Montserrat Gallery Take 20 Talks This Fall

October 4, 2013

Andrea Sherrill Evans: In the Clearing
On View: Sept. 11 – Oct. 12
Carol Schlosberg Alumni Gallery

Take 20 talk: Tue., Oct. 8, 12 – 12:20 pm with Pamela Campanaro

Andrea Sherrill Evans, Firewood #3, 2013

Through drawing, painting, performance and sculpture Evans’ work explores encounters: those we have with our bodies, both intimate and relational, to those with the natural landscape. In the Clearing focuses on the will to connect and understand the natural world through intervention.

The Marker series challenges the concept of the landmark, or sign with representations of trees interrupted by a singular color drip. Each drawing is without a setting or sense of place and while narrative is unknown, the tangle of between opposing forces is legible. “The symbolism of a paint mark on a tree in the forest, paired with the powerful gesture of a deliberate paint stain on an otherwise pristine drawing bring us back to our place in the wider world, as well as, the surface of the paper,” notes Director/Curator Leonie Bradbury. Evans’ silverpoint drawings in theMarker and Firewood series depicts the delicate balance of the natural world and the human. The resulting blend reexamines our points of contact and departure on the surface of the paper.

Firewood (#1-5) presents a tension between the natural world and human activity as Evans depicts different pieces of fragmented wood pieced back together, or so attempted. It is an exercise doomed from the start, like assembling puzzle pieces from different boxes. The edges will never align and the gaps are proof that these components were never meant to fit as a whole. While the human tendency is to rebuild, as Evans does by re-piecing these parts on paper, nature is less forgiving. It exposes each separation showing a new portrayal of the natural.

Evans received her BFA in painting from Arizona State University (2004), and MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Tufts University (2009). She is a recipient of the 2012 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship in Drawing, 2012 St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award, and 2010 Blanche E. Colman Award.

 

Kara Walker: Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)
On View: Sept. 26 – Oct. 28
301 Cabot Street Gallery
Visiting Lecturer: Nancy Wellington Bookhart Oct. 9, 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

Take 20 talk: TBD

Kara Walker, Exodus from Confederates from Atlanta , 2005

 This exhibition presents the complete series of Kara Walker’s large-scale prints: Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated), 2007. In these works Walker brings together two distinct pictorial types: scenes from the 19th-century history book mentioned in the title and her own silhouettes. She also uses two distinct printmaking techniques to emphasize the difference between the images. Together these picture-making strategies highlight the central theme of the work: even as “official” narratives of the Civil War fade into the haze of history, the racial and gender tensions inherent in the War itself persist in contemporary experience.

Walker uses lithography for the Harper’s images in the background, enabling her to faithfully reproduce the lines of the original woodblock prints. This process also produces a slightly soft ink quality. The visual characteristics of lithography provide a stark contrast with the rich silk-screening technique she uses for her silhouettes, which offers a much bolder, densely black image.

The prominence of the silhouettes (both the scale and the dense inking) reinforces the sense of irony Walker introduces in the title for her project. Typically, an annotation is a brief comment about a text, often appearing in the margins. In Walker’s hands, the annotations have taken over, unwilling to be marginalized. The characters she adds to the scenes are specters, black ghosts lingering over, and in some cases obscuring, every landscape. They are present and affective but do not participate. They echo the Civil War itself—a war that continues to haunt contemporary life in the United States as a palpable but largely invisible presence.

 

Bevan De Wet
On View: Oct. 16 – Nov. 16
Carol Schlosberg Alumni Gallery
Take 20 Talk: Tue., Nov. 12, 2013 12 – 12:20 pm 

Bevan De Wet, Homo Oscillum Cutaneous, 2012, linocut

Bevin states,” My work is concerned with fragments. In working with fractured and disembodied parts, pieces can potentially form components of a larger whole. I often work with the human body as a site for contesting history and identity, and by exploring its various symbolic and cultural meanings I am creating my own personal mythology. In combining both human and animal characteristics, I negotiate the dichotomy between the civilized self and the instinctive, untamed self.”

He has exhibited his work at various galleries and exhibitions throughout South Africa and some work also internationally. Bevan is currently working as a printmaker, print technician, collaborator and fine art facilitator/educator at Artist Proof Studios in Newtown, Johannesburg.