On exhibit: Springtime brings a burst of visual art
March 29, 2024 | By Waterbury Roundabout Two visual arts exhibitions open soon in Central Vermont with work by Vermont artists including photography, painting, mixed-media collage and more.
In Waterbury: ‘FLORA’
"Quiver" by Annemarie Buckley, acrylic on paper.
“Home is Between Your Teeth,” by Kristy Hughes: Acrylic, cast paper, handmade paper pulp, papier-mâché, with collected wood from Rock Point, Burlington.
The Phoenix Art Gallery and Music Hall presents a colorful show opening April 5 through July 8 titled “Flora” featuring the work of nine visual artists.
Co-curated by TR Risk and Joseph Pensak, the works offer a “blast of bright colors, growth metaphors/imagery that we need to revive us after a long winter and now fake spring!” according to Pensak.
Featured artists: TR Risk, Annemarie Buckley, Linden Eller, Frankie Gardiner, Kristy Hughes, Milton Rosa-Ortiz, Alison Scileppi, Axel Stohlberg and Kelsey Telek.
Pensak is highlighting each artist, their work, techniques, and their backstories in social media posts on Facebook and Instagram.
An opening reception is planned for Friday, April 5, from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Stowe Street gallery. More information: thephoenixvt.com.
Victoria Blewer’s photo, collage exhibition opens at the Supreme Court Gallery
'Solitary Barn' hand-colored photograph by Victoria Blewer.
The Vermont Supreme Court Gallery presents a long-awaited exhibition of photography and mixed-media collage by Weybridge artist Victoria Blewer.
Opening on April 4, this is the third attempt to show her work at the court gallery without a major catastrophic event intervening, according to Mary Admasian working with the Vermont State Curator’s Office. The gallery aimed to present a show of Blewer’s work just before the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown took place in 2020 and then again last summer just before Montpelier was flooded in July, she said.
Titled “Material Matters,” this show is a collection of hand-colored and black-and-white photographic images and mixed-media collage.
'Twin Barns' hand-colored photographs by Victoria Blewer
As a photographer and visual artist, Blewer explores a variety of photographic media that derive from silver-print black and white and hand-colored images of agricultural structures. Represented in this exhibition are many photographs enhanced by oil paint to produce “a hand-tinted time-captured image,” according to the announcement.
Blewer employs such traditional photographic processes using Kodak’s 35mm infrared film to create particular visual effects.
In Blewer’s words: “I’m not the sort to live my life based on a bumper sticker, but one stuck with me as I realized that technology was forcing me to re-imagine everything I have done or may do next as an artist: ‘Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.’ And isn’t growth what every artist strives for? I remain confident that I’ll be able to create new and different work as long as the fates allow. The material matters. But so does the vision.”
Born in New York City, Blewer is a graduate of Smith College. She continued her studies, refining her art at The New School in New York City, the International Center of Photography, the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York, and at the University of Vermont. She moved to Vermont in the late 1980s.
Blewer’s work has been shown and published widely and she has won many national and regional awards. She lives in Weybridge with her husband, author Chris Bohjalian.
The exhibition runs through June 28. Gallery hours are weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., (closed noon-1 p.m.).
An opening reception will be held on Friday, April 5, from 4 to 7 p.m.
More information: curator.vermont.gov/vermont-supreme-court-gallery.