Potluck Reception with Adria Arch & participating artists on Saturday October 29 from 12noon-5pm. GALLERY TALK at 3PM. Gallery opens on these Saturdays: October 22 & 29, November 12 & November 19. Hours are 12noon to 5:00pm & by appointment.
Featuring 45 Nation-Wide Artists:
Stephen Anderson (Huntington Beach, CA), L.E. Ashley (Lancaster, MA), Timothy Barner (Medford, MA), Amy Baxter MacDonald (Dorchester, MA), Peter Freeth Belford (Arlington, MA), Jared Belinfante Charney (New York, NY), Kim Beury (Astoria, NY), Russell Brodie (Philadelphia, PA), Jordan Buschur (Allston, MA), Sandra Castillo (Medford, MA), Michael Cirelli (Londonderry, NH), Nancy Crasco (Brighton, MA), Sandra Cyr (Somerville, MA), Molly David (Allston, MA), Ricardo De Lima (Brighton, MA), Jessica Douglass (Dorcester, MA), Emily Driscoll (Lynn, MA), J. T. Dugan (Roxbury, MA), Kevin Evans (Alameda, CA), Jennifer Flores (Medford, MA), Wendy Gonick (Arlington, MA), Kerry Hawkins (Dedham, MA), Diane Jaquith (Newton Centre, MA), Charlotte Kaplan (Somerville, MA), Young Kim (Morgantown, WV), Michelle Kweder (Boston, MA), Veronique Latimer (Cambridge, MA), David Leonard (Austin, TX), Charlene Liska (Boston, MA), Michelle Steve McCauley (Malden, MA), Mary O'Malley (Somerville, MA), Fran Osborn-Blaschke (Dorchester, MA), Serena Perrone (Providence, RI) Christina Richards (Brooklyn, NY), John Rodzvilla (Malden, MA), Sandra Salamony (Cambridge, MA), Alex Segreti (Chicago, IL), Sarah B. Shallbetter (Somerville, MA), Marielle Sinclair (South Boston, MA), Marcella Anna Stasa (Upton, MA), Dotty Tribeman (Lexington, MA), Feiling Wang (Medford, MA), Linda Widstrand (Lunenburg, MA), Tom Wojciechowski (Boston, MA), James Zall (Cambridge, MA).
Image: work by Russell Brodie, Philadelphia, PA - Baltimore 1, Oil on Wood, 1½x 2½, 2004
-"Historically, large paintings are considered more important than small ones and I disagree with this hierarchy. Throughout art school, a "life size" painting or drawing is presumed to be the size of the actual object depicted. But the truth is, "life" can be any size." - Russell Brodie, Philadelphia, PA, 2005.
Image: Mixed media work by Marcella Anna Stasa, Upton, MA - [Uncertain] - rusted stovepipe, rabbits head found while taking a walk in Indiana, wool, feathers from a vet, 10x10x10, 2003.
-"When I was little (and I was pretty darn short) my mother would tell me that great things come in small packages. I took it to heart." - Marcella Anna Stasa, Upton, MA, 2005.
(Malden, MA - - September 22, 2005) - - artSPACE@16 is delighted to present its 30th exhibition, LOVE SMALL - SMALL WORKS SHOW III, juried by Adria Arch, an exhibiting artist and the Education Director at the Arlington Center for the Arts.
The LOVE SMALL is a response to the "intimidation factor" of standard art galleries and their big ticket, large-scale art works. This exhibit offers an opportunity to see, in a single location, over one hundred pieces of experimental and traditional work in small format. The various media include: artist books, paintings, drawings, printmaking, photographs, sculptures, fabric work and mixed media works. The majority of the 45 participating artists are from Massachusetts, but others hail from California, Texas, Illinois, West Virginia, Philadelphia, New York, and Rhode Island.
Works on display do not exceed 12 inches in all directions, and are of diverse media, style, and content. They were selected by the juror on the basis of originality, technical quality, thematic depth and presentation.
Guest juror, Adria Arch who is also an active exhibiting artist based in Arlington expressed, "It was my pleasure to view the many excellent submissions to LOVE SMALL. I saw a wide range of work, but my criteria for judging entries was two-fold: excellence in craft and thoughtfulness in content. Beyond those basic qualities, I accepted works that are surprising, shocking, or heartbreakingly beautiful. Some are all three. Several entries are humorous. Some are disturbing and difficult to look at."
