Two painters well-entrenched in the tradition of modern American realism, a computer animator working with experimental painting and drawing processes, and a sculptor with a site-specific work that will evolve over a period of half a year are in the spotlight in three spaces within the New Bedford Art Museum/ArtWorks! Displayed in the Heritage Gallery, painters Art Ballelli and Roy St. Christopher Rossow make a formidable and complementary pair in their exhibition called “Warmed by Sunshine, Lit by Starlight.” Ballelli, a native of Westerly, a perfect picture postcard town in southwestern Rhode Island, displays a series of acrylic paintings highlighting the Victorian era houses in his community. His style is crisp, almost to the point of starkness, and his “painted ladies” are visually cropped in a thoughtful manner that highlights their exquisite architectural details. The … [Read more...] about NEW BEDFORD TODAY: NEARBY WATERS INSPIRE SERIES OF EXHIBITIONS
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PUBLIC SPACE INTO MUSEUMS: LACY’S MURALS CHANGE BURLINGTON’S LANDSCAPE
Burlington Vermont’s South End is the place to be if you are an artist or if you want to immerse yourself in art because art is everywhere — indoors, outdoors, on the streets, on building exteriors, in repurposed dairy facilities, reclaimed warehouses, and yes, in dozens of galleries. You could spend days there and still not see everything. But you could break up your art consumption with samplings of local craft beer in the many tasting rooms and even stop in at a wine bar where your wine and cheese pairing is presented by a James Beard Award winner (see side box for places mentioned). It is in this thriving arts community that I visited Mary Lacy in her warehouse studio. Lacy is a muralist, and her work can be seen a few blocks down from her studio on two monumental silos adjacent to a building that now houses a design/marketing enterprise. Another work is downtown on the brick facade … [Read more...] about PUBLIC SPACE INTO MUSEUMS: LACY’S MURALS CHANGE BURLINGTON’S LANDSCAPE
Trace Matter: Making Connections at Montserrat
The “trace” is a notion that straddles two worlds. It can be a thing in this world, a tiny amount or residue of something; or drawing around an object’s physical boundaries as a template. In the imagination, it can also be a symbolic representation of the ways in which things and people may be both present and absent to our experience. The paintings, sculptures and performance works of the six artists curated by Montserrat College of Art Gallery director Nathan Lewis under the umbrella “Trace Matter” focus on the leaving of a mark in the physical world, yet many more senses and mechanisms of “trace” can be found in them. In different ways, the trace implies and perhaps reassures us that there is a history, a before and an after. Jenna Pirello self-consciously manipulates her paint on small wood panels to reflect and preserve the history of her decisions in the behavior of her … [Read more...] about Trace Matter: Making Connections at Montserrat