shaws Cove beach in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, she looked down at broken shells and an inspiring thought came to her: “They are broken, but not bad!” Picking up … [Read more...] about RE-PIECING THE SHELL: DARWIN “BROKEN, BUT NOT BAD” AT REGIS

"The 'Door to Hell.'" In 1971, Soviet geologists were drilling in the Turkmen desert when the land gave way beneath them, leaving a seventy-meter-wide, noxious gas–emitting crater. They ignited the gas to try to burn off the excess, but the crater has been ablaze ever since. Darvaza, Turkmenistan, 2012. Courtesy Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. © Chloe Dewe Mathews.

SHAPED BY OIL: MATHEWS DOCUMENTS LIFE IN THE CASPIAN STATES

// Current Issue, Issue Articles, May/June 2019

by Isabel Barbi

Photographer Chloe Dewe Mathews brings the environmental and cultural facets of the five countries bordering the Caspian Sea to viewers in the recently-opened exhibition, “Caspian: The Elements.” In October 2018, Mathews published a book under the same title with 125 of her photographs. Now, 30 of those photographs are being displayed at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology in a captivating exhibition. Mathews spent five years traveling through Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan, capturing the lives of their peoples and the various unique landscapes surrounding the sea, while showing how natural resources influence the regions and their inhabitants. Each nation has different ways of using their resources and varying climates, but the Caspian Sea still unifies these countries. The exhibition provides an immersive experience for the attendees, … [Read more...] about SHAPED BY OIL: MATHEWS DOCUMENTS LIFE IN THE CASPIAN STATES