MIXED MEDIA SCULPTURES
Image: Mixed media work by Stephen Anderson – Identify – shaped college on wood, 5x3½x¾, 2003.
Californian artist Stephen Anderson utilizes found media from magazines and advertising in his mixed media sculptures. In LOVE SMALL, he presents two works entitled [Emotional Suffering] and [Identify]. Anderson reinterprets such messages as consumerism and targeted marketing into an introspective, critical, and sarcastic overview of life. Anderson projects the elements into the 3d sculptural world, so one has to look at the layers of elements as if peering into the layers of ones hidden conscience.
Massachusetts native L.E. Ashley considers herself a scavenger and recycler. She paints from her home studio in rural Lancaster. She works in oil, creating scenes on old wooden panels and cabinet doors, often adding vintage hardware, photographs, rusty metal, and bits of natural materials such as birds' nests and bones. Ashley says, "Most of my pieces are miniatures that convey a small sense of the history that I felt growing up among the old stone walls and ramshackle barns of New England."
Upton based artist Marcella Stasa uses a combination of found objects, decayed materials, rusted finds, pellets, feathers and bones from road kill to make a visual statement in her mixed media work. While some of these elements may seem morbid, Stasa sees a great deal of beauty in death and decay. "The power of how these fragments of death affect me is why I use them in my work. They can be grisly, frightening, mysterious and all the while exceptionally lovely." The magnetism within her work strikes more as astonishingly eloquent rather than melancholy and ominous.
Arlington based artist Peter Freeth Belford uses textured, iridescent acrylics as surfacing for shapes protruding from a black backing at various angles in his work entitled [Discovered], as if falling or emerging from another universe. Belford maintains a studio at Vernon Street Studios in Somerville, MA.
Allston artist Jordan Buschur chose flat and smooth stones instead of tradition surfaces such as glass, bone, metal or board for her miniature portraits. Somerville artist Charlotte Kaplan creates 'FANCY DRESS MASKS' on a thread grid. The faces made of patterned fabric, ribbon, and beads form clothing for the face - to both hide behind and express yourself.
ARTIST BOOKS
"He Comes From Money" is an altered book by Diane Jaquith, an art teacher in the Newton Public Schools. This artist book traces a twisted path of entitlement through the pages of a former bank book featuring words and numbers patterned across pages painted in subtle shades of green, gold and copper. The book, with matching slipcase, is part of a small edition of the same title. There is something distinctly appealing about a book; pages turn, a narrative unfolds. Artist books reveal a unique perspective, a layering of concept, images and words.
FABRIC WORK
Malden artist Michelle "Steve" McCauley's series of fabric works combine aspects of the traditional art of quilting and its implications of women's work, domesticity and comfort with expressionistic shapes and color. The pieces show the union of mind, nature and work.
Nancy Crasco from Brighton, MA uses digital photographs of the crumbling interior walls of the Small Fortress at Terezin in the Czech Republic. She has printed them on China silk and embroidered barbed wire barriers over their surface. In these enigmatic works, the ghosts of World War II are haunting and presage current conflicts.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Image: Photograph by Michael Cirelli – Electrical Photogram Drawing 38 – Archival inkjet print, 5x2¾.
Michael Cirelli of Londonderry, NH is a full time photography instructor at Merrimack High School. He takes an unusually unique approach in creating his small photo-grams. Instead of using a camera, Cirelli placed small metal objects onto light sensitive photographic paper. To create an exposure on the paper Cirelli sent small charges of electrical current through the objects. The objects would light up because of the electricity passing though the objects. The results are what Cirelli calls, "Electrical Photographic Drawings". The result is extraordinary.
Christina Richards of Brooklyn, New York shows her photography series dealing with childhood fears and experiences. The photographs depict both intimate memories of self discovery and curiosity of the surrounding world. Using an exaggerated sense of color and light the photographs are portrayed as pieces of a story rather than everyday occurrences.
Image: Photograph by Alex Segreti - Foremost, Chicago, IL - 5x5, Gelatin Silver Print.
Alex Segreti of Chicago, Illinois, shoots mainly with a Holga camera (also known as a toy camera). He captures mundane objects in a different and darker light. Whether it's a car, a building, or a liquor store sign, Segreti creates an air of mystery by focusing on a small part of the object so that the viewer is left wondering: "what else is going on here?" Without answering this question, his work makes the viewer a part of this mystery, drawing you in to look at the images again and again.
