montserratgalleries-blog

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     There was a chill in the air on the night of October 21st, the night the reception of “Quietus” was held. Upon arrival to the 301 Gallery, I was greeted with a warmth - not just of temperature, but of people as well. The staff was excited and friendly, receptive to all who came to view this hallowing show of art that makes us question the idea of death and loss. The artists present were eager to talk of their work, and the visitors were quick to join in on the conversation. I was lucky enough to interview a few people during the reception, and Ian Spencer was my first victim of the night.

     Ian Spencer is a forensic artist that hails from Reading, MA. His two pieces in the show are thoughtfully placed, and as Nathan Lewis, the show’s thoughtful curator puts it, Spencer’s works are used as “bookends.” Spencer explained the process in which he went about creating both pieces, which are post-mortem reconstructions on tracing paper. He takes autopsy photos of the victims and lays tracing paper over the photos. From there, he rebuilds the facial structures, and recreates the image of what they would have looked like before their untimely deaths. His first piece in the show is a post-mortem reconstruction of a drowning victim, and the second piece is a victim of a gunshot wound. In context of how his work functioned in regards to the other pieces in the show, Spencer was intrigued by the idea of them being “bookends,” and thought it brought a heavy meaning to both the work and the theme of Quietus. In regards to loss, one can look at Spencer’s works and be faced with an idea of ultimate loss, for they are drawings of real people whose lives were suddenly ripped away from them. Spencer himself pondered on whether or not the victims portrayed in his work would be happy to know that they were in the show; to have a bit of their voices returned, after being so violently destroyed.

     The general consensus of the viewers was that the theme was a heavy one. One commented on the layout of the show, and appreciated the “emptiness” of it. They felt as though the space in between the works, as well as the smaller volume of works, contributed to the theme of Quietus; that the general emptiness helped to enhance the feelings associated with death and loss. Another viewer was a bit confused by the show at first, and needed some of the pieces explained to her. The viewer, Elinor of Beverly, had not been to a gallery reception in 20 years. The last time she had been to one was while she herself was in art school. Though she was intimidated at first, she was relieved to be welcomed warmly by the staff of the 301 gallery, and proceeded to stay for much of the night. She enjoyed many conversations with the artists, as well as other guests. Once she understood the meaning and story behind the pieces, the theme took on a much more solid reality for her. She commented on the pieces by Shannon Taggart, and mentioned how she was able to draw meaning to the works through the words “Lily Dale,” which is written on a cone in one of Taggart’s photo. She said Lily Dale is a town in New York which she knew as being connected to phsycics and mediums. Had it not been for those two words, the meanings of the photos would have eluded her. Though she personally prefers artworks that are open to personal interpretations, or “internal archetypal stories” as she put it, she was still able to find meaning and appreciation for the show. Her favorite piece of the show was Andy Mauery’s “Right Whale Chain I,” as she found it to be less linear in meaning and more open to the personal interpretation she enjoys.

     “Right Whale Chain I” by Andy Maurey seemed to be the most popular among the visitors. Many commented on how they enjoyed the experience of discovering the whales embroidered into the piece. The use of hair was also something they enjoyed, and drew them to the art. The other pieces were well received, though many left with a feeling of sorrow upon viewing Ian Spencer’s works.

     Overall, the reception of Quietus was a successful one. The visitors were presented with a show that exemplified the theme behind it, and as such, were able to internally investigate ideas of loss, death, and what they mean personally as well as externally. It is not one that will be forgotten any time soon, and as one of the visitors put it, “Quietus” made them confront something within themselves in a way which served to alter their outlook. Though it was a show about loss, the viewers were able to gain new perspective and ideas, and took away something extraordinary for stepping into the realm of the 301 gallery on the night of October 21st.

Article by Amanda Tulacz

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Montserrat Galleries Temple of Flies Opening Reception - Words from our Guests!

Hi I’m Ashley and I am a Montserrat Gallery Assistant!

I had the pleasure of receiving some select individual’s scoop on current Carol Schlosberg Gallery exhibition ‘Temple of Flies’ at the opening reception. It was fantastic to hear opinions about the artworks from students as well as people of the community. Here are a few conversations I got to engage in!

Mark from Arlington

“I feel like I’m inside the temple of flies as I look at these pieces, it’s so different than anything I’ve ever seen.”

