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Artscope Magazine | November/December 2020

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Painting

“A HORSE WALKS INTO A BAR” AND OTHER CURIOUS NOTIONS AT HAMPDEN GALLERY

// Artscope Online, Current Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Hannah Carrigan

D. Dominick Lombardi’s curation of whit is unmistakable. In a fine arts show at UMassAmherst’s Hampden Gallery featuring works by 26 artists, and with a theme as broad as humor, cohesiveness is not a given. And yet, while “A Horse Walks into a Bar” contains a myriad of mediums and styles, its parts come together to form a wonderfully silly, provocative and subtly nostalgic whole. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of “A Horse Walks Into A Bar” is the innovative and unique use of materials and methods to achieve a sense of playfulness and absurdity. Among the most intriguing of these is Lucy White’s Band-Aid prints, “Sex Pistols,” 2005, “Peace Panty,” 2006, and “I Hate You Brief  XL,” 2006. In her signature minimalist style, with an edge of art-poking-fun-at-art, White offers viewers an easy avenue into weighty issues like gender inequality and gun violence. Other exciting uses of … [Read more...] about “A HORSE WALKS INTO A BAR” AND OTHER CURIOUS NOTIONS AT HAMPDEN GALLERY

WELL WORTH REVISITING: FAMILIAR LANDMARKS AND STYLES AT WHISTLER HOUSE

// Current Issue, Issue Articles, January/February 2020

by Flavia Cigliano

Juried exhibitions are a mainstay for art associations, galleries and museums, and with good reason. Everyone seems to benefit from them. Artists enter for the recognition, validation and exposure to possible buyers and to the critical eye of their fellow artists. Gallery owners are able to seek out emerging talent as well as established artists for possible representation. Art aficionados and casual visitors alike can follow and compare artists’ work. Often times, little noted at these shows is the extraordinary effort of the jurors in selecting works for the exhibitions. Not only are they required to winnow down the entries to a fraction of those submitted, but they are regularly required to evaluate works in every possible medium. It’s a highly subjective process. Jurors are experts in their own fields with varying experiences, predilections and prejudices. Often, they are most … [Read more...] about WELL WORTH REVISITING: FAMILIAR LANDMARKS AND STYLES AT WHISTLER HOUSE

RICH IN MEANING AND MESSAGE: BULL’S BOOK OF PAINTING AND POETRY A GROUP EFFORT

// Current Issue, Issue Articles, January/February 2020

by Elizabeth Michelman

One of only a handful of women painters in Louis K. Meisel’s stable of top Photorealists in the early 1970s,Fran Bull, by the mid-‘80s, had quit the movement, moved to Vermont and turned toward a more nourishing figural and gestural abstraction. In the years since, she has created a distinctive and profound body of work. Bull’s paintings, etchings and relief sculpture have been prominently exhibited in Barcelona, Milan and the Venice Biennale. Now, rather than waiting for the retrospective that is her due, she’s charged ahead with a book that pits her poetry against her two-dimensional work of the past three decades. Voice is at the heart of both Bull’s poetry and her visual form — not surprising for a classically trained singer. Her semi-abstract imagery takes on the female body as a site of reverie, sensations, dreams, relationship and sound. Her fluid marks reveal rudimentary … [Read more...] about RICH IN MEANING AND MESSAGE: BULL’S BOOK OF PAINTING AND POETRY A GROUP EFFORT

Peaceful, Inspiring — SELF-TAUGHT: Brennan’s Art Celebrates Wampanoag Tradition

// Current Issue, Issue Articles, January/February 2020

by Lee Roscoe

Emma Jo Mills Brennan does art for the “exploration and reflection” it affords her. “All of my work is related to my love for the earth, unless it’s abstract and then it’s going into the spiritual realm, then it’s meditative.” That connection to the land started with the family lifeway. Brennan’s Mashpee Wampanoag father (who owned the Mashpee landmark Ockrey Trading Post) provided his family with fresh game, “one deer a year, geese, quail, partridges, ducks, fish,” and with produce from his garden. Her mother was the daughter of Italian immigrants who wrote, drew and created ceramic flowers so delicate they looked real. (Her brother, Elwood Mills Jr., is a local writer. Her uncle, Earl, is a writer, restaurateur and respected tribal chief.) After a divorce, Brennan returned to her childhood home hand-built by her father after World War Two on land the Wampanoag had lived in for … [Read more...] about Peaceful, Inspiring — SELF-TAUGHT: Brennan’s Art Celebrates Wampanoag Tradition

ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND: BLAKEMAN MESMERIZED BY WIDE OPEN SPACES

// Current Issue, Issue Articles, January/February 2020

by Linda Chestney

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” — T.S. Eliot. What is it about human behavior that compels us so very often to return to our roots? Maybe not geographically back to our beginnings, but in some representative aspect of our beginnings, we return. That is the case for artist Marcia Blakeman of Bedford, New Hampshire. Blakeman grew up in Wyoming and summered in Colorado, eventually settling with her family in New Hampshire. Earning her degree in advertising design from Metropolitan State College in Denver, she worked in that arena for some time. Later, upon having children, she picked up the paint brush and took her creative endeavors in a different direction. Greatly influenced by her environment as a youth, she’s mesmerized by wide open spaces, the mountains, and most … [Read more...] about ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND: BLAKEMAN MESMERIZED BY WIDE OPEN SPACES

Mentors and Mentees: A LASTING LEGACY AT PINE MANOR

// Current Issue, Issue Articles, January/February 2020

by Leah Hamilton French

“Legacy: Passing the Torch,” curated by Stephanie Mahan Stigliano, presents the work of Boston and New England area artist educators in a variety of media, side by side with that of their students. The show explores the bi-directional influence of the teacher-student relationship, both through the pairings of work as well as through the reflective artist statements accompanying each piece. Presenting the work in this context, said Stigliano, allows us to “ ...explore and support the complex, cooperative, and long-ranging influence of both teachers and students — relationships that begin in an academic environment and are transformed and invigorated when mentors and students become colleagues.”   Proximity reveals what might not otherwise be noticeable; pairing allows the viewer to see the subtle influences of the mentor on the work of the student. In Juan Perez’s “JD Martinez … [Read more...] about Mentors and Mentees: A LASTING LEGACY AT PINE MANOR