Harold Garde, “Nude Woman” (2001), acrylic on canvas, 44-1/2″ x 55-1/2″ Photos by Dave Clough Photography Two years ago, I wrote one of my first art reviews for this article on the painter Harold Garde. The works then on display at Waterfall Arts in Belfast, where Garde maintained a summerRead More →
Click to enlarge Courtesy of the Hall Art Foundation “White Squad X” Opening the door to the old cowshed Hall Art Foundation in Reading, a visitor is confronted with – there isRead More →
Installation view of Amelia Clark’s work Degree Exhibition 2022, Edinburgh College of Art **** The pandemic and its lockdowns have been difficult for everyone and tragic for too many. Nevertheless, one must have compassion for the students who have seen their education so severely disrupted at a critical time inRead More →
Click to enlarge Pamela Polston ©️ Seven days “A distance that draws us” Standing in a gallery surrounded by paintings by Bonnie Acker is highly recommended. You may find that youRead More →
Detail from Can You See My Disguise Part II by Ruby Kuye-Kline Diploma Exhibition 2022, Glasgow School of Art **** With the loss of its glorious Mackintosh building, the Glasgow School of Art, architecturally speaking, has come a long way down. In Look Back in Anger, Jimmy Porter bitterly recallsRead More →
Welcome to Wet Paint in the Wild, an extension of Annie Armstrong’s gossip column in which she gives art world insiders a disposable camera so they can give us a glimpse of their mad industry corner. I’ve long suspected that my old friend Jameson Johnson might be the most dynamicRead More →
Placeholder while loading article actions Long before ragas, chicken tikka or Bollywood films were exported from India, international demand for textiles from the subcontinent was strong. These items did not simply move from local bazaars to distant markets involuntarily. Many decorative fabrics were made expressly for customers in places asRead More →
Placeholder while loading article actions The kind of person depicted in the National Portrait Gallery’s “The Outwin 2022: American Portraiture Today” is quite different from those typically depicted in such institutions. The subjects of the show’s 42 portraits are not rich, famous or politically powerful, and are less likely toRead More →
Thaddeus Radell, “Prodigal Son”, 2022, oil pastel, graphite and wax crayon on Bristol paper, 18 x 24 inches Photo by Erin Little It’s always surprising to me how people rank art genres (or almost anything) as good or bad or better than – especially when it comes to abstraction versusRead More →
Click to enlarge Courtesy of Kelly Holt “Gratitude in Time of Loss #1-611” by Daryl Burtnett While some recent arts have reveled in an ex-pandemic ethos – there’s more to life thanRead More →
Click to enlarge Pamela Polston ©️ Seven days “Thomas Armory I” by Kehinde Wiley The narrative is now familiar: the museum closes during the pandemic, takes stock of itself during itsRead More →
Click to enlarge Pamela Polston ©️ Seven days “Cardboard slave kit, mix of freedmen” by Roberto Visani When the pandemic arrived in 2020, Roberto Visani didn’t just lock himself in withRead More →
New to the Indigo Arts Alliance? So run – don’t walk – to the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at Maine College of Art & Design. The vitality this organization brings to our community and to the Maine art scene is vividly displayed in the exhibit “Visions of Our Future;Read More →
Thirty people standing in a room all look different. The abstract portraits of 30 people from the Nuquist Gallery of the TW Wood Gallery are also all unique. Instead of physical characteristics, these abstract portraits consider what lies inside their subjects – layers of emotions, stories, dreams – through color,Read More →
Thirty people standing in a room all look different. The abstract portraits of 30 people from the Nuquist Gallery of the TW Wood Gallery are also all unique. Instead of physical characteristics, these abstract portraits consider what lies inside their subjects – layers of emotions, stories, dreams – through color,Read More →
Click to enlarge Courtesy “Nine Pins” by an unknown maker The pandemic has had at least one good result: accessibility to museum collections. Shelburne Museum is among the institutions that have successfullyRead More →
For centuries, artists have used series as a way to explore the phenomena of nature, light, time, space and color. From 1890 to 1891, Claude Monet related his perceptions of light on 25 canvases representing haystacks in the fields surrounding Giverny. Josef Albers began painting hundreds of variations on theRead More →
