Stowe’s The Current faces winter with garden-themed exhibition

January 20, 2024  |  By Waterbury Roundabout 

"…there is a rumble as the garden folds, rolls, shreds, devours…itself,"  Ebony G. Patterson, 2021-2022. Courtesy of Ebony G. Patterson, Monique Meloche Gallery and Hales Gallery

The Current gallery in Stowe opens a new group exhibition this week in the heart of winter yet with a garden theme. 

“In The Garden: a platform for artists, poets, and performers” features the work of multiple artists all with a common garden motif. 

Artists with work in this exhibition use the metaphor of a garden to address climate change, decolonization, feminism, societal tensions, and the endangered environment. The installation is presented surrounding a center “stage” for performance, poetry readings, and conversations during the exhibit which runs through April 11. 

Participating artists include Carlos Amorales, Cameron Davis, Wylie Garcia, Valerie Hammond, Mary Mattingly, Ebony G. Patterson, and Paul Anthony Smith.

Visitors will see Ebony G. Patterson’s dimensional imagery inspired by gardening in Jamaica with the theme “the garden as a place of survival and possibilities.” Valerie Hammond’s multimedia works play with the boundaries of the physical and spiritual, the conscious and the unconscious. In a series titled “Dreams Deferred” after the Langston Hughes poem, Paul Anthony Smith depicts varied urban landscapes presented as if contained within single or double chain-link fences. Mary Mattingly’s photographic garden series invites the viewer to imagine alternative futures.

Other pieces include paintings by Cameron Davis and Wylie Garcia. Throughout the show space, an immersive installation by Carlos Amorales depicts a swarm of moths and butterflies inspired by the annual migration of monarch butterflies from Canada to Mexico.

The gallery will host monthly talks in its Currently Speaking series. Programs connected with the show will include a panel discussion with exhibiting artists, poetry readings, all-ages workshops, talks on the topics of horticulture, ethnobotany, and biophilic design as well as a group tour to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Details will be updated on The Current’s website as events are scheduled. 

The Current is located at 90 Pond St., Stowe. More information online at thecurrentnow.org.