Work With Me: Marlon Forrester, Sarah Smith, Kevin Townsend

Receptions/Artist Talks
Kevin Townsend: July, 13, 5–7pm
Sarah Smith: July 15, 5–7pm
Marlon Forrester: July 18, 5–7pm

Gallery Hours
M–TH 9am–5pm
F, 9am–1pm

Montserrat College of Art is pleased to announce “Work With Me” an interactive drawing project featuring three New England artists each invited to create a site-specific work that provokes collaboration echoing a call and response. In music, a “call and response” is a succession of two distinct phrases usually played by different musicians, where the second phrase is heard as a direct commentary on or response to the first. The art works on view are ongoing, in process. Visitors are invited to respond to the artists’ mark making either within the piece itself (Forrester) or on the wall adjacent to the artist’s drawings (Smith and Townsend).

Marlon Forrester’s “Center Court: Exploring Sacred Geometry Through Line” is a conceptual artwork that “plays” off of the geometry found on a basketball court. Forrester begins the drawing by creating  initial paths and lines to assign boundaries or “rules” to the wall using tape, vinyl, and markers. Visitors of the gallery are then invited to use the same materials to contribute their own lines in response to the initial paths created by Forrester. Collectively, the marks “work together” to explore ideas around space, place, ritual, competition, winning, and losing in hopes of re-imaging how we interact with one another through play.

Sarah Smith was inspired by prolific artists and friends that said they had to draw every day, prompting her to draw more. “One Drawing a Day” is a multi-year drawing project that has evolved into daily source of encouragement and incentive to, “keep going” she says. On view in the gallery, arranged in a grid-like composition like that of an Instagram or Tumblr feed, is a selection of 337 drawings from “One Drawing a Day.” The installation of the work references the artist’s daily updates on her social media page, where she posts daily additions on: olfactorypress.tumblr.com. Her drawings deliver a dark sense of humor and are stylistically diverse. Visitors are invited to take a piece of paper and/or bring in their own of a similar size and contribute their daily drawings to the wall adjacent to the wall featuring Smith’s drawings.


Kevin Townsend is obsessed with time both in its accumulation within us, and the way ways in which the tidal gravity of a given moment can, “warp the experience of its passage.” Through his performative drawings he explores time, space, and duration. In graphite, Townsend will draw overnight across a twenty-six foot wall in the gallery. After twelve hours, the gallery will re-open the following morning at 8:30am, allowing viewers to see his final marks against the wall. Students are invited to then draw, also in graphite, along an adjacent wall of the gallery in response to Townsend’s marks. Collectively, both walls will contain temporal drawings that offer an experiential connection between both parties’ recorded actions.
BIOGRAPHIES

Marlon Forrester was born in Guyana, South America. He is an artist and educator currently based in Boston, MA. Forrester received a BA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (SMFA) in 2008 and a MFA from Yale School of Art in 2010. He is currently a resident artist at African-American Masters Artist Residency Program (AAMARP), adjunct to the Department of African-American Studies in association with Northeastern University, and teaches art in Boston Public Schools (BPS). Additionally, he is an adjunct professor at School of The Museum of Fine Arts Boston. In 2016, he will teach drawing and watercolor at SMFA.

Sarah Smith produces books, comics and broadsides in the realm of nonsense and absurdity. Her work is often letterpress printed, involving drawings, relief printed imagery, collage and very occasionally screenprint and offset printing. She is currently the Program Manager of the Book Arts Workshop at Dartmouth College, in Hanover NH. Smith received her MFA in Book Arts/Printmaking at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Since 1995, she has been teaching letterpress printing, bookbinding, printmaking, and graphic design. She taught at Maryland Institute College of Art, Massachusetts College of Art, Endicott College, Simmons College and most recently at Montserrat College of Art, where she helped create a letterpress printing studio and BFA concentration in Book Arts.

Kevin Townsend in an internationally recognized, Boston-based, interdisciplinary artist/educator. He is a professor at both Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt) and School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA). Kevin’s time-based work centers around mark-making, obsession and our experience of ‘being in time’. His current work brings together elements of drawing, installation and performance where the resulting work is public, durational, and temporary. He most recently completed a twelve hour durational work in New York City on 18th & 8th Street.

Montserrat College of Art’s public programs are free of charge and open to the public. For more information contact Pamela Campanaro.