It really isn’t hard to grasp the gist of “Nyeema Morgan: Soft Power.” Hard margins. (until May 14), the show that kicks off the spring art season at the Grant Wahlquist Gallery in downtown Portland. At least superficially. Even those unfamiliar with art history will recognize iconic paintings such asRead More →
By Charles Giuliano Strict beauty: prints by Sol LeWitt is an irresistible opportunity to immerse yourself in an important aspect of the artist’s work Strict beauty: prints by Sol LeWittat the Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, until June 11. “In conceptual art, the idea or concept is the mostRead More →
In 2016, Quartz, an economic analysis organization made up of journalists, surveyed 20 museums in seven countries to determine how much work by 13 major artists was on display and how much remained in storage. Among their finds? “Overall, only 44% of the artworks included in the survey were onRead More →
As I get older, I wonder more and more about the place of family in my life. When I was younger, I was sure the purpose of being young was to escape where I came from, to become something bigger. Now, the more I distance myself from my family, theRead More →
The new Burrell collection will be open to the public on March 29. The Burrell Collection, Glasgow **** On March 29, the Burrell Collection reopens after a £68.25million refurbishment and six years of closure. The operators of Glasgow Life hope the new Burrell, repaired, relocated and fitted out for theRead More →
The word “garment” comes from the Old French word “guarantee“, a single garment, which derives from the Old French “garnish”— arm, arm, protect. Jump into 20th century Manhattan and the term “garmento” appears, slang for someone who works in the garment industry in the Garment District, the 1930s west ofRead More →
Many artists that the “Art World” has never heard of are only as good as the artists who take the trouble to make themselves known. To satisfy yourself, check out the exhibition of 20 paintings by Evanston artist Joan McLane. Artist Joan McLane. (Photo by Rebecca McLane) McLane’s paintings, representingRead More →
The moment you walk into the Bates College Museum of Art’s Lesley Dill exhibit “Wilderness: Light Sizzles Around Me” (until March 26), you’re engulfed in a torrent of words. They fill banners that span entire walls and adorn clothing with ghostly sculptures standing or hanging in the gallery, not toRead More →
The idea of a fabric-based show was in the air, says Laura Hughes. But it was an old photograph posted to Instagram by the Springfield History Museum – an image of people gathered around a quilt – that sparked the idea for “Quilt Bloc”, now on display at Ditch ProjectsRead More →
I Enjoy My Food, 2022, by Stephanie Dulson RSA New Contemporaries, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh **** Two major events feature in the Royal Scottish Academy’s busy calendar: the Annual Exhibition and New Contemporaries, which features works by artists selected by Academy members from the degree exhibitions of the five artRead More →
The current exhibition at Alice Gauvin Gallery, Portland’s newest commercial art gallery, is titled “Human/Nature” (until March 26). As with its last release, Gauvin brings together the work of multiple artists under one grand theme: nature’s ability “to threaten, comfort, nurture and impress – and through it all, somehow possessRead More →
Click to enlarge Pamela Polston ©️ Seven days Excerpt from “How I Met My Grandfather” Every culture is a tribe, a pack, and within it are repressive factions that discourage, legislate,Read More →
Art museums are often seen as a reflection of the society/community in which they exist. This interdependence has many aspects. If it is a collecting museum, the values of the community in which the institution resides can be informed and reinforced by the objects the museum chooses to collect. MaintainingRead More →
I can’t remember what social media platform I was on when I first saw Pat Boas’ installation of wallpapers and paintings. The work is at Oregon Contemporary as part of the exhibition “Hallie Ford Fellows in the Visual Arts 2017 -2019”. Yet the moment I saw the abstract patterned wallpaperRead More →
By Claire Crittendon & Rachel Shepard – Co-editor and editor-in-chief Less than 10 minutes from Lasell is Frida Kahlo’s sketchbook in the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. With free entry, a simple online reservation system, and the presentation of a vaccination card, visitors can access each wing and seeRead More →
