Last weekend, the Addison Gallery of American Art joined with Andover art lovers as the new exhibition “Open Windows,” guest-curated by artist Carroll Dunham ’67, had its opening celebration. “Open Windows,” held in the left gallery on the second floor of the Addison, features the works of four contemporary American painters based in New York, NY: Keltie Ferris, Jackie Saccoccio, Billy Sullivan and Alexi Worth. Each artist has a series of his or her work in each of four smaller rooms in the gallery.
In the middle gallery are pieces from the Addison’s permanent collection which includes works by artists such as John Graham, Franz Kline, Reginald Marsh and Irene Rice Pereira. Dunham chose all of these works.
Dunham said, “I went through the storage and looked at [the collection], and mostly based on what I thought was interesting with a little bit of emphasis on [works] I thought were somewhat surprising, mostly... things in the collection that might’ve not been as foregrounded as they could be.”
By juxtaposing the works from the Addison collection with the contemporary artists’ works, Dunham creates a subtle connection between the historic and current art. Dunham said, “By my following my nose, I ended up with a group of paintings that created surprising connections that I didn’t really expect.”
Ferris, Saccoccio, Sullivan and Worth all have their own distinct styles that make their works stand out on their own. While Ferris and Saccoccio have a more abstract style, Sullivan and Worth have a representational style. “Open Windows” illustrates the creative connections between old and new art.
The exhibit will be open until April 8.
[ Keltie Ferris ]
Works by Keltie Ferris make viewers think of cyber space. Ferris renders layers of oil painting and crayon into her own unique patterns.
Colorful zig-zag patterns fill all of her works, which are done in oil pastels. The patterns radiate from under the acrylics and spray paints.
One of her works “<<<>>>” (2010), done on a big square canvas, features Ferris’s zig-zag patterns on thebottomlayerandsilver and white spray-painted dots on the top. The patterns create the abstract and mysterious mood that intrigues viewers when they look closer into the painting. Scattered vibrant neon colors in the painting complement the muted tones. The patterns and colors, all combined in “<<<>>>” form a lively picture that resembles fireworks.
Of her painting techniques, Ferris said, “[For the base layer,] I used a combination of spatula paint and oil pastel lines... I use every color that‘s in the box – it’s unplanned radiating rainbows. It’s very unplanned, and it’s a meditation for me to make something dynamic that is by rote at the same time. It’s very calming for me before I began painting. ... The paint on the topmost layer is the sprayed oil paint. I put thin oil paint down and spray [the] spray paint.”
Ferris completed her seemingly strategic paintings with spontaneous renderings.
“I wouldn’t say I have just one theme [for my works], but [the] clenching or biting shapes of the spray painted parts, that sort of suggests the idea of opening and closing,” said Ferris.
She continued, “My work is really process-based. I began with a certain kind of a drawing and then a matrix and radiating lines. I filled the painting on top of it. These works emphasize what I’m inter- ested in right now, which are radiating matrixes and the outlining forms of hard-edge against soft-edge blurry paints.”
Five of Ferris’s recent works, all done in 2010 or 2011, are featured in the Addison. All of the pieces took Ferris much effort and time to complete. Ferris said, “The quickest one took about three weeks, but it was because I have to wait until each layer to dry, because sometimes it takes longer to dry between layers. The longest one took me six months.”
[ Jackie Saccoccio ]
The layers of oil paint used in Jackie Saccoccio’s works make her paintings seem very abstract. However, Saccoccio’s painting does have a certain structure as her series of “Portraits” reveal the subtle outlines and features of a human’s face.
Three of Saccoccio’s works, “Left Portrait,” “Portrait,” “Right Portrait,” all done in 2011, abstractly show a portrait as webby paint dribbles outline faces. In the “Right Portrait,” smudged globs of paint suggest hair above the face.
Of the three paintings, Saccoccio said, “These three are from the series called ‘Portraits.’ They are not based on specific portraits of people but are based on paintings and using palettes from historic paintings. It’s approaching abstract painting with the format of portrait paintings. Thinking about a large mass and information that relates to it, I was trying to use the palettes that I was looking at.”
All of Saccoccio’s works are done in oil paint and mica, and she uses the ingredients to create a graded web-like pattern that is topped on her pieces. Saccoccio said she achieved the pattern by mixing big cans of paint and dripping the paint onto the canvas with a varying speed to alter the turnout of the patterns.
