Six contemporary painters who expand and compress space in unpredictable ways are featured in “Accordion Space,” in the West and Crowell galleries in the Feigenbaum Center for Visual Arts.
Laini Nemett, the John D. MacArthur Assistant Professor of Drawing and Painting, curated the exhibition. A free reception, open to the public, will be held at the galleries Friday, Oct. 20, 5-7 p.m.
“The artists in this show bring us in with familiar moments and push us back to take in the whole: their canvases, like accordions, modulating between a whisper and a bellow, and back again,” Nemett says.
The featured artists are:
Aschely Cone: Cone presents paintings that create patterned veils while also suggesting windows or doorways through which to travel. A recent recipient of the St. Mary’s College of Maryland Teaching Fellowship, she is represented by the Hamiltonian Gallery in Washington D.C.
Doron Langberg: Painting from personal life, Israeli native Langberg addresses issues of gender and sexuality with bold color, gestural brushwork and sensitive portraiture. This year, he is participating in the prestigious Sharpe Walentas Studio Program in New York.
Susan Lichtman: Lichtman, a figurative painter, uses scenes from the first floor of her house and her studio as a stage for unfolding moments that offer a poetic twist to the everyday. She is an associate professor of painting at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.
Sangram Majumdar: Majumdar starts from observation, such as paper cut-outs in a dollhouse or the view into a hallway window at night. He conceals and reveals forms to create a heavily documented archive of looking. A native of Kolkata, India, Majumdar resides in Brooklyn and teaches painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Claire Sherman: Sherman, of New York City, is influenced by the writings of philosophers Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant and Jean-François Lyotard, who address the sublime and the beauty of the natural world. Fluctuating between abstraction and representation, and inspired by traveling, her imagery alludes to specific places and dramatic landscapes. An associate professor at Drew University in Madison, N.J., she is represented by D.C. Moore Gallery in Chelsea.
Didier William: A native of Port-au-Prince who chairs the MFA Program at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, William draws from memory, oratory and historical archives to reimagine narratives of the black diaspora. Weaving recognizable forms with poured paint, etched wood and stuccoed surfaces, his paintings collide in questions of race, gender, identity and Haitian history.
“Accordion Space” runs through Nov. 14.