Art Weekend - First Friday and Printmania

Now that the installation is up, I have a chance to mention my art-packed weekend! Last Friday I stopped by the monthly SoWa open studio/gallery event, mostly to catch a reception at Chase but also to catch up with some artist friends at 450 Harrison. Then on Saturday I checked out the end of the Printmania zine fair in Union Square, which had a surprisingly small number of zine tables (like, maybe one or two), but a lot of interesting printmakers to make up for it. Some artists I really enjoyed included:
- Alicia Tormey, whose lacy, leaf-like paintings I went to see at Chase, and
- John Dempcy, whose work ended up transfixing me at Chase. It's a little hard to tell from the photos, but there's a lot of fractal interactions going on within those fried-egg-like circles. (You have to have your face right in the work, like I'm not ashamed to say I did, to fully appreciate those tiny worlds)
- Lesley Cohen, who had a couple amazingly detailed, mostly abstract charcoal and chalk drawings in Bromfield Gallery in SoWa
- Rachel Thern, whose exhibition in the back of Kingston Gallery I came across completely by chance. Her work is also mostly abstract, and I love the way her work involves a combination of fastidious process and organic materiality.
- Adrienne Ginter, who had a table at Printmania with very detailed prints that had a lot of storytelling elements. I was really drawn to one in particular for its composition (and the little city, which of course I can't resist). According to her website she also has some unbelievable paper cutouts as well.
- Elisabeth Nicula, a Somerville printmaker who had some prints at Printmania with texture that I was instantly drawn to. After checking out her site, I can see why I was interested in her work -- her statement mentions that she's inspired by "Outer space, mathematics and machinery, cells and microorganisms". Unfortunately her site doesn't have the pieces I was most drawn to, but all of her work is great.

After listing these artists and revisiting their sites, it occurs to me that most of them focus on circles and/or dense or fractal texture. I think that says much more about my tastes than the current art scene (besides that circles are ALWAYS popular, and fractals are present in nature and proven to be unusually aesthetically pleasing).