Cambridge-based photographer James Zall captures quiet moments in a trio of compelling monochrome prints. The impact of people's decisions on our built environment is brought to our attention, although the people themselves are not seen. These images isolate structures and patterns that usually slip past the corners of our vision.
Young Kim, a photographer from West Virginia makes images that suggest inherent fragility and temporal state of flux that he hopes to make parallels to the nature of our own existence. In this exhibit, he shows [fallen words], a black and white image with a silhouette of a person standing in the presence of stillness before a chest high pile of crumbled dictionary pages "the work is meant to be served as mediation on time, memory, and state of human condition." Says Kim
Cambridge photographer Tom Wojciechowski who has a studio in Boston Fort Point shows "Tomb Tome" his ongoing collection of inscribed words (family names that are also words) used to write phrases, sentences or lists. The tension between words and names serves its purpose and opens up to other avenues of meaning. The work also seeks to exploit the tension between the mundane and the ceremonial, between the public and private, between linguistics and kinship and sociology. It willfully confuses the act of looking with the act of reading.
Dedham photographer and artist Kerry Hawkins is drawn to the complexity and vibrancy of city windows depicted in two photographs "Hello Kitties" and "Silvertone".
New Yorker Jared Belinfante Charney shows "A Fracture in Time," a narrative series, examining what occurs when time is split open, cracked, splintered and left to view as shards of reality.
Image: Photograph by Sandra Castillo - Unfurnished Soul- Digital work, inkjet on canvas, 12x12, 2005.
Medford artist Sandra Castillo's work focuses on the flow of life to transitional stages depicted in "Unfurnished Soul", which explores this tension and explores the ways to relieve and or eliminate the tensions existing internally within the linear and shapes. Castillo works from her home studio in Medford, she is a member of the East Boston Artists Group.
Whereas Ricardo De Lima from Brighton, MA creates bold passionate images of people and places in the urban landscape of Boston that celebrate the splendor, energy and variety of the human heritage of this city.
Boston based photographer, artist, and activist J. T. Dugan documents the world around him and captures the beauty of the alternative and the exquisite truth in the everyday. The openness and intensity manifest in these photos disclose to us raw truthful life stories.
Dorchester based photographer Jessica Douglass has been focusing on experimental photography and uses a variety of techniques such as Albumen, Ambrotype, Cyanotype, tintype and Vandyke. The simple compositions of her landscape imagery transcend an aura of serenity and calmness.
A Delaware native, Fran Osborn-Blaschke, presents three color prints in LOVE SMALL, [Woluwe#1] and [Woluwe#2], photographs of a small brook that gives its name to the surrounding area on the Eastern outskirts of Brussels, Belgium; [Tree + Wall] was taken in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The colors and figures remind us of the elements found in artwork by Joan Miró. Osborn-Blaschke currently lives in Dorchester and is working on his newest series of small photographs called "Chromologue"
Molly David from Allston, MA photographs abandoned spaces that once housed New England's mentally ill with 120 film. These buildings, all in various stages of decay have a deep sense of presence. The belongings left behind, medical equipment, patient files, cards or toys are all whispers of those who once lived there. "Through this photographic exploration I hope to evoke a sense of the past and capture what is left of the original remains." The sense of being lost and forgotten permeates David's work.
DRAWINGS
Image: Drawing by Emily Driscoll – Some things Never Change II – mixed media: pencil, gouache on paper.
A Lynn native, Emily Driscoll, shows two drawings from her "Green Pants Series". They're pencil and mixed media works that continue to use the figure as a site to explore the dynamics and perversities of the human condition and relations. They persist in creating a situation where the viewer must reckon with the drawn body as both a physical construction and a psychological invention. Emily cites her motivation for the new series as being, in part, "an ever growing interest in what the difference is between my world and theirs, as if perhaps the investigation of the intersection between fact and fiction might reveal something new about the conception of either." Emily Driscoll is a member of LynnArts, Lynn, MA, where she keeps a working studio.
Marielle Sinclair's line drawings are created with thread and hold the gesture of a pathetic, slouched figure suspended on wood or fabric which appears moist and flesh- like. Sinclair's experimental work shares a common theme with her mixed media sculpture which resembles growths and systems within the body. Sinclair has a studio at the Distillery in South Boston.
