“Can you surry, can you picnic? Surry down to the stoned soul picnic. There’ll be lots of time and wine, red yellow honey, sassafras and moonshine.”
— Laura Nyro
How much is the “Art of Summer” exhibition at the Judith Klein Art Gallery NOT a show of summer-themed art?
For starters, painter Milton Brightman displays an impressionist-influenced impasto featuring man and dog at the water’s edge as a determined flock of seagulls fly over whitecaps. Great fiery rays puncture blue-black clouds. And it’s called “Clark’s Cove, Winter.”
Over the years, Klein’s group shows, usually featuring a stalwart stable of regularly exhibiting artists and some who have never previously exhibited in her gallery, have never really been about a particular central subject.
The shows over the years at the Klein — exhibitions named after the seasons, or annual anniversary shows, or with broad swath titles like “Friendship” or “Love” are just vague enough as to eschew “theme” entirely. And that allows her invited artists to bring whatever they like and want to share.
It’s a potluck picnic.
“Art of Summer 2019” is no exception. And like a potluck picnic, there’s a little bit of something for everyone.
Anthony Miraglia’s “Muro Roma” (Rome wall) continues his long and serious fascination with physical urban decay, peeling paint and surfaces long bleached by the sun and hammered by nature and time. In his multimedia work, layers of torn and faded posters are a fading history, a story disappearing.
Partially framed in rusting iron and embracing the debris of the city, including what appears to be a discarded Band-Aid, Miraglia finds beauty in the rot.
Susanne Carey’s “I Am Oil” (an oil painting, natch) is a soft-edged self-portrait without “self.” Instead, the surface is strewn with imagery that is significant to her, including a bumblebee, a flying saucer, whales, and the bicycle she used to ride to her New Bedford studio. A valentine heart, a bullseye-like spiral and a stylized 5 may respectively refer to the artists Jim Dine, Jasper Johns and Charles Demuth.
“Who Needs Prince Charming?,’’ a glazed stoneware figure by Valorie Sheehan features a fairy tale princess in a purple laced bodice and a golden tiara. She is about to declare her womanly independence by tossing a frog far from her. No magic kiss will be forthcoming, no curse will be lifted.
Artist Carl Lopes displays several very pop works made with acrylic paint and holographic papers applied to shaped wooden panels. One of them is a shark and it has a distinctly commercial feel to it. That is not meant in a pejorative sense. It is a clever reconsideration of old signage and in a different era, it would have been made out of neon.
His “Generations” time twists things a bit, too. The holographic material is boldly and happily jolting, with shimmers of bright pink, magenta, turquoise and gold, as he draws inspiration from tribal masks.
The show also features several landscape paintings done in Haskell Gardens by Lori Bradley, a few large-scale, non-objective paintings by Henry McMahon, including his quiet yet enthralling “Still Silent,” Klein’s own “Red Dress,” with its doe-eyed woman and echoes of Matisse, and works by four others in a variety of media, exploring a number of themes.
As it turns out, a potluck picnic turned out to be a perfect summer theme.
“Art of Summer 2019” is on display at the Judith Klein Art Gallery, 127 West Rodney French Blvd, Door #31, New Bedford until July 31.
Don Wilkinson is a painter and art critic who lives in New Bedford. Contact him at Don.Wilkinson@gmail.com. His reviews run each week in Coastin’.