Sally Gilbride from York Maine

Q: What brought you to temple of flies?

A: These are artworks of my nieces so of course I had to come down!

Q: What is your favorite component of the exhibition?

A: I think the heads are very interesting, especially the one with the lights coming through, what is it doing?! I also love the dots looking into the eyes on the blue one.

Ricardo Fernandez from Beverly

Q: What brought you to Temple of Flies?

A: I belong to the facebook group and saw about the event.

Q: Do you have a favorite component of the exhibition?

A: I love the textures and contrasts of the black and white on the temple of flies piece. I also enjoy the laminated plastic.

Kathleen from Boston

Q: What brought you to Temple of Flies?

A: I am a good friend of the artist, we went to school together at MassArt. I wanted to come support!

Q: Do you have a favorite component of the exhibition?

A: I love the faces, they are utterly weird but fantastic! I love seeing what these girls do!

Shannon Bristol Student, senior animation major

Q: What brought you to Temple of Flies?

A: I am really curious what this show is about because I walk through it everyday to go to class.

Q: Do you have a favorite component of the exhibition?

A: Honestly I really like the blue head the most, it’s less intimidating than the others and I think it was crafted very nicely.

Nathan from Medford

Q: What brought you to Temple of Flies?

A: I saw Nicole post about this on facebook, and I am a big fan of the galleries here.

Q: What is your favorite component of the exhibition?

A: I am familiar with their work, so I was excited to see their collaborative exhibition as a whole.

Jackson Haley Student, senior printmaking major

Q: What brought you to Temple of Flies?

A: It’s cool sick art I’ve seen in passing, and I had a lecture from the two sisters in seminar and wanted to come see it.

Q: Do you have a favorite component of the exhibition?

A: The large heads because it’s a cool, large blown up space being used to good success!

Kelly Student, Senior Interdisciplinary major

Q: What brought you to Temple of Flies?

A: I work in the library so I pass by it everyday, and I saw you guys setting up the reception and I was really curious. I love the style of these pieces, collage and paper and mixed media. I thought it looked really interesting. I’ve sat here and tried figuring out these pieces before while passing by.

Q: What’s your favorite component of the exhibition?

A:  Definitely the Temple of Flies. I love the insaneness of it and the figures and what they’re doing. It looks like a crazy city and I am a huge fan.

Susan Student, sophomore painting major and art history minor

Q: What brought you to Temple of Flies?

A: I love coming to the galleries, and I walk through here everyday. I was very interested in what these are. I don’t really understand the heads though, I really love the blue one because it’s the only one that doesn’t creep me out. I would love to talk to the artists about these and get a better understanding.

Q: Do you have a favorite component of the exhibition?

A: The blue head because it’s the one I can kind of understand. I like seeing the dots over the eyes as well as the dots inside the eyes.

Domi’Nick Student, sophomore interdisciplinary major

Q: What brought you to Temple of Flies?

A: Well I go to school here, there’s good food, and good art I pass by everyday!

Q: What’s your favorite component of the exhibition?

A: I like the color of the heads, they remind me of an interesting form of sculpture in a way.

Allyson Koch Student, junior painting major

Q: What is your favorite component of Temple of Flies?

A: I like the heads because they are very complex, very interesting. The size is what grabs my attention a lot. I like how the artists worked together to create these pieces.

Q: What brought you to Temple of Flies?

A: My Montserrat email, I was notified about tonight’s reception.

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Visiting Artist Kevin Townsend

Kevin Townsend is a Boston-based interdisciplinary artist whose work revolves around temporality and the depiction of drawing time through repetitive mark-making. He received his BFA from the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design as well as his MFA in Art Practice from the School of Visual Arts. Kevin’s work has shown both nationally and internationally, including his solo show TIME/LINE at Bluffton University in Ohio, Draw to Perform 2: International Symposium on Drawing and Performance in London, Drawing International Brisbane Symposium in Australia, and Art in Odd Places in New York City. In addition to his art practice, Kevin also teaches at Massachusetts College of Art and Design and School of the Museum of Fine Arts.

Kevin recently visited Montserrat’s campus working on his newest piece Accumulated Moments, on view in the Frame 301 through April 12th. The piece took around 12 hours and three ‘acts’, or rounds, to complete. Starting with a white wall, Kevin painted the entire surface a charcoal black and began applying white fluctuating strokes, with countless boxes of chalk in hand.