Kurt Cobain at MTV’s Live and Loud, Pier 63, Seattle WA, December 13, 19931993 printed 2010color photographyAlice WheelerAmerican, born in 196127 x 40.5 in.Gift of Clinton T. Willour in honor of Greg Kucera and Larry Yocom.Courtesy of Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle.© Alice Wheeler Before leaving for the opening of kurtRead More →
Dana Schutz, The autopsy of Michael Jackson2005.Oil on canvas; 60 x 108 in.Collection of Vicki and Kent Logan.© Dana Schutz.Courtesy of the artist and Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York. The possibilities of painting Like the Denver Art Museum concurrent exhibit, Become Van Gogh, Dana Schutz: If the face had wheels,Read More →
Click to enlarge Pamela Polston ©️ Seven days On the wall, from left: “Portrait #158” by Charles Lysogorski, small untitled portraits and “Condor” by Ann Young, and “Study in Blue Light” by August Burns. Front: “Voices”Read More →
“Flowers 1-12”, eteam (Franziska Lamprecht and Hajoe Moderegger), 12 channel video, 2020 In this hyper-connected digital age, the multidimensionality of video seems to play an increasingly dynamic role in our perception of reality, especially in theRead More →
Urban construction sites have a longstanding (and often ignored) ban on affixing advertisements and leaflets to the temporary construction barriers and plywood barricades surrounding them. This ban usually boils down to the simple directive, POST NO BILLS. In his latest exhibition at the Peggy R. McConnell Arts Center in Worthington,Read More →
What could a house on fire, a silhouette of a pumpkin and a hypnotic spiral have in common in a gallery? These amusing elements find root not just as occult curiosities, but as seminal tropes in twelve new paintings by Portland-based painter Olivia Faith Harwood. Currently playing on Fuller RosenRead More →
Back in the stunned wake of September 11, 2001, Graydon Carter, then editor of Vanity Fair, was lambasted for declaring “the end of the age of irony.” His argument was that after such an inconceivable and profound tragedy, flippancy and snark were no longer acceptable. More than two decades later,Read More →
DANCE: Drawn from within, ‘Unveiled’ touches the soul Katakali Jana | Published on 19.02.22, 00:36 As dancer-choreographer Srijaini Ghosh (pictured, left) chose to assert her individuality while forging connections between epic, legend and her own classical training, one experienced the exquisite joy of watching a visceral performance which looked likeRead More →
The line is arguably the most fundamental tool in art, the cornerstone of drawing and painting, and an indispensable device for conveying perspective, depth, and dimension. Abstract expressionism is a possible exception, although even some of this depends on the line for its rhythm and energy (see Jackson Pollock). PaulRead More →
IN 2020, as an in-demand muralist, Lakwena Maciver (Features, August 28, 2020) created large-scale paintings on two public basketball courts in Martin Luther King Jr. Park, Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Working with the main forms of the components of the court, its bold and vibrant design combines geometric patterns with acidRead More →
Lea Gray has been making beautiful paper flowers for over nine years. All of his creativity, paper folding experiments and appreciation for nature are now on display at the Franklin Park Conservatory in his collection titled ‘Bringing respect to nature: an exploration of paper plants‘. All the pieces presented inRead More →
“Sculpture 1” by Kenn Hetzel is on display at “Thinking Large, Working Small” at Summit Artspace. The process of creating art is often one of the greatest mysteries for anyone studying the work of a particular artist. The who, where, when, why and how of artistic creation can be elusiveRead More →
Like a ghost from a past life, the short film by Jen LaMastra Reduce by half seems to rise from the depths to haunt both viewer and subject. Barely visible in the midday sun, the film swings between scenes of a woman in a large royal dress walking slowly throughRead More →
Click to enlarge Catherine Opie, Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong and Seoul “Untitled #9 (Swamps)” Since the time Catherine Opie asked for and received aRead More →
“The task of perception is to pulverize the world, but also to spiritualize its dust.” -Gilles Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque This passage, highlighted in the gallery notes accompanying Catalina Ouyang’s current exhibition three betrayalsserves as an excellent point of reference for navigating Ouyang’s rich and fragmentary works.Read More →