Somerville artist Mary O'Malley creates highly detailed drawings that call to mind the complex structures and rhythms in nature as well as forms in Art-Deco, Victorian and Asian decorative arts. A fascination with the abundance of nature informs the work, while holding on to an ambiguity of form that conveys a sense of mystery and wonder. "The ambiguity of these forms is important, whether or not they're in the process of becoming, of evolving and multiplying, or in the process of breaking down and decaying. I'm interested in a kind of ecstatic beauty, one that seduces but is in danger of spiraling out of control, of taking over and choking."
While not a direct observation of nature, Arlington artist Wendy Gonick's work is directly influenced by the organic forms found in the ocean, the plant kingdom and the cellular world. Her mixed media works in monoprint with drawing in pencil and color pencil included in LOVE SMALL are small surrealistic gems. Luminous colors, playful compositions and whimsical drawings combine into fantastic dreamscapes which are sure to capture the viewer's attention and imagination.
PAINTINGS
Image: Painting by Feiling Wang – Who Is Afraid of Sand & Gravel, oil on canvas, 8x10, 2005.
Artist and scientist Feiling Wang's work varies considerably in style. His recent painting 'Who Is Afraid of Sand & Gravel' depicts the processing tower of Boston Sand & Gravel Company near the newly constructed Central Artery of Boston. Engulfed by the concrete structures formed with the very materials it produced, the tower seems gaining the status of a surreal and symbolic existence. Similar metaphors often appear in his work. He lives and paints in Medford, MA.
Texan David Leonard, who was a former Jamaica Plain resident, always looks for places where the man-made environment inundates the natural for the primary subject of his paintings. With delicate brush work, he paints satellite dishes and cellular phone towers. These paintings explore the many technological advances that benefit common man today. These advances can be attributed to billions of dollars and many years of research invested in the space program. "It is not my intention to either glorify or to condemn this objective, but to invite contemplation and leave judgment up to the viewer."
The abstraction of ordinary landscapes captures the interest of Medford artist and landscape architect Timothy Barner. His subject matter feels familiar, but is not easily identifiable. It unfolds as viewers interject their own narratives. "Sea Side", a geometric composition of minimally rendered panes, is a mind's eye simplification of the boundary between earth and sea. In "Blackberry Patch", freely formed bands and swirls of paint suggest the tangle of wildly growing brambles.
From Philadelphia, Russell Brodie takes on painting as a simple thing. "It is a way for us to come to terms with our world." Brodie paints cityscapes, neighborhoods, and portraits with oil on wood panel in small format - the smallest in 1.5 inches, and to the largest in 10 inches. "Throughout art school, a "life size" painting or drawing is presumed to be the size of the actual object depicted. But the truth is, "life" can be any size." He is confronting the matter of scale in his work, and he is enduring / winning.
Somerville artist Sandra Cyr creates primarily in gouache or colored pencils, and her main subject matter is animals. She calls her style 'photorealistic folk art,' and enjoys the play between highly detailed foregrounds and very flat, often cartoon-like backgrounds in her work. 'Camels,' expresses Sandra's love of animals in its intimacy and honesty.
ENCAUSTIC MEDIUM
Image: Encaustic work by Linda Widstrand – Small Work I, encaustic and mixed media, 12 x 12, 2005.Lunenburg artist Linda Widstrand's Small Works One, Two and Three, are all encaustic paintings - glowing with inner warmth from the use of rich and luscious earth tones. Handmade paper is layered into the pigmented wax, which with Linda's absolute control of the medium, varies between sheer transparency and solid opaqueness, making the observer want to wander into the deep three dimensional world of her paintings. Through the dark doors and light windows in her work, the poetic stroll is truly enchanting!
Dorchester artist Amy Baxter MacDonald's lighthearted encaustics exhibit a refreshing approach to a medium often seen as cold and slick. "Swimming" is more about liquidity and the rhythms one sees when droplets make ripples in water. The other two pieces in the show "The Secret Piglet" depicts a cartoonish pig in a bandit's mask and cape flying over a cityscape, and "Rudy" is a portrait of the playful Jack Russell terrier the artist once had.
Cambridge based artist Veronique Latimer's encaustic work recreates family stories that are lost, exaggerated or altered in the retelling and remembering of them. The encaustic medium, with its obscured and layered images, serves as a perfect foil to capture the oftentimes blurry depths of memory, family history, fiction and speculation. Latimer lives in Cambridge and maintains a studio in South Boston.
Other artist works with encaustic media is Cambridge artist Sandra Salamony, who maintains a studio in Somerville, shows [Icon 8] and [Savannah]. These are the awesome results of her exploration in alternative photographic processes combined with encaustic painting.
