"Collage" show at the Sharon Arts Center

The Sharon Arts Center will collaborate with McGowan Fine Art in Concord to present “Collage,” an exhibition featuring the work of Ted Arnold, Catherine Bartlett-Hirani, Avy Claire, John LaPrade, Thomas Meyers, James Palmigiano, Lauren Pollaro, Paul Pollaro, and Jessie Pollock.

Sponsored by People's United Bank, "Collage" will be on display at the Sharon Arts Exhibition Gallery, 30 Grove Street, from November 4 through January 7, 2012. An opening reception will be held November 4 from 5 to 7 pm.

The exhibition is the first sponsored by Sharon Arts Center that focuses entirely on collage--works of art made from the assemblage of various materials. The technique has been employed by artists for hundreds of years, especially in the application of cut or torn papers and gold leaf to enhance a painted surface, but the term collage--from the French “coller,” to glue--first came into common use with the work of Picasso and Braque in the early 20th century.

Collage has evolved with contemporary artists as a way of bringing together disparate materials to create a wholly new object or image. The collaging or layering of elements can make use of the external meaning suggested by the components, including newspaper or magazine clippings, stamps, labels, or sheet music; or by allusion to the previous life of materials such as scraps of fabric, pieces of wood, leaves and other natural objects, or industrial remnants. Collaged works can vary from flat assemblies of colored or textured papers to works using three-dimensional materials that approach sculpture.

Each of the artists included in the Sharon Arts Center exhibition brings an individual vision and interpretation to this style of picture making. In the work of Paul Pollaro and Ted Arnold, color is the primary focus. Bright reds and vivid oranges bind the pieces together, but Pollaro’s focus is on abstract landscape-like forms while Arnold depicts people, wedding parties and tea cups. Thomas Meyers and Avy Claire have a more ethereal approach. Meyers’ delicate ink and casein washes lend subtle touches of color and line to his torn paper collages. Claire prints images onto mylar, which is sewn down and layered with excerpts from her personal journals.

Collage allows artists to explore qualities of depth and texture, as well as the layering of meaning through the cultural references inherent in some of the recognizable elements. The Sharon Arts Center and McGowan Fine Arts expect this exhibition to provide an in-depth look at the diversity possible in this exciting art form.

In conjunction with this exhibit there will be several events held in the Gallery:

Saturday, Nov. 12 and 16 from 10 am to noon: Kids Collage Mini-Workshop for ages 5+. Preregistration required. Call (603) 924-2787.

Saturday, Nov. 19 from 4-6 pm: Panel Discussion with Sarah Chaffee of McGowan Fine Art, Ted Arnold, and others.

Hours at the Gallery are Monday through Saturday 10 am to 6 pm and Sunday 11 am to 5 pm. For more information, call (603) 924-7676 and see http://www.sharonarts.org/.

The mission of Sharon Arts Center, a non-profit organization, is to engage the community in the artistic process, to support and serve artists and craftspeople, and to foster the relationship between artists and the community through education, exhibitions, and the promotion and sale of arts and crafts as well as through special programs and events.

Sharon Arts center offers a wide variety of art classes and programs in the school facility in Sharon, NH--a Fine Craft Gallery, a Juried Artist Member Gallery, and an Exhibition Gallery at Depot Square.

The Sharon Arts Fine Crafts Exhibition Gallery is accessed through Depot Square and 30 Grove St. in downtown Peterborough. The Craft Gallery is located in Depot Square in Downtown Peterborough. Store and Exhibition Gallery hours are: Monday - Saturday 10 am to 6 pm, Sunday 11 - 5 pm.

Sharon Arts is sponsored in part by: The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts through the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act, The Susan A. & Donald P. Babson Charitable Foundation, The Bean Foundation, The Max & Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, The Grimshaw-Gudewicz Charitable Foundation, The Putnam Foundation, The Kingsbury Foundation, and art lovers like you!

About Face: New Paintings by Kendra O'Donnell

The Robert M. Larsen Gallery

at Sulloway & Hollis, P.L.L.C.