It’s hard to know whether or not one should recommend an episode of a television program that features an unredacted screening of Martin Creed’s Sick Film – a film of sick people. For what it’s worth, I gagged and looked away. Personally, I’d rather watch Question Time 2015-2021, Peter Jackson’sRead More →
by James Kroner Twilight half-life (SF) depicts a rainy city street just before dark. Gray tones dominate the oil painting on panel. The colored spots represent the light produced by humans: emitted by a bus, cars, street lamps and street signals. Our view is from the middle of the street.Read More →
One way to get through the harsh reality of winter in northeast Ohio is to try something new, or for those of us who love the visual arts, to go see something new. . “FRESH,” the 18th annual juried exhibition at Summit Artspace, is curated to “push the boundaries ofRead More →
“In anything that can be called art,” Raymond Chandler wrote in a 1944 essay, “there is a redeeming quality.” This is certainly true in the work of Lewiston native Charlie Hewitt. But his luminous paintings and sculptures, a selection of which are on display at Elizabeth Moss Galleries on ForeRead More →
The art movement of surrealism was born from revolutionary and consciousness-transforming roots just after the First World War. Although it no longer has the counterculture, anti-colonialist sayings it once espoused, Surrealism retains its intent to provoke deeper meaning and reflection through a twist or even a sideways take on howRead More →
I like to think of myself as someone who behaves with a minimum of decorum in public places. But that self-image evaporated when I walked into the Maine Jewish Museum’s current exhibit, “Enter the Space: Oliver Solmitz” (through February 25). I gasped as I exclaimed “Holy cow!” out loud. LuckilyRead More →
The art movement of surrealism was born from revolutionary and consciousness-transforming roots just after the First World War. Although it no longer has the counterculture, anti-colonialist sayings it once espoused, Surrealism retains its intent to provoke deeper meaning and reflection through a twist or even a sideways take on howRead More →
There is good old-fashioned photography, and there will be plenty more. By old-fashioned I mean no gimmicks or fancy techniques or digital manipulation (at least for the most part) – just color, black and white and cyanotype images done the old fashioned way, by a photographer working alone with aRead More →
By Mark Faverman Both of these exhibits are examples of the artist as a 21st century shaman – a prophetic and creative force. Interrogative Design: Selected Works by Krzysztof Wodiczko at the Druker Design Gallery, Harvard University, through February 20. In collaboration with Krzysztof Wodiczko: Portrait at the Harvard ArtRead More →
If I ever find myself thinking about paper or printed art, my mind hardly ever wanders off to ghosts. However, as I browsed through Stelo’s group exhibit, “Coalesce,” I couldn’t get the ghosts out of my mind. On each piece of the show hangs the ubiquitous and disturbing spirit ofRead More →
Click to enlarge Courtesy Kate Gridley’s “Bittern” In this journal, we usually make lists of seven, rather than the more typical 10. Admittedly, the smaller number makes it more difficult to sort out favorite shows from, in this case, a whole year of viewing art. Thus, some selections are basedRead More →
Don’t be surprised if you think you hear tunes from Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” as you approach 100 Fore Street, the address of the new Old Port outpost of the Elizabeth Moss Galleries. Moss does not actually show the opera in the gallery. But it is not necessary. Paintings from “LynneRead More →
“There’s a Woman of All Colors: Black Women in Art” has been on display at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art since mid-September and runs through January 30. If you haven’t seen it, it’s well worth it, both for the way it fills one of the most gaping holes inRead More →
Captain American hurls his shield in this illustration by Alex Ross from the cover of the 2018 book “Marvelocity.” We are a celebrity driven company. We are held captive by the star factor that we imagine we see before us in everyone, from the people we elect to public officeRead More →
