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You also encounter work by artists that you’ve never seen before, which is the case in the Juried Regional Exhibit, on view at the Library Arts Center through June 16. Here are works by 49 artists from Keene, Hancock, Newport, Unity, and Lempster, among other areas that don’t always send work up to the Lebanon/Hanover/White River Junction nexus.
Of those 49 artists, eight were given special commendation by the two jurors, Pamela R. Tarbell, owner of a Concord gallery, and Jane Oneail, executive director of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen.
The eight honored are: Carmela Azzaro, Christine R. Hawkins, Ali Keller, Susan Lawrence, Laura Morrison, Richard Stockwell, Patricia Sweet MacDonald and Tara Van Meter. Their work will be shown in the “Selections” exhibition in February, 2017.
The juried show includes straightforward landscapes, both photographic and oil, abstract works, and, oddly, only a few pieces in which humans are the primary focus, or even a part of the landscape.
Given the rich subject matter that humans afford, this is a strange omission, one that was also notable in last summer’s AVA juried exhibition, where much of the work was abstract.
What could be more fascinating than the human face or figure, and why would we want to look at art that is only landscape, or abstract, or portraits of animals? The great artists took up the challenge of showing us our humanity in all its glory and folly.
Has abstraction, then, become the default position of contemporary artists, just as landscape or history painting were favored by the academy in the 19th and 18th centuries? Has abstraction become its own cliché?
It says something about the dominance of abstraction in contemporary art that one of the works in the Newport show, a lush still-life by Susan Lawrence called Late Summer’s Bounty, done in a 19th century style, looks like a radical departure. The art world isn’t going to go back to the world of Old Master still-lives by Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin, or even the genre-reimagining works of Cézanne or the 20th century Italian painter Giorgio Morandi.
But seeing Lawrence’s painting reminded me that a genre such as the still-life is ageless, because its tightly-defined parameters often invite a deeper reworking and reevaluation than geometric shapes or abstract forms painted on canvas. You have to go farther to reinvent the still-life. Late Summer’s Bounty is not a reinvention, but it is a graceful homage to past masters, and sometimes that’s enough.
But some of the abstract paintings on view in the LAC show are elegant studies in form, including two oils-on-paper, Ambrosia and Energies, by Claremont artist Christine Hawkins.
Although the titles say otherwise, I felt as if I were looking at landscapes seen from the air — mountains, clouds, fields, roads distilled to their most basic elements. Using hues that are yellow, white, gray and navy blue, Hawkins orchestrates an assured harmony of form that feels instinctive. That may make them sound more staid than they are. I circled back to look at them more than twice because they pull the viewer in.
Carmela Azzaro, from Keene, is represented by the oil painting Sea IV, a study of waves in brilliant turquoise, white, pink and teal, seen against the horizon of a setting sun. Azzarro makes real drama out of what could have been a conventionally pretty scene. The waves pound energetically toward the viewer. The seas aren’t mountainous but they carve out whitecaps that look like an Alpine range. Azzarro also shows how effective color can be in creating emotion on canvas.
Vladimir Chertikhin, of Wilmot, N.H., submitted the only full portrait of a human that’s in the show. Titled Bladesmith, the color photograph is a study of a man in a leather apron, wearing heavy gloves, holding a red-hot blade that seems to have just emerged from a forge. There’s a direct, no-nonsense quality to both the subject and the photograph that compel your attention.
Also of note are Rear View Mirror by Susan Lawrence, a slice of a road seen in a rear-view mirror; Reflective Sea, a study of a loon in water by Unity artist Andrew Williams; Child’s Dreams, a boldly colored explosion of threads and fabric by Hanover textile artist Shari Boraz; two oil and cold wax abstract pieces, Resolution and Smoldering Fury, by Hancock, N.H., artist Lisa Marin; and Old Testament, a quilt by Anistasia Hammerlind, of Newport.
The annual Juried Regional Exhibit is on view at the Newport Library Arts Center through June 16.
Memorial Day weekend traditionally marks the re-opening of many area attractions that are closed during the winter months.
With that in mind, Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site opens this Saturday, with about a month to go before it debuts a new casting of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Standing Lincoln, the original of which is in Lincoln Park, Chicago.
The Hall Art Foundation in Reading, Vt. has been open a few weeks. It has what looks like a terrific exhibition curated by the great color photographer Joel Sternfeld (His 1987 dissection of this country’s surreal weirdness, American Prospects, is a classic), called “Landscapes After Ruskin: Redefining the Sublime,” which continues through Nov. 27. Reservations are required for tours.
ArtisTree Gallery in South Pomfret has an exhibition of work by local 5th and 6th grade students who were asked to create work that looked, at the micro and macro level, at the big cosmic questions of the universe. It opens today and continues through June 4.
Recently opened at the Great Hall in Springfield, Vt., is an exhibition of more than 100 photographs taken in the past year by area residents who have participated in the Springfield Photovoice initiative. The initiative brought together multiple generations to document their experiences of living in Springfield.
“Paths, Streams and Days of Small Things,” a show of more than 25 pastels and watercolors by Lynda Knisley, opens Saturday in the Ledyard Gallery at the Howe Library in Hanover. Knisley exhibits scenes from the abundant natural landscape in the Upper Valley. The show continues through July 27.
Arabella, Windsor. The gallery exhibits works by local artists and artisans in a variety of media including jewelry, oils, acrylics, photography, watercolors, pastels and textiles.
BigTown Gallery, Rochester, Vt. “Director’s Choice,” a show of work by Varujan Boghosian, Ira Matteson, Helen Matteson, Nicholas Santoro, Hugh Townley, John Udvardy, and Pat dipaula Klein, continues through July 9.
Cider Hill Art Gallery and Gardens, Windsor. Gary Milek exhibits egg tempera paintings in the show “Plant Forms” through June.
Converse Free Library, Lyme. The collages of Barbara Newton can be seen through June 30.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon. Watercolors by Marlene Kramer, digital art by Eric Hasse, photographs by John Rush, oil paintings by Emily Ridgway, and pastels, acrylics and oils by Gail Barton, are on view through June.
Aidron Duckworth Museum, Meriden. The paintings of Lucy Mink-Covello can be seen through June 5. “Color–A Theory in Action,” a show of works by Duckworth, runs through July 24.
Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College. The Senior Major exhibition is on view in both the Jaffe-Friede and Strauss Galleries through June 19.
Kilton Public Library, West Lebanon. An exhibition of artwork by West Lebanon students runs through Tuesday.
Library Arts Center, Newport. The Juried Regional Exhibition, a group show, runs through June 16.
Long River Galleries and Gifts, Lyme. “Paradise Found,” a show of oil paintings by South Woodstock artist Liliana Paradiso runs through June 2.
Royalton Memorial Library, South Royalton. The exhibition “Louis Sheldon Newton: Architect Extraordinaire of Vermont” is on view through June 4.
Scavenger Gallery, White River Junction. “Cataclysms,” a series of pastels of cyclones by Randolph artist Laurie Sverdlove, are on view through June 28.
Two Rivers Printmaking Studio, White River Junction. Lynn Newcomb exhibits her prints through Tuesday.
White River Gallery at BALE, South Royalton. The oil paintings of Charlotte, Vt. artist James Vogler are on view through June.
Nicola Smith can be reached at nsmith@vnews.com.