29 School Street – Concord, NH 03301

http://www.sulloway.com/

October 27, 2011 – April 27, 2012

Opening reception, Thursday, October 27, 2011 – 5-7 PM

The Robert M. Larsen Gallery at Sulloway & Hollis, P.L.L.C. presents “About Face” – a show of paintings by New Hampshire artist Kendra O’Donnell.

O’Donnell’s new work consists of meticulous paintings rendered with glazes and transparent oil paint colors applied to a prepared surface such as wood or paper. The glaze is difficult to maneuver and O’Donnell must frequently rub away the paint and reapply it to achieve ghosted images which evoke mystery and memory. The result is an atmospheric body of work which transcends time or historical genre.

This show primarily focuses on O’Donnell’s love of portraiture—and in particular—faces. O’Donnell in fact taught herself how to paint by studying and reinventing faces from art history, photographs, and other sources. A few earlier works in the show consist of grids of faces – Milton Avery, Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Rembrandt, and Lucien Freud, among others, are rendered with startling freshness and immediacy on wood panels which may be mixed and matched on the wall by way of Velcro pads affixed to the backs of the works.

Some of the new pieces such as Blue Boy harken to 18th and early 19th century American and English portraiture. Blue Boy at once evokes Thomas Sully’s Boy with a Torn Hat while also calling up something modern and brash—something a little edgy in the boy’s mouth—as if this is a reluctant lead in a junior high school play who is none-to-happy about the droopy hat he must wear. Similarly powerful, Woman with a Garland’s piercing blue eyes and eternal gaze cuts to the quick of capturing the human spirit.

Others pieces have deeply-textured surfaces which mimic renaissance painting or even Roman wall paintings discovered at Pompeii, as in the case of The Bridesmaid.

O’Donnell, the only woman ever to lead Phillips Exeter Academy, has been painting full time since her retirement from Exeter in 1997. She first became known for her paintings based upon old photographs. While her prior work was evocative, the thickness of the oil paint was sometimes a challenge to achieving clarity. The new works strip away the excess—quite literally O’Donnell wipes layers of oil paint away to achieve these almost translucent works, which are freer and more emotionally penetrating. In an odd way, it is these paintings, a decade or so after the first pieces based on photographs that somehow evoke the quick spark of life captured in a snapshot – the image created by the thinnest layer of human materials and the play of light and shadow on negative which renders the silent image. The departure from thick impasto to the almost spiritual use of thin washes of paint represents an “about face” in the artist’s work, one that the Larsen Gallery is pleased to showcase in a detailed and focused manner for the first time.

Together Again

McGowan Fine Art announces the opening of “Together Again”, a group show featuring the work of Sally Ladd Cole, Ellen Davis, Kate Miller, Catherine Tuttle, and Clifford Smith. The show will run November 15 – December 16, with a reception taking place November 18, 5 to 7 PM. An artist's talk with Clifford Smith with take place December 8 at 5:30 PM. The reception and artist talk are both free and open to the public.

In 2000, renowned NH painter, Clifford Smith, began a weekly studio class for several women trying to reenter the world of painting, or to take their painting to a new level. The participants were Sally Ladd Cole, Ellen Davis, Kate Miller and Catherine Tuttle. The class focused on “translating living, organic forms onto a two dimensional surface,” says Smith. “They developed a better understanding of how to look at the natural world.”

The show highlights New England’s landscape and its people. From everyday occurrences, such as a morning commute on Route 93, or a disgruntled Red Sox fan, to more intimate scenes such as a hidden pond in Sanborn, NH, or a quiet marsh in Kennebunkport, ME, the distinctive characteristics of each subject is captured. Catherine Tuttle describes painting the region’s diverse landscape. “I find oil painting intriguing for the rich range of colors, values, and depth of field it can present. I find I can more fully describe the qualities of deep space, atmosphere, and the solidness of earth with oil paint.”

“Together Again” invites us to see how these different NH painters perceive the region’s unique imagery. “I really enjoyed the teaching, watching their growth and helping them to find their own voice,” says Smith. “He really is the first teacher to give me a kick in the pants and be serious about this,” says Ellen Davis. “He pushed me and gave me the confidence to put my work out there as a painter,” says Sally Ladd Cole.

A portion of all sales will be donated to the New Hampshire Food Bank.