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How does an art exhibition come into being?
The answers are myriad.
On the South Coast, as elsewhere, cultural institutions that mount periodic art exhibitions and events may schedule shows with world-class artists or complex group shows, often with plenty of metaphorical moving parts many months, even years in advance.
The collective professionalism of certain key curators in the regional art scene — Suzanne de Vegh (New Bedford Art Museum), Lindsay Mis (DATMA), Viera Levitt (CVPA Campus Gallery) and Kathleen Hancock (the Grimshaw-Gudewicz Gallery at Bristol Community College) and a few others — working closely with colleagues, artists and the community, raise the bar for the aficionados and the art curious of New Bedford, Fall River and the surrounding area.
As one might expect, Levitt and Hancock are often called upon to schedule exhibitions of work by the faculty and students of their respective colleges.
Gallery X, celebrating its 35th year this month, is a member-run organization. At monthly meetings, members and non-members alike can suggest an exhibition, generally based on a common subject. After some discussion, the group votes and if a given proposal is approved, a show will be scheduled within the year.
Longtime gallerist Judith Klein, who operated spaces in several locations in downtown New Bedford before settling into the the Kilburn Mill, culls from a fairly regular stable of regional artists and generally mounts shows with somewhat broad central themes: friendship, summer or pride, for example.
And then there are the shows that seem to come out of nowhere, brought about by little more than a serendipitous moment.
Late last spring, I was speaking on the phone with Deb Charlesbois, the gallery director at the Narrows Center for the Arts, when she asked me if I could/would curate an exhibition in July as there was an unanticipated opening in the schedule.
If you go ⇢
What: Personal Mythologies art exhibit
Where: Narrows Center for the Arts, 16 Anawan St., Fall River
When: Now until Aug. 17
The request was not completely out of left field, as on two previous occasions she had invited me to act as a curator, albeit with significantly more lead time.
In 2015, I proposed “The Tenacity of the Figure” around the conceit that so many artists, even some that delve into full blown abstraction, are often drawn back to the human figure, as if it were a primal urge.
Over the next month or so, I recruited six painters (Donald Beal, Nancy Carrozza CaraDonna, Diane Cournoyer, Peter Dickison, Pamela Hoss and Benjamin Martinez) and two sculptors (Erik Durant and Kelly Zelen). It was well-liked by intentional gallery visitors and by those passing through the gallery to the Narrows’ popular music venue.
In 2022, I organized “Wise Guise,” asking mixed media artist Joseph Fontinha, sculptor Keith Francis and ceramicist Seth Rainville to participate. Charlebois specifically requested that I display my own artwork in the show, and although initially reluctant, I acquiesced.
The exhibition featured a snowstorm inside a phone booth, pinball machines with a social consciousness, a ceramic vessel hanging from an umbrella, and a painting of a 1940s-era Bruce Wayne making a move on one of Picasso’s sleeping women.
With regard to the most recent invitation, I asked her when she’d need to know.
“Today?”
“Give me an hour.”
I quickly called painter Kim Barry, who’d recently had a one-woman show at the Co-Creative Center that I had quite enjoyed. I asked her if she wanted in. She said yes. I asked her if her husband Adrian was home. That would be Adrian Tio, a master printmaker and a former dean of the CVPA. He was on board.
My next call was to musician and painter Kat Knutsen. Yes.
And then to self-taught painter William Kennedy. He grew up in New Bedford and lives in Fall River. On an upward trajectory, he has recently exhibited in Detroit and London. Yeah, in.
Taylor Hickey was my next call. She is a printmaker, paper artist and a recent grad of the MFA program at UMD. Absolutely.
I was at five. I know the physical space of the Narrows quite well, with its odd layout in a former textile mill. I was thinking maybe three more painters would be perfect.
Or even better: maybe just Carl Simmons, installation artist extraordinaire. He exhibited in the New Bedford Art Museum in 2022. Last summer, he had work in what would end up being the last exhibition in the Star Store when the university abruptly closed the building.
