Conference Report - Exhibitions

Third Annual Encaustic Painting Conference at Montserrat College of Art

Beauty and Its Opposites Montserrat Award - Gregory Wright

The Conference was great this year, as usual. The weather cooperated and stayed cool. No AC needed most days. Many thanks to Joanne Mattera and all of the Montserrat people whose efforts made this event possible for the 3rd year in a row.


Elena De La Ville-Director's Award

The sessions I sat in on were helpful, interesting and worth my time. The exhibitions were well presented and the work substantial. There were more exhibitions this year with even one rogue exhibition off campus. That was fun. (Hmm. Ideas for next year.)

Besides the Beauty and Its Opposites---this year's juried exhibition at 301 Gallery, there were three other exhibitions associated with the conference.

Wax and Wane Experimental, work from Miles Conrad's "Off the Wall: Encaustic in Three Dimensions" workshop at last year's post-conference was in the front window of the 301 Gallery.
Participating artists in this exhibition were Dawna Bemis, Linda Clark, Jody Colella, Miles Conrad, Brandei Eiger, Ruth Gooch, Tessa Grundon, Marsha Lipsitz, Nancy Lowe, Ruth Sack Isabel Santis. Eleanor Hazel Trabaudo, and Joyce Vinson.

Luminous Landscape Invitational was in the second floor hall of the Hardie Building.
One of Rodney Thompson's Landscapes above. Two paintings below by Alexandra Masino.
Participating artists in Luminous Landscape are Lindsay Bentis, Debra Claffey, Linda Cordner, Janet Bartlett Goodman, Kimberly Kent, Dorothy Simpson Krause, Maura Joy Lustig, Julie Shaw Lutts, Alexandre Masino, Tracy Spadafora, Mary Taylor, Rodney Thompson, Charyl Weissbach and Diane Bowie Zaitlin. This exhibition will up up through the end of June. More of the landscapes can be seen on the Conference Blog sidebar and here.

And In the Round, Invitational---sculptural works by artists Debora Kapoor and Kim Bernard in the Schlosberg Gallery located on the first floor of the Hardie Building.
Above and below: A beautiful piece by Kim Bernard.

DetailPrayer Ball by Deborah Kapoor
Piece below is also by Deborah. Another invitational exhibition, Wax Libris---an exhibition of artist-made books that included encaustic as medium---was displayed on the shelves of the Paul Scott Library also located in the Hardie.
This exhibition was curated by Joanne Mattera and up through June.
Daniella Woolf, "B&W Book," 2008, paper, wax, fabric
Sandi Miot, "Found Out Along the Way," 2009, encaustic, graphite, and discarded books, 12 x 12 inches

Catherine Nash, "This Too Shall Pass," 2009, encaustic mixed-media assemblage, 7 x 13 x 4 inches
Participating artists were Jeanne Borofsky, Cari Hernandez, Supria Karmakar, Julie Shaw Lutts,
Sandi Miot, Cherie Mittenthal, Catherine Nash, Raymond Papka, Daniella Woolf, and Joanne Mattera. This exhibition was only up through the three days of the conference. You can see more of the books on the conference blog side bar.

Miles Conrad's Wax and Wane - Experiment in the window of 201 Gallery was perhaps my favorite. I loved the individual pieces as well as the concept of the exhibition which was an experiment to see how these wax pieces would fare in a west facing window. Some of the works were still hanging on the wall by the end of the conference but many had fallen to the floor. Looked like they were all still intact however.
The front window of 310 Gallery in Beverly. Wax and Wane Experimental. See a picture of the exhibit after pieces droped to the floor of the window click here and scroll down. This is Nancy Natale's blog and her conference report.

A difficult thing though to make that statement stick, ("My favorite exhibition") when I loved so much of the works in all the other shows as well. All in all, the total exhibition experience was one of the highlights of the conference.

Nicholas Capasso was the juror of Beauty and Its Opposites. He is Senior Curator at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts. He chose works by 20 artists. You will find the list of participants on the conference Blog. Most of the artists had two or three pieces in the exhibition. At the top of this post are the images of the two top award winner's, Gregory Wright and Elena De La Ville. Director's Award chosen by Joanne Mattera, and Montserrat Award by the Gallery Curator.

Below is an example Robin Luciano Beatty's work. She won the Conference Award. Two images and a detail below. Attendee's voted on their favorite piece.



Detail below.


Below: Paula Roland's Monotypes with light filtering through from behind. She received an Honorable Mention.
I have always liked her monotypes and paintings but I really love the direction her work heading these days. Seem more organic? Don't know, but they work for me.

One of Daniella Woolf's pieces was made with old canceled checks stitched together and waxed. Daniella has two other pieces in this show as well. I don't remember if it was this piece for which she received the Honorable Mention or if it was one of the others. I enjoyed them all but this one touched me in a personal way. My siblings and I found boxes of canceled checks and paycheck stubs in my mother's stuff when we were going through her things after she passed away. I didn't keep them but remember wondering how I could put them to use in my artwork. I'm glad Daniella didn't throw hers away.

Danielle Correia's paintings below struck a chord with me too but for a very different reason. I loved the humor and frivolity of the images as well as the way they were painted. She had others as well with this rabbit-head character playing around doing all sorts of things. These were the two larger pieces. Her work took an Honorable mention too.


Overall, I felt the show was very strong and I had a very difficult time choosing my favorite for the Conference Award. I won't post the whole show but below are a few more of my favorites.


Rodney Thompson's two pieces in the exhibition.






















Below right: Cora Jane Glasser's
She and Debra Ramsay were the two rogues holding
the off-site exhibition. I took photo's while there
but they disappeared from my camera!
See their Youtube video.














Jane Allen Nodine

One of April Nomellini's Encaustic collages.

















One of Kristin Swenson-Lintault's paintings.













These two below belong to Roberta Lee Woods. Her handmade papers thick with organic materials make up these pieces resembling tanned leather, especially in the one below.
I was drawn to these immediately because of the rough textural qualities and organic feel.









There are plenty more images I could post here but Whew! I'm ready for a break. More on the conference sessions in another post. Here is a link to a video of the reception.