Upcoming
Exhibitions

JANUARY
Jan 3 - 28, 2017

Opening Reception
Friday,January 5
6-8:30 pm

SOLO 2018
Annual Juried Competition for New England Artists
Making Their Debut Solo Exhibition

2018 Competition juried by Emily Zilber, curator, MFA.

Sharon Lacey: “Lurking in Fleshy Coverings,” paintings with ink and watercolor on calfskin vellum, inspired by medieval manuscript illuminations of “soul battles.”

Avery Lucas: “Body of Work,” sculptures using materials including copper, sterling silver and stainless steel, which mimic skin and body as a way to trigger empathy.

Sharon Lacey: “Lurking in Fleshy Coverings”

My paintings are image-driven. My interests include the human figure, the painting process, and artistic precedent. I use oil paint and other traditional materials and techniques to express ideas about cultural continuity and shared human experiences throughout history—mostly the grim and embarrassing reality of embodied existence—as well as solidarity with past artists.

For a series of works on calfskin vellum, I drew inspiration from the Psychomachia (Soul Battles), a late 4th-century text by Prudentius, in which the Virtues and Vices battle for one’s soul. Medieval copies of the Psychomachia were often illustrated with 'tinted drawings,' a specific form of manuscript illumination characterized by an inner luminosity, due to the translucency of the calfskin vellum surface and the spare handling of paint. My versions of these “soul combats” are rendered in ink and watercolor, and like much of my other work, depict human beings engaged in everyday struggles and torments.

My imagery is invented, yet informed by art historical works. Rather than work from external sources—such as preliminary sketches—I allow the mental and physical process of painting to drive the work. My recent works depict dense figure groups in familiar yet ambiguous situations. This use of multi-figured compositions developed from my study of manuscript paintings and relationships between text and image in medieval books.

Avery Lucas: “Body of Work”

My studio practice is a push and pull of tool marks against copper as I cultivate my relationship between material and my own hands. I use the iconography of the body as rendered through drawing, forming, repousse, and chasing.

The very act of mark making creates an opposing duality between the hard metal and the emotion captured by the gesture. The work is often, but not always, a study in self portrait. These sculptures mimic skin and body as a way to identify and trigger empathy.

The work is a catalog of my own kinesthetic understanding and analysis of human emotion. As a maker, I rely on my own two hands to define and articulate a space within which to define my own capacity for feeling and understanding.

 

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