Clear mist by Jackie Stevenson RSW Annual Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh **** With over 300 works on display, the 141st exhibition of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolor (RSW) occupies the main galleries of the Royal Scottish Academy. It hangs elegantly and with a light and spaciousRead More →
There are so few sculpture exhibitions in Maine that the very appearance of an exhibition is a special occasion. This is certainly reason enough to go to the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland where “Spatial Relations” (until January 9) occupies the main gallery. But it also turns outRead More →
Gillian Wear, Self-portrait at three years old2004. Photo: © Gillian Wearing In the early 1990s, conceptual artist Gillian Wearing began to make a name for herself creating guerrilla-style faith-based performances with volunteers she recruited from the streets or from newspaper advertisements. At the time, she was in her twenties andRead More →
Lobster Telephone, by Salvador Dalí and Edward James PIC: National Galleries of Scotland, purchased by the Henry and Sula Walton Fund, with assistance from Art Fund. News, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh **** The National Galleries of Scotland buying fund would likely not cover the buyer’s premium whenRead More →
Click to enlarge Courtesy of Cathy Cone “A Capella Crack” Like visual analogues of a foreign language, Cathy ConeThe black and white photographs of escape easy interpretation. Viewers may wonder what happened just before an image was created, or if any clues to the mystery lurk beyond the frame. WhatRead More →
If I want to be an art critic who complains about the immersive Van Gogh exhibits, I’m late to the party. The offerings have already been skewered in the press; the most common complaint compares the experience to stepping into a Van Gogh screensaver. Is the experience like stepping intoRead More →
Motherhood and the way we define and value it is something we have all worked to understand at some point in our lives. Maybe no one is more criticized and criticized than the person who fills the role of mother. One of the best exhibits on display in Northeast OhioRead More →
DESPERATE about the state of her own world at the start of the Second Elizabethan Age, even with people like Sir John Gielgud and Sir Laurence Olivier, Dame Sybil Thorndike (1882-1976) wrote disparagingly to her son:Or are our Picassos—our Matisses or Nashes—our equivalents in the theater? Leaders like John G.Read More →
Click to enlarge Pamela Polston © ️ Seven days Extract from the installation “Objects of Empire” by Bradley Borthwick Bradley Borthwickthe exhibition of “Empire Items“conveys more than it first appears. In the gallery on the second floor of Burlington’s BCA Center, warm spotlights focus on two rather austere installations. TheRead More →
Here in the Pacific Northwest, as the sun takes its annual rest behind shrouded clouds, we find ourselves in early winter, a time of year when we retreat to our homes and creativity flows over the wood fire. Simone Fischer, a multidisciplinary artist based in Portland, answers the call ofRead More →
Visual art can be a lot of things to different people. For example, few would deny its transport capacity. Many of us share the memory of looking intensely at different works of art and feeling that we are part of the artwork that we are viewing, or that the artworkRead More →
So what is this place about? From Mile-End to Griffintown, Montreal is covered in murals (legal and non-legal). Public art is an integral part of the city’s cultural landscape, and every summer for around ten days the annual MURAL festival offers live painting sessions, workshops and musical performances in honorRead More →
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Olivia Watts and Chris Kilgour (alias “Basgetti”), level 7 students of Ideaschool, deliver their selected work to CAN. While life is still very far from our old “normal”, CAN is focused on catching up with the exhibits and events that have been affected by this year’s lockdown. The building wasRead More →
The popular image in PRE-RAPHAELITE art is a three-quarter figure in an ornate frame, probably a woman in historical costume, frozen in a mannered pose. But ‘Rossetti’s Portraits’ at the Holburne Museum, Bath, casts a new light on Brotherhood output, with a timeline spanning the return of Florence Nightingale fromRead More →
Click to enlarge Courtesy of Erin Jenkins / BMAC From left to right: “Our unfinished business”, “88” and “Taser” William ransomexposure could make you sneeze. “Keep Up / Hold Up”, on display at Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, has two unexpected olfactory elements: pine tar and burnt wood. Their nose-ticklingRead More →
