Weekend art: Self-portraits in Lowell and ‘Paper Town’ in Fitchburg
Major shows open Saturday
It’s a great weekend for art in Lowell and Fitchburg, with important shows opening Saturday in both cities.
Curator Mary Hart is honored and excited to open “Here We Are/ Faces of Creativity,” a revealing exhibition that showcases over 100 wonderful self-portraits by Lowell area artists in the Greenwald Gallery at the Arts League of Lowell, 307 Market St.
It opened yesterday and runs through Feb. 26. An artists’ reception is 3-5 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 4, and an Artists Talkabout is 1-3 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 11.
“Have you ever wondered how artists see themselves? What happens when the subject is personal?” Hart asks in her press release.
Artists are famously characterized as scrutinizers of minute detail. They are known for staring for hours at a bowl of fruit in order to make a painting. But how do artists see that most personal of subjects — themselves?
The assembled self-portraits from artists all over the city, from pencil sketch to porcelain, is a chance to peek behind the curtain and glimpse the individual, not the creation.
The past few years have been difficult, especially for artists and galleries. That has led to introspection, notes Hart.
“Behind every colorful display that we enjoy and take for granted in our galleries and on our walls is a ‘someone’ — an artist with hopes, dreams and inspiration.
Art does not come from nothing, you know,” she said.
To encourage widespread participation, the ALL Gallery reached out to all sections of the Lowell art community with no barriers. Canvases were provided and fees waived.
The payoff is this wide-ranging snapshot of Lowell’s artist community in a broad range of styles, media, technique and points of view. Realism and distortion; cartoon and chiaroscuro, clear eyed or fanciful, mysterious or brutally honest; in short, the wide range of artists’ individual visions.
Come to the gallery in downtown Lowell and see artists you know and others you will discover. As an added enticement, the works will not be labelled for the first 4 days of the show, so you can have the fun of identifying those you think you know.
Gallery hours are noon-4 p.m., Wed.-sun. Visit www.artsleagueoflowell.org.
At Fitchburg Art Museum the show “Paper Town” opens with a reception 2-4 p.m. on Sat., Feb. 4. Paper is ubiquitous in everyday life but is rarely considered beyond its flat functionality, notes the exhibit introduction.
This exhibition takes paper out of the two-dimensional into a world that is fantastical, intricate, colorful, and personal. Inspired by the materiality of paper and the metamorphic quality of the papermaking, “Paper Town” explores paper in pulp, cast, folded, and cut forms.
It is part of a series of FAM exhibitions that connect contemporary artmaking with our region’s industrial heritage. “Paper Town” is sponsored by Can-am Machinery Inc. of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and the Sinon Lecture Fund.
Please go to https://68111.blackbaudhosting.com/68111/papertown-opening to register for the reception to help with planning.
“In the Eye of the Beholder: Gender through the Camera Lens” opens on Sat., Feb. 4. The exhibit delves into the FAM’S permanent collection to explore how photographers have used the “gendered gaze” across the 20th and early 21st centuries.
This exhibition highlights some of the museum’s iconic favorites and recent acquisitions—including work from Gertrude Kasebier, Cindy Sherman, and Yasumasa Morimura—to examine how power is embedded in the male and female gazes. In the Eye of the Beholder further explores artists who experiment with or outright reject the gender binary, questioning and complicating methods of perceiving gender and its performance.
The FAM is at 185 Elm St., Fitchburg. Visit www.fitchburgartmuseum.org for info, hours and program.
Nancye Tuttle’s email address is nancyedt@verizon.net