Tag: Gail Barker

Solo show featuring new works by Adin Murray and group show, Pulp Fiction, featuring artists’ books by Gail Barker, Linda Ekstrom, Leslie Lyman, Jeffrey Marshall, Rhoda Rosenberg, Louise Strawbridge, Willie Alexander, and Geoffrey Bayliss opening this weekend at Jane Deering Gallery location in downtown Gloucester. Jane Deering Gallery is hosting Turning Spells and Cuttings at the satellite The Shed in Annisquam, by Dana Clancy and Audrey Goldstein

Details from Jane Deering Gallery below:

Opening August 9th with a reception from 4-6pm:  ADIN MURRAY | august reverie @ Jane Deering Gallery . 19 Pleasant Street . Gloucester.

“In a 2011 opinion piece on reverie, Rachel Enthoven wrote: ‘Born of the desire to be directly involved in our surroundings, reverie strips the world of its utility. It borrows the power of narration from wakefulness and the power of divination from sleep … and blends their realms. … It is contemplation from within, letting the person who gives way to it feel change.’

Artist Adin Murray, known for his direct observations of nature, offers viewers the chance to ‘feel change,’ to suspend the perpetual motion of our lives, to loosen thought.

This exhibition, Murray’s 6th solo show with the gallery, includes eleven small paintings which evoke dreams of nature. Murray notes: Reverie: A state of being pleasantly lost in one’s thoughts; a daydream. Oxford Languages. And writes: My hope is that somewhere in this collection of work you are able to find yourself in such a state.

Along side the small oil paintings are larger works, each a new exploration of Murray’s vision.

Adin Murray holds a BA in Art/Biology from Tulane University and an MFA in painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design. His work is in the permanent collection of the Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester MA and in corporate and private collections in the US and abroad. Murray lives and maintains a studio in Gloucester, MA.

PULP FICTION | artists’ books opens at Jane Deering Gallery with a Reception on Saturday August 9th from 4-6pm.  The gallery is located at 19 Pleasant Street, Gloucester.  Hours:  Fri & Sat 1-5pm; Sun 1-4pm and by appointment @ 917-902-4359.

Participating artists include: Gail Barker, Linda Ekstrom, Leslie Lyman, Jeffrey Marshall, Rhoda Rosenberg, Louise Strawbridge, and Willie Alexander, featuring a papier mâché sculpture by Geoffrey Bayliss, and contributing sculpture by Audrey Goldstein

In essence, the artist’s book is an attempt to unify text and image, giving the images as much prominence as the text. The Yale Library has a wonderful (and lengthy) history of artists’ books. Link: https://guides.library.yale.edu/c.php?g=295819&p=1972527. Here are excerpts from that text:

The first forerunner to contemporary artists’ books is probably the British artist William Blake, who worked in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. Blake was a poet, painter and printmaker. He wanted to integrate his visual and written work.

Often, the first suggestion of the book format combined with the work of a visual artist is credited to France in the 1890’s. 

Around the same time period, artists, writers, and political thinkers were publishing pamphlets, posters, and magazines expressing their avant-garde ideas. 

The Dada movement (late 1910’s, early 1920’s) in Europe used books as a means of expression, and their “ethical and political concern for the function of art in society” is a precursor to the American idea behind using books as art during the 1960’s.

In the next two decades, artists’ books were influenced by trends in the art world: the prominence of sculpture in the 1970’s and installation art in the 1980’s. [13] Performance and conceptual art were also intertwined with the artists’ books movement. From here to the present, artists’ books have continued to be made and continued to be misunderstood because of their undefinable nature. 

• Jane Deering Gallery hours: Friday & Saturday 1-5pm; Sunday 1-4pm; 
•  by appointment at 917-902-4359.  
• The gallery is located at 19 Pleasant Street, Gloucester. 

at the SHED