In a review of a 1998 Bob Thompson retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Times art critic Roberta Smith praised the painter’s “raw talent and unquenchable ambition.” But, she writes: “Too many of these paintings are irresolute and indifferently painted. Their figures and colors intertwine ratherRead More →
At this point in history when we are forced to grapple with human impact on the environment, it makes sense for artists to create works in response to the nature and heritage of objects created by society. It is important to note that the materials we choose to use inRead More →
Click to enlarge Courtesy of Liza Voll Kirsten Reynolds’ “Overflow” With “Unbound, “at Burlington BCA Center, curator Heather Ferrell has created a remarkably cohesive exhibition of abstract works by Rachel gross, Rob hitzig and Kirsten reynolds. The three artists work in painted wood and reject the rectangular frame, this traditionalRead More →
We tend to believe that scientific explanations of phenomena are absolutely rational, quantifiable, and reproducible under certain controlled conditions. Yet two exhibitions by Portland-based artists at the Maine Jewish Museum – paintings by Michel Droge in “Deep Sea” and experimental objects from the PSBL collective in “Reflectors, Emitters and Diffusers”Read More →
We certainly don’t need another reason to go to Chase’s Daily in Belfast. The food is fresh, healthy and delicious. The market sells the most magnificent, often unusual, produce you will find. But it’s also the home of the Perimeter Gallery, where Freddy LaFage and Karen McDonald put on top-notchRead More →
In his new exhibition “Alone In This Together”, now presented at M. David et Cie Gallery, painter Mary DeVincentis expresses the heightened sense of mortality that has resonated throughout the past year of the pandemic. Using mixed media, ranging from flash paint to plastic skeletons, DeVincentis creates poignant narratives drawnRead More →
There is a certain amount of energy and movement in all art forms. Theater, dance and music all share clear paths to exuberance and animation. Visual art can also take the form of form and energy. “Afterimages: Geometric Abstraction and Perception,” on display at the Akron Art Museum through Jan.Read More →
Click to enlarge Pamela Polston © ️ Seven days “Are you here?” by Jonathan Gitelson When Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “The Medium is the Message” in 1964, the theorist and author was specifically referring to the media of communication. But the saying could easily apply to works of artRead More →
To see on the second floor of a quiet area of Brownstone on Jefferson Avenue, a certain ghostly charm reigns around the work of Cathleen Clarke. It is a presence that is both literal and figurative. Directly, her paintings are adaptations of images Clarke collected of family members and associatedRead More →
Earlier this summer, I reported that Corey Daniels had stopped hanging specific exhibitions at his always intriguing namesake gallery in Wells. Daniels is still iconoclastic about the whole enterprise, perhaps because his tastes are so varied, his curiosity practically promiscuous, and his gallery rooms so large and rambling that it’sRead More →
Click to enlarge Amy lilly Kate Gridley’s “Bittern” An introduction to this year Art in Kent The “20/20 Hindsight” exhibit notes that “the buildings that still stand at Kents’ Corner are part of an original industrial site.” In the 19th century, this crossroads in Calais resonated with the intense activityRead More →
Where artists find inspiration for their work is often the majority of the challenge to create something new. Whether they are dancers, musicians, designers or sculptors, the concepts that drive the creative vision are the determining elements in whether a final product “works” or not. Finding an artist who seemsRead More →
Although it is almost impossible to corroborate, medieval poet Dante Alighieri is often attributed to the statement “Nature is the art of God”. Whether this is true or not, much evidence of this appears to be on display in the lower galleries of the Bates College Museum of Art, inRead More →
Click to enlarge Pamela Polston © ️ Seven days Shopping cart icon Before even seeing Kevin doneganfrom the exhibition of mixed media assemblies, you could deduce its theme from the title: “Your basket is empty”. Did you guess that the artist is concerned with unbridled consumerism? The lightness of ourRead More →