When I invited him, I could hear the smile in his voice. I had my crew.
But how was I going to wrap my head around this group? What tied them together? I don’t do chaos. I needed to figure out the common thread. What was the raison d’etre? And then, after a copious amount of coffee, it hit me.
I had recruited the six artists that I did because of the caliber of their work and their dedication to their respective crafts. But beyond that, I soon sensed a commonality. Each was trying to explain something about the universe or their place in it, consciously or not. They were all creating personal mythologies.
Of course, mythology sometimes gets a bad rap, as if it were nonsense or an untruth or an affront to common sense. But mythology is none of those things. It is a truth of sorts, something that resonates with a palpable veracity. It is a way to make sense of the world, even if only for a short time.
Of the six artists, Tio has the most obvious tether to traditional mythology. Of Puerto Rican descent, much of his imagery is derived from the culture of the Taino, the indigenous people of the Caribbean. His prints often include hummingbirds and iguanas, the avian and terrestrial avatars of the spiritual and the physical.
Hickey’s artwork is infused with the cosmological. Her work often shines, quite literally. Her fascination with the night time skies fuels her artistic sensibility and infuses any venue she displays in with a fervor for the stars.
Barry is a painter of blossoming flowers, halved vegetables, sensual fruit and open mollusk shells that often reference the female form and in some cases, quite specific parts of that form. She articulates a passion for life, female strength and fecundity. She is an unapologetic art studio Demeter.
Knutsen grew up in an environment where she frequently witnessed male behavior beset by fury and violence. Her recent paintings focus on male figures as she explores a positive vision of masculinity that is grounded in diplomacy, love and care.
Kennedy focuses on Black male expression. Rejecting the harmful, hurtful and self-destructive mythos of the Angry Black Man and similar stereotypes, he seeks to alter the trajectory of the story. He rejects the vision that the only method to achieve success for a young Black man is through athletics or rap.
Simmons finds inspiration in the fact that local history is often forgotten, ignored or rejected in preference for folklore that some think make for better stories. It is in the contradictory conundrums and hopelessness of well-meaning preservationism that he thrives. His detailed large-scale site-specific installations are created with the detritus of the past.
All six are engaged with mythology. They are each myth takers, myth makers or myth breakers.
As a curator, one needs to be convinced of the veracity of one’s premise. And I fully wrapped my head around it.
The next step was to visit the studios of Knutsen, Kennedy, Tio, Barry and Hickey and select works for the show, which would officially be called “Personal Mythologies.”
Simmons and I met at the Narrows. He discussed where he would like to construct one of his elaborate installations. He wanted to situate his wonderfully outlandish recreation of a “laundry area,” complete with appliances, clotheslines, detergent boxes, bleach bottles and laundry baskets (and much, much more) right outside the elevator.
Simmons was hoping to momentarily convince visitors to the gallery that somehow they were getting off on the wrong floor. He was rather successful in that endeavor.
All the artwork was delivered to the gallery by the artists. I met each of them there over a few hours on a Saturday. I walked around placing a painting here or there, making suggestions but ultimately leaving it up to Charlebois and her two whiz-bang preparators, Cathleen Joyce and Kathy Furze-Spencer, to work out the logistics.
Not long after, an opening replete with wine, cheese and the like was held on a Saturday afternoon, much to the delight of the artists and many visitors.
Sometimes a show comes together with meticulous planning or institutional determination or by tapping a stable or by issuing a call for art.
But on occasion, as on that day I made an unplanned call to a gallery director, it can be a fluke.
It can be sparked by happenstance.
“Personal Mythologies” will remain on display at the Narrows Center for the Arts, 16 Anawan St., Fall River until Aug. 17.
Don Wilkinson has been writing art reviews, artist profiles and cultural commentary on the South Coast for over a decade. He has been published in local newspapers and regional art magazines. He is a graduate of the Swain School of Design and the CVPA at UMass Dartmouth. Email him at dwilkinson@newbedfordlight.org
