OVERLAP

OVERLAP

Jen Simms & Sandy Litchfield

Sept. 3 - Oct. 3, 2013

Gallery talk/reception - Wed. Sept. 18, 

Noon - 2pm, artist’s talk begins at 12:30

image: detail Playground #2, 22x30” mixed media collage, digital print on paper, 2013

Since they first met in graduate school over ten years ago, artists Sandy Litchfield and Jen Simms have been in conversation about their artistic visions, processes and goals. Throughout the years, there has been significant overlap in their work, which includes similar media, forms and ideas. Both artists are interested in the tension and/or balance between the abstract and the representational, both trust the caprice in their search for new forms, and both take inspiration from the intersection of the domestic and the wild.

In 2012, the two artists began a visual dialogue through the mail. This interchange of ideas concluded with a series of artist books meant to explore an alternative to written language. Like a verbal conversation, each piece began with a proposition; there was a point and then a counter-point with moments of revelation as well as moments of clarification and repair. This became a negotiation between two visions and what the artists refer to as ‘collaborative play’.  

This year, the artists engaged in a week-long retreat in the Adirondack National Forest where they began a series of collages on paper. When they returned to their studios, they continued to revise and reinterpret this work.  In addition, both artists began using more sculptural materials. Their vocabulary evolved to included forms that reference not only the home and wilderness but also the playground as an intermediate space for shared expression- a place that is both fun and sometimes rough, but almost always imaginative and reciprocal.

 ROBERT MARKEY

SAFE?

July 1 - Aug 1, 2013

Closing Reception

Thursday Aug. 1st,  5:30-7:30

an informal artist talk will be given at 6pm

Artist's Statement

   SAFE? was inspired by doing mosaic murals with disadvantaged kids in Brazil and Cambodia. While doing this work I became aware of the magnitude of human trafficking - both sex trafficking and slave labor trafficking - and the brutality which is part of it. I also became aware of the huge increase in trafficking in the U.S. in recent years.  The visual presentation in SAFE? is just paintings of kids, some laughing, some serious, but all beautiful. It is the conceptual basis of the work that is so brutal.  It is always my hope that the beauty of the artwork will open a person’s heart to be able to let in the underlying issues.  The paintings are also my way of honoring these kids, who have had and will continue to have difficult lives.

2013 HCC Student Art Exhibition

BRUCE FOWLER

DADDY’S APPURTENANCES

Feb. 27 - March 28, 2013

Gallery talk/reception - Wed. March 6th, 

11am - 1pm, artist’s talk begins at noon

Hours: Mon - Thurs.10:00am - 6pm,  during regular school sessions.  

Bruce Fowler is a sculptor, teacher, curator, co-founder and arts director of Paper City Studios/PCS80, in downtown Holyoke.  PCS80 is a multi use arts building in a former historic warehouse, located along the 2^nd canal.  As arts director, he has been curating art exhibitions in two storefront galleries, and alternate spaces.  Presenting work of numerous local and regional artists.  In addition, he has been actively involved in the Holyoke arts community, as a founding member of The Friends of the Canalwalk and a member of the Holyoke Redevelopment Authorities CPC (citizen’s participation committee).  He is also the co/creator of The Great Holyoke Brick Race.  Now in its 3^rd year – racing brickracers each year on Race Street.  

His current work is a series of sculptures called Daddy’s Accessories.  Each work contains an element from childhood such as a tricycle or ride-on plastic toy.  The object is then fitted with a long steel bar with a trailer hitch at one end. The object is painted pure white giving it an innocence and yet the object itself is dangerous to use. The objects when completed become surrealistic. In each finished piece there is a small amount of red white and blue to give it an Americana ID. 

Daddy’s Accessory #6, Steel, plastic, rubber, epoxy paint, 33” x 49” x 84”, 2012

 VITAL TRANSFORMATIONS

Traditional and digital collage by

Lillianna Pereira and Wendy Seller

 Wendy Seller, Fragile Ego

digital collage, 20" x 18",  2012

Lillianna Pereira, Who can bear the thoughts in my head?

collage, 5" x 5.5",  2011

Jan. 28th through Feb. 21st 2013
Hours for this exhibition: Mon - Thurs 10am - 6pm

Reception and Gallery Talk: Wed. Feb. 6th, 11am - 1pm 

Artist's talk begins at noon

Also on 2/6/12 - an evening reception from 5:30 to 7:30pm 

Phil Lawrence

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Nov. 6 - Dec. 13, 2012

Gallery talk/reception - Wed. Nov. 14

11am - 1 pm, artist’s talk begins at noon

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

There is chaos under heaven – the situation is excellent.

Mao Zedong

The pieces in this show were constructed utilizing discarded and worn out objects often found in the construction trade and other related industries. Pieces are configured and re-configured from silkscreen frames, air hose, fire hose, garden hose, plywood, rope, plastic pipe and tubing and various plumbing and electrical parts. Most of the pieces are coated in many layers of house paint, glue and other industrial coatings.

I have spent most of my working life as a carpenter and a builder. From 1978 to 1986 I worked in theater; set building, acting and production. These two areas, construction and theater, have significantly influenced my development as a visual artist. My work has become more “sculptural” over the past couple years, which seems to coincide with my teaching sculpture here at HCC.

I tend not to ascribe any overt meaning to my work. Generally speaking my thinking is more sociological and political than artistic. My training and education is in educational philosophy and anthropology as much as it is in studio art. 

JORGE COSTA

SCATTERED

Sept. 24 - Oct. 25, 2012

Gallery talk/reception - Thurs. Oct. 4

4pm - 7pm, artist’s talk begins at 4:30

Artist Statement

The imagery in this body of work produces a diverse number of associations and/or relations between the various icon images offered by western culture and the political sites that these images re-present/symbolize.  As a result, these images/ideas become free signs for numerous relationships engendered by the viewer- potential deposits of personal meaning.  These open-ended links allow the viewer to "recognize" the sign without attaching it to anything in particular; since the works themselves are not directed towards something specific in our culture(s).  The distorted reality of each piece carries formal/stylized elements and cloaked iconography that interplay with visual frequencies and concealed spoofs.  

Often my work attempts to connect the psychosis of "production", "commodity", and "waste" with the fragility of our existence in an environment that is collapsing in slow motion.