Contributed by Mark Wethli / “Edgy” is a word we commonly use to describe daring or provocative art. If anything has been a measure of artistic success in the modern era, it’s been the degree to which new art pushes the boundaries of the work that came before. The term is usually rooted in the theoretical and formal aspects of art making, but the paintings of Nora Sturges – now on view at Sarah Bouchard Gallery in Woolwich, Maine – transport us to edges of another kind…
Tag: Sarah Bouchard Gallery
You Don’t Know Me: Trompe L’Oeil and artistic illusion
Contributed by Mark Wethli / On a small shelf in a quiet corner of Sarah Bouchard Gallery in Woolwich, Maine, sits a dog-eared paperback copy of Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art. With a growing sense of delight, we soon realize that the book is itself a trick, a trompe l’oeil sculpture by Justin Richel, convincing in every detail from its vintage 1990s graphics to its well-worn cover….It is a fitting overture to “You Don’t Know Me,” the four-person show currently on view. The artists – Carly Glovinski, Rachel Grobstein, Duncan Hewitt, and Richel – present kindred explorations of parallel realities, producing conundrums and contradictions that give rise to visual enchantment and philosophical contemplation.
Andrea Sulzer and the art of intuition
Contributed by Mark Wethli / In an artist’s statement about her works on paper, Andrea Sulzer once wrote: “Instead of helping you find your way, these pages will help you get lost.” This notion not only sets aside a common assumption about what some viewers look for in a work of art, but also, in her choice of the word “pages,” connotes a different kind of art object altogether — something we’re meant to decipher, like a book or an atlas. She invites the viewer into a contemplative experience, grounded in uncertainty, that doesn’t purport to have the last word but presents a labyrinth of potential meanings that the artist welcomes us to explore. Like our first inkling of inspiration–what Emerson called our “gleams of light”–Sulzer’s art presents us with visual puzzles that resist logical interpretation but reward us instead with a quickening sense of our own creative intuition. Sulzer’s latest exhibition, “see through simple,” now on view at Sarah Bouchard Gallery in Woolwich, Maine, is a welcome opportunity to explore the work of this important mid-career artist.
Tom Butler’s cabinet of wonders
Contributed by Mark Wethli / Years ago I was fascinated to read about a theory that the grooves on ancient clay pots, like the grooves on a vintage music cylinder, might be playable. Given the right audio equipment, we might be able to hear the voices and sounds of the potter’s studio the moment the pot was being made. This beguiling notion came to mind while I was looking at the most recent work of Tom Butler at the Sarah Bouchard Gallery in Woolwich, Maine.