“I try to use very traditional materials, meaning rabbit skin glue and different types of varnishes with oil paint, but I try to use them in contemporary ways or new ways that haven’t been used before, soIdoalotofpouringand dripping [so the paintings] are made of a lot of subsequent layers,” said Saccoccio.
“[The paintings] take probably a couple of months each to make, and I add mica which was traditionally used to prepare a ground, the basic white, but I used it into the paint with varnish, and I tried to use varnish more as a color rather than just a sealing.”
This novel way of approaching the oil paint makes Saccoccio’s painting unique, and she often works with a clear plan.
She said, “I really like working with these big swaths of colors, [so] I don’t know how things will actually end up. It’s this idea of working with chance.”
Of the turnout for her exhibit in the Addison, Saccoccio said, “I’m just thrilled and they look beautiful... I think the pieces that are curated from the main collection are so beautiful that [they give] breath to the American painting, and I’ve always seen my work as part of that landscape tradition, a transcendental approach to looking at art.”
As a follow-up to her exhibit, Saccoccio will also revisit Andover within a few weeks in February to do a wall drawing on the wall by the conjunct area between the Museum Learning Center (MLC) and Elson Arts Center.
[ Billy Sullivan ]
Billy Sullivan’s oil paintings deliver the warmth of the sun through summer scenes of sandy beaches.
The paintings include light bright colors that complement the soft brush strokes and add to the relaxing feel of the pieces.
Upon viewing Sullivan’s artworks, Lauren Kim ’13 said, “The people in these paintings, I guess it’s also because of the setting also, but they seem very relaxed and the life that they are portraying are relaxing, on a beach, on vacation, and the colors are really light and I like how the artist uses the vibrant and pastel-like soft colors.”
All the paintings by Sullivan featured in the exhibit are in fact painted based on the photographs that Sullivan himself has taken over the years.
He said, “Basically, it’s a chronicling of my life, and it’s just different times and people in my [life].”
Sullivan, having documented his life through photography, said that he selects different photos from his collection to decide which ones he will use as inspiration for his oil paintings.
The characters present in the pictures are Sullivan’s families or friends, and the titles of all his paintings give the real names of the subjects.
For instance, in “Max, Sam & Edo” (2011), a big horizontal canvas of a man and two kids on a beach, Max and Sam are Sullivan’s sons and Edo his son’s friend.
In each and every picture, Sullivan used the color red in some way to give a highlight to the painting.
However, Sullivan said, this was not purposefully done. “I guess I do like red, white, pink, sky, sand, water and all the above,”said Sullivan.
“Open Windows” was the first public exhibition of these paintings together.
“It’s really wonderful to get to see all these paintings in one room. [They range from] 2003 to 2011. So I am really happy to see how they all related to each other over that amount of time,” said Sullivan.
[ Alexi Worth ]
In his works, Worth plays with the elements of light and shadow to create realistic images that attract viewers’ attention.
With the realistic depiction of several layers of gradated shadows and translucent outlines, the objects in the painting almost seem to be moving.
“I was interested for a long time in frontal lighting, the lighting that comes almost like flash photography lighting, where the lighting is where your eyes are,” Worth said. “I was doing that before and it simplifies things. It makes things very graphic and dark, almost like the lighting of photography, and I wanted to argue photography and make things that would be connected with photography, but [are] to- tally handmade and mind- made.”
The clear-cut silhouettes and the subject matter of Worth’s paintings resembles cartooning.
“So to me, this was kind of a way to connect car- tooning and photography together ... and as I redrew [the pieces] and changed them, I didn’t intend in the beginning to have so much motion and revision, but it kind of crept in little by little. I began thinking those two things are together, some of it is revision and me changing my mind, then it begins to look like a motion,” said Worth.
After all, as Worth said, “The world doesn’t stay still really.”
The majority of Worth’s paintings is done with acrylic paint on nylon mesh that creates a distinctive effect of transparency, as the wall behind the painting peeks through the minuscule holes between the mesh.
This was the result of Worth’s intent to attempt at painting in an unconventional way.
Worth said, “I was interested in thinking about what happens between your hand and your face, and some of [the pieces] were also inspired by changing the way I work. I used to work in oil paint and I had some ideas of working differently using mesh instead of canvas and painting with spray.”
“When I began changing the way I work, I thought I could make the images stronger [using] these other ways but it didn’t always work out and there was the feeling of uncertainty and anxiety of thinking, maybe it’ll all totally [mess] up. So some of the images like ‘Crumpling’ [(2011)] came from that,” he continued.