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"The Minstrel Show (Intermission)", 40 x 30 in. (102 x 76 cm),
Oil stick, acrylic, & textural media on wood panel, 2020
To counteract the paucity of light in February in our Northern
Hemisphere, one is oft recommended a course of light therapy, to treat emotional darkness with light.
To counteract the February dulling of colors and our concurrent isolation amidst the pandemic reality, I organized a 3-person painting exhibition,
abundantly alive with color, texture and compositionally induced excitements. Our Boston area show is also unusual in its conception: an art
-historically attuned lyrical realist paired up with two dedicated color abstractionists.
The host of this exhibition, Brickbottom Gallery, is in an old industrial area
of Somerville, Massachusetts, bordering the more illustrious Cambridge; it is also the most densely populated city in our fair and progressive state.
The Brickbottom factory building itself, once a cannery and bakery, was transformed in the 1980's into one of the country's first and largest artist
-developed live-work buildings, featuring almost 150 units and a lively artistic buzz. The plain high-ceilinged interiors are perfect for showcasing
larger work and unusual conceptions, such as hanging the entire exhibition in trios of paintings -- pointedly mixing styles and modes to bring to one's
attention the subtler similarities and divergencies.
"Metamorphoses", 40 x 30 in. (102 x 76 cm),
Oil stick, acrylic & mixed textural media on wood panel, 2016
To further introduce the show, here is an excerpt from the exhibition statement, starting with its colorful title:
Space<-->Color<-->Movement:
Lyrical Realism into Poetic Abstraction
"The three painters -- Alexandra Rozenman, Jo Ann Rothschild, and Philip Gerstein
, friends and allies in real life – come together in this show, delighting in the seeming contradiction of their styles. The intention
is to present both realist and abstract paintings together, grouped in trios. This unusual arrangement will allow to contrast and compare each artist's
different, equally engaging approach to forming a composition, unifying the painterly field of action, and utilizing color in emotional, constructive and psychologically complex ways.
The near-musical vibration provided by the color-filled work of these three
painters will act in concert in this exhibition to offer a particularly rich, layered and expanding experience, in the midst and in positive contrast to
our year of toil, contraction and isolation."
The show has already been previewed at some length in the Boston art press and is eagerly awaited. Since it's just about to be mounted as I
pen this invitation, the last word on how it really turns out is yet to be written. Still, the Scene4 reader and viewer will be afforded a rare pleasure of perusing the
Proposal for this exhibition; it reproduces several trios of images of the three artists' paintings, paired with the
original exhibition statement. To view them, you are invited and indeed encouraged to
follow this link.`
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