Past Exhibitions and Events 2019
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Carolyn Webb - Wood, Paper, Slate
November 6 - December 7, 2019 Growth, renewal, and a fascination with processes that build and destroy form are the basis of my life’s work. I credit my biologist mother who gave me a microscope when I was 6, and my chemist father who taught me to grow copper sulfate crystals from saturated solutions (cobalt blue rhomboid-like shapes appearing magically larger each day!) with providing a pathway of fascination into many fundamental mysteries of our physical world. My original perception of the world through observation of incremental changes is expressed in my work, which is often either built over long periods of time with layers of ink in the case of prints or slow carving or laminating techniques in the case of built wooden pieces. I see the practices of sculpture and printmaking as intertwined and complementary, as both are material and process driven. Wood, Paper and Slate have particular, distinctive qualities and hold particular tonal resonances important to me. For instance, the warm, almost soft yet strong quality of wood is quite different from the tense and varied surfaces possible in slate. Asian papers I use are chosen for their inherent translucency and ability to hold layers of ink in a glowing fashion. I have long dreamed of presenting these sculptures and prints in conversation in my community. I was especially curious to see how my work has evolved over time; to show older works juxtaposed with current pieces and thereby reveal the spiral path my career has followed. Past artistic fascinations and forms constantly re-emerge as if there is a gravitational pull towards certain essential forms, ideas and questions present from my beginning. MORE |
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SHARED SPACES
MIXED MEDIA INSTALLATION STEPHEN WICKS October 4 - November 2, 2019 A mixed media exhibition / installation by Stephen Wicks composed of over eighty photographs including early black & white and recent color images along with three continuously looping video pieces. Each element in the installation presents wide-ranging views of places where the natural landscape, material culture and the built environment merge. "… heading off across America to make these photographs I chose the open road. I deliberately avoided visiting familiar iconic destinations. Instead, I travelled with an eye toward discovering places along the way where the built environment merged with the natural landscape …" Stephen Wicks |
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Frank Ward & Robert Tobey Photographs
September 4-28, 2019 Frank Ward The Last Empire—The new countries of the old Soviet Union is a series of photographs of the former Soviet Empire that tell a story of curious pleasures and confounded expectations. “On a beach in Ukraine a grandmother in a bikini asks me to take her picture. In the Russian Far East I discover a wall mural of Lenin blowing a kiss to Marilyn Monroe. Policemen in Uzbekistan accuse me of stealing strategic military secrets by photographing a World War II tank on display in a park. In Siberia, an angry security guard repeats his only phrase in English, “I love you,” as he makes me delete my pictures of a destroyed waterfront habitat. The former Soviet Empire is a paradise of paradox, where the landscapes are limitless and the people are full of passion and pain.” Robert Tobey BLIND I consists of pictures of people at parades in Holyoke and Greenfield, all taken with one camera and one fixed-focal-length lens, while on a bicycle... mostly in motion. All images have been printed without cropping, and minimal photoshop adjustment. |
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Terry Jenoure and Pasqualina Azzarello
June 6-29, 2019 Terry Jenoure great expectations is a series of handmade doll sculptures, paper dolls and illustrations. They are inspired by letters written to my grandmother when she arrived in New York from Jamaica in the early part of the 20th century. Whether built into the figures, or more abstractly referenced, these letters from my great-grandmother and other ancestors are central and express their excitement, concerns, caution, but ultimately their hope for her success in the new world. Pasqualina Azzarello Sender/Receiver: Our Infinite Atmospheres is a series of paintings that explores radical self-acceptance and transformative change. Each one is made with water-based media and utilizes direct and reflective mark-making to create human forms that represent, embody, and inhabit the interface of psychological and physiological healing. In its entirety, the series consists of 200+ works and continues to grow. www.pasqualinaazzarello.com |
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CHUCK STERN
SELECTED PAINTINGS 2014-2018 May 3 - 26, 2019 These pieces, at least while in progress, are about relationships: what color next to which, what pattern or shape settles in or calls for more action, what happens when the paint physically engages with or ignores or obscures the drawn shape? What excites or calms or irritates? Often small changes answer large questions. I work through the relationships and the mood that these relationships evoke with some patience, as the separate parts of these works often take their time reaching an agreement. The final arrangement is always a revelation to me. MORE |
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Taken from Memory by Sheron Rupp
Book Release and Talk May 9, 2019 Taken from Memory covers twenty-five years of work and is a selection of people living in rural and underdeveloped areas of the U.S., as well as neighborhoods depicting Americana. Although her photographs are often described as documentary, Sharon Rupp considers Taken from Memory personal in nature, “as a poem wrought true.” Sheron Rupp’s photographs are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The J.Paul Getty Museum, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Smith College Museum of Art, the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, the University Museum of Contemporary Art at UMass, Amherst, The National Gallery of Art, The Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, the DeCordova Museum, among others. |
Image by Kate Whittaker
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A JOURNEY/
Rita Edelman and Kate Whittaker Paintings April 3 -28, 2019 Rita Edelman's "slow release works" depend on intuitive response. Inspired by the early art of the Americas, Edelman's paintings contain ambiguous symbols; layers of marks and layers of meaning. Kate Whittaker's paintings are closely linked to the emotions and sensual experiences of her travels, the yearning to create an image that might conjure what I felt about a place, not just what she witnesses. As such, the physicality of the paint itself—how it sits upon the panel or canvas, how one pigment interacts with another, the effect of water on its polymers, and so on—is largely what dictates a painting's early direction. The process is a dance of sorts, leading, following, listening, acting. |
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starDUST to starDUST
Anne Laprade Seuthe February 2 - 28, 2019 Initially inspired by the writings of astrophysicist Karel Schrijver and Iris Schrijver, professor of pathology at Stanford, this exhibition starDUST to starDUST, will be comprised of abstract paintings paired with found objects. In their book, Living With the Stars, the Schrijvers write of how stellar winds from giant stars cause interstellar dust to form ripples. The dust contains oxygen, carbon, iron, nickel, and all the other elements out there, and eventually some of it finds its way into our bodies. Not only are we dust to dust, we are, in effect, stardust. In starDUST to starDUST, abstract paintings, built from an accumulation of thin layers of paint and glazes on panel, draw on reference images of both the cosmos and the cells that our bodies are comprised of. Anne Laprade Seuthe's reference materials include NASA photographs and images of the cellular structure of the human body. The micro-macro mystery to the similarities of these disparate sources drives the work. |
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RANDOM WORKS
Gordon Thorne Gallery Hours 2:00-5:00PM Tuesday through Sunday January 22-30, 2019 “…exploring the nature of the space which exists between things - between two and three dimensions - between what is and what might be.” |
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January 2-10 (viewable from the window only)
Friday, January 11: 3-7 pm. Gallery will be open for visitors to see and walk inside the whale! In the mid-1970s local science specialist and naturalist Fred Morrison* built a life-size, 72' long fin whale (also known as the finback whale and because of its sleek, muscular form, as the "greyhound of the sea"). Working in a gymnasium in D.A. Sullivan School, Fred worked over the course of three days and one long night, measuring, cutting and taping. Finishing around 3 a.m. he started the fan, walked up into the bleachers and watched as the whale inflated. He recalls he couldn't stop smiling and laughing. Since then, the whale has traveled all over Massachusetts and was viewed, inside and out, by thousands of people. As of January 2, for the first time in nearly 40 years, the whale has returned to Northampton's Main Street and will be on display at A.P.E.'s gallery through January 11. |