Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Corporate Project - The Stabile Companies


McGowan Fine Art completed an installation of artwork and artifacts for The Stabile Companies, located at 20 Cotton Road, Nashua. Stabile Construction Services provides commercial/industrial construction, landscaping, renovation/remodeling and fit-up, and custom home building services to organizations and individuals throughout New England.

Amanda McGowan Lacasse, Corporate Art Consultant with McGowan Fine Art, assisted The Stabile Companies in their recent office move by arranging and installing existing pieces.  Lacasse re-hung artwork, memorabilia, and artifacts – most notably, a collection of antique wooden tools. The project was completed in April 2012.

McGowan Fine Art has over 30 years of corporate consulting experience, and has worked with corporations and businesses of all sizes throughout New England. Corporate art selections have ranged from original art and commissions to high quality reproductions and historic photographs.

Please contact Amanda for more information: amanda@mcgowanfineart.com.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Corporate Project - Atkinson Resort & Country Club

McGowan Fine Art of Concord, NH completed an installation of artwork for the Atkinson Resort & Country Club, located at 85 Country Club Drive, Atkinson, NH.


The project, completed in March 2012, was coordinated and installed by Amanda McGowan Lacasse - Corporate Art Consultant with McGowan Fine Art. The Atkinson Country Club suffered a fire on New Year’s Day that damaged three upstairs guestrooms, Merrill’s Tavern, and part of the Stagecoach Grille. Lacasse re-hung existing artwork in restored areas, and selected new art for one of the hotel’s guestrooms. She installed a selection of colorful images to enhance the renovated space.

McGowan Fine Art has over 30 years of corporate consulting experience, and has worked with corporations and businesses of all sizes throughout New England. Corporate art selections have ranged from original art and commissions to high quality reproductions and historic photographs.
Please contact Amanda Lacasse for more information: amanda@mcgowanfineart.com.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Trio: John Bonner, Ken Greenleaf, Lucy Mink


McGowan Fine Art announces the opening of “Trio”, a group show featuring the work of John Bonner, Ken Greenleaf, and Lucy Mink. This show brings together three artists who paint in a similar color palette, but apply the paint in different ways. The show will run May 1 – June 1, with a reception taking place May 4, 5 to 7 PM. The reception is free and open to the public.

Originally from Colchester, Essex in England, John Bonner depicts local New England scenes, primarily coastal landscapes -- from his present hometown of Marblehead, Massachusetts, to the historic seaport of Portsmouth, NH. He includes glimpses of the sea in his paintings, even if only hinted. Bonner chooses to depict less familiar views – the back of old farm buildings, with weathered clapboards and dilapidated window panes, an unassuming side street, or a rooftop view. He has the ability to capture beauty in these humble subjects, lending significance to the ordinary. Bonner begins his process by working from photographs he takes himself on location, thinly applying glazes and painting with broad strokes, with a raking light and crisp, contrasting shadows. As he approaches completion, he brings the canvas to the original locale, and completes the painting on site. This process allows Bonner to get details, like the meticulously painted clapboards and rich colors of his painting, “Farm Buildings”, just right.

John Bonner has exhibited throughout New England. One of his paintings was recently selected for display in Monserrat Embassy as part of the Art in Embassies Program, Washington, DC.

Shapes fascinate Maine artist Ken Greenleaf. Previously working in larger scale for public works, Greenleaf has created smaller pieces for this show as part of his “Gauge Series”, to encourage more personal interaction. “These small colored pieces exist to be looked at individually by one person at a time. Each is a private event”, says Greenleaf. His geometric shapes are elegant in their simplicity. Twisting and turning, they defy expectations of how seemingly flat objects relate on a two dimensional surface. The shapes have movement, playfully interacting with one another like a tangram puzzle. “They are visual thoughts of masses and planes in space, cut loose from the weight of materials, allowed to click and spin and resolve, or not, into a temporary tableau of color”.

Ken Greenleaf has exhibited throughout the U.S., and is included in numerous private and public collections such as the Portland Museum of Art and the Farnsworth Museum in Maine, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana, and the Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Unlike Ken Greenleaf’s hard, defined edges, Lucy Mink’s work is raw, with ambiguous shapes and patterns. Her process involves layering paint, adding, deleting, scratching, and sometimes sanding the surface – editing until she is comfortable with the final product. Mink’s imagery stems back to sketches in her high school notebook – curvy lines, geometric patterns, and bulbous forms. Her titles, such as “Sometimes I Feel Uncomfortable and Prefer to be Alone and Look Good” or “I Hope I Always Recognize My Brother When He's an Adult” is a reflection of internal experiences and situations. She says, “My paintings are a visual diary of my life. I can look at a painting, and know what was going on in my life at that time. The titles give me words to go with the diary. It’s like a little bit of poetry I get to do”.

Lucy Mink recently moved from Syracuse, NY to NH. She has exhibited throughout New York and New England, and recently received the Pollock-KrasnerFoundation Artist grant.






Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Sarah's Pick

Shandra McLane
Black and Orange Vessel


I am sometimes a bit predictable in my tastes. I am drawn to anything with the slightest touch of orange or red. I prefer simpler, pared-down structure in a painting to a more complex surface. And I am definitely not drawn to anything too shiny. So I surprised myself when I signed on a glass artist.

Shandra McLane painstakingly creates these vessels by piecing cut glass together like a puzzle to create the design. The distinct interior and exterior designs are fused together as a single pane of glass. The whole pane is then placed atop a hollow form in a kiln for about 30 hours and allowed to slump into a bowl form. The corners are then cut off to complete the bowl and sandblasted to give the surface a matte finish.

These vessels have either an opaque or translucent quality. I love the way lights comes through the translucent vessels to give a hint of the pattern on the other side. It is also one of the special qualities of glass that light heightens the colors. But I am choosing to concentrate on one of Shandra’s opaque vessels.

The bold, black interior of Black and Orange Vessel serves as a foil for the concentric orange and blue stripes of the exterior. Because of the construction of these forms the outer layers and the edges closest to the lip must stretch more which in turn causes the glass to thin out and become more translucent. The gradation of the stripes of periwinkle to the transparent lunettes toward the outer edge with peek-a-boo stripes from the interior gives me great pleasure. The form itself is also graceful- rounded with a slightly fuller lip. I have enjoyed tipping these vessels this way and that on their small bases affording different proportions of interior to exterior design. I am especially fond of this vessel combined with Lucy Mink’s “That Sinking Feeling Is Not So Bad.” Come in to experience it yourself!


-Sarah Chaffee