MIXED MEDIA 2D WORKS
Image: Kim Beury – Vintage Birds Diptych - fabric, silkscreen, epoxy, 8½ x 6, 2004.
Kim Beury from Astoria, NY is motivated by materials and processes - Beury creates vignettes combining textiles, papers, stamps, silk-screen prints, drawings, and stitching. These milieus are often developed through perseverating travel, relationships, or any other trials and tribulations that life brings.
John Rodzvilla is a Malden-based artist who also works for a Cambridge publishing house. He is currently working on a painting series enthused by a journal of images he's collected from books, television and repair manuals that supply him with various cartoonish characters, robots, and toys. Rodzvilla says, "The work is an attempt to communicate. What they communicate changes day by day, person by person." These comic strips are indeed light heartened and comical.
Medford artist Jennifer Flores, who has a studio in Somerville, works with a mishmash assemblage of Dia de Los Muertos with a California cultural influence. The results echo that of "contemporary" folk art and have the playful effect of diaramas.
Other local artists working in mixed media include: Worcester artist Michelle Kweder's [Baby Orange] is built from a found encyclopedia of diseases. This unattractive subject has been beautified by a "wrapping" of organza ribbon, string, and acrylic medium that has transformed it into an appealing gift of sorts.
In [Wolfdog] and [Bleeding Hearts], East Boston artist Charlene Liska makes sugar-coated lozenges with a kick. The dots or pixels of the iconic central images almost withhold more information than they provide. Subjects are frozen mid-action, gazes fixed on something outside the picture. (What are they up to anyway?) Brightly colored ordinary objects with a tinge of menace. The images linger like an imperfectly remembered dream.
PRINTMAKING
Image: Work by Kevin Evans – Praetor – Photogravure, 5x7, 2004.California native Kevin Evans presents imagery that is a concoction of influences from the natural concealed world and the cavernous depths of imagination. The process is a provoking push/pull journey within medium and self, with sporadic introductions of chaos to ensure an unpredictable voyage towards the outcome. "When working, I investigate the interior terrain, favoring an existence within a silent emblematic space. I deposit symbols, characters and texture -following an intuitive voice leading to unanticipated and surprising consequences." It's an intaglio process using a photosensitive plate in place of the acids in etching called photogravure.
Elements of both American and Italian cultures appear in Rhode Island artist Serena Perrone's printmaking work entitled [mend], [improve], and [repair] that are derived from her personal experiences. She uses motifs and characters that she developed to talk about the definition of the self as found in the relationship of self and others. Perrone has researched natural history, the culture of freaks and sideshows, and history of medicine and physical abnormalities for imagery that she uses both literally and symbolically to discuss the external/physical and the internal/emotional metamorphosis that is a constant within the life of each individual.
Dotty Tribeman from Lexington, MA uses scale and the medium of Polaroid transfer to transform ordinary objects into images that are at once playful and disturbing. On close examination, one notes that the toy-like figures populating the mysterious landscapes have an air of uncertainty and darkness that is unexpected and thought-provoking.
Somerville artist Sarah B. Shallbetter, who has a studio at Mixit Print Studios, uses the art of intaglio printmaking to delicately describe the world around her. In this particular image of an isolated goose, she uses simple lines to dissect the small space into a harmonizing balance of background, foreground and subject matter. The spring green mono colored ink unifies the piece to make a delightful composition of the everyday common.
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PROFILE: Guest Juror Adria Arch is an exhibiting artist based in Arlington, MA. Her education includes Rhode Island School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University. She received her MFA in painting from Massachusetts College of Art. Arch has taught at Montserrat College of Art, Mass College of Art, and the DeCordova Museum. She is currently the Education Director at the Arlington Center for the Arts. Arch recently curated and exhibited in "Collaborations - Collaborative Artworks by New England Artists" at the Brickbottom Gallery in Somerville, MA. She is a member of the Bromfield Gallery in Boston's South End. Arch's work has been featured in "New Art, New England" at the Fitchburg Museum of Art, "Artcetera - an auction to benefit AIDS Action Committee", as well as Gallery Naga, Clark Gallery, artSPACE@16 and the Fletcher-Priest Gallery. Her work is included in many public and private collections including Fidelity Corporation, Bank of Boston, the DeCordova Museum, and the Library of Congress. Her most recent work consists of paintings and works on paper exploring pattern, color, and texture that linger on the edge of harmony and dissonance.
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