His work derives from a fascination with memory, the experience of “being in time”, and how to visually represent temporality. He describes time as having “depth, breadth, currents and flows— it exists simultaneously as individual moments and as a large sprawling body. Time is a sea. Time surrounds us; we can find ourselves immersed within it or skimming across its unpredictable and turbulent surface. . .and is always in transition— never still. Within this fluid, phenomenological model for time, obsession emerges as a tidal force, a storm of attention.”

Kevin’s work is durational and performative in spirit, serving as a form of its own documentation. It was in 2013 that he left representational drawing and pursued durational drawing, no longer depicting an image or ‘thing’, rather having the piece be the ‘thing’ and representing nothing other than itself and the passing of time during its creation. Because of this, the work transforms into a window into the past, allowing the viewer to get a glimpse of Kevin’s process, work, energy, performance, and progression of the piece itself.The viewer can simultaneously see the marks that began the piece as well as the marks that proceeded subsequently, minutes, hours, or days afterward. In this way the audience, artist, and artwork are connected and exist in the same time.

With this emphasis and focus on time, Kevin equally values the time he spends drawing and working as meaningful and crucial as what’s perceived to be the ‘finished product’. The idea of this ‘finished product’ functions predominately as a testimony only to what came before it and went into its conception. In order to remain authentic and genuine, Kevin rarely prepares any preliminary visualizations to work off of. He explains that all his work is intuitive and instinctive, allowing for his marks for flow freely and naturally without getting weighed down by the details. Kevin decides the piece is done If he pauses and contemplates what to do next for more than a minute to ensure that it only documents the organic and unrefined moments spent presenting the making of the work.

Written & Photographed by Cameron Foxhall ‘17

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Interview with Visiting Artist Jannie Ho

By Keely Quirk ‘18

Jannie Ho, also known as Chicken Girl, is a prolific illustrator in the children’s market, illustrating not only narrative picture books and novelty books but also products like stickers, cards, puzzles, and other toys for young children. After receiving her BFA in Illustration from Parsons the New School of Design in New York and working for some time as a graphic designer for Nickelodeon and Scholastic, and as an art director at TIME magazine for kids, Jannie now works full time as an illustrator with clients such as Target, Old Navy, Highlights for Children, Toys R Us, Penguin, and many more! Her first author/illustrator debut picture book, BEAR AND CHICKEN, will be published this fall by Running Press Kids.

Jannie works with digital media to create characters and illustrations full of innocence and charm that appeal to kids and adults alike; her use of shape and color never fail to bring out the joy in each piece she does.

In her recent visit to Montserrat, Jannie Ho participated in Montserrat’s visiting Artist program, giving a public talk about her work, as well as stopping by the classroom to speak with Animation and Illustration seniors. 

Jannie also took some time to answer a few questions as part of the Montserrat Galleries Take20 program which fosters communication between visiting artists and the Montserrat community, allowing students the opportunity to speak more in depth with artists. Keely Quirk, a junior illustration student at Montserrat, spoke with Jannie about her work, her process and her inspirations - here’s what she had to say!

KQ: How did you get/choose the nickname Chicken Girl?

JH: I don't remember when my love of chickens started, probably in my teens. Looking back, I had a chicken alarm clock that clucked when it went off during my childhood, so perhaps subconsciously it had an affect. In college, people started calling me Chicken Girl because I had a lot of chickens in my work. When I was thinking about a website domain name I went with chickengirldesign.com, and the nickname Chicken Girl really stuck online.

KQ: You received your BFA in illustration from Parsons The New School of Design. What kind of work did you do there and how do you think your work has evolved?

JH: I had gone to Parsons hoping to be in fashion design. I learned in my first year I liked illustration better. When I was there, I did not work digitally. My medium was gouache and during that time the internet and doing work on the computer was still a very new thing. I've always done work that was innocent. I also enjoyed doing abstract collages as well.

KQ: You mention on your website that you worked as a graphic designer at Nickelodeon and Scholastic after college - do you think that this work influenced your work as an illustrator? How did your process differ when doing this kind of work?

JH: I'm grateful I had the opportunity to work at these two places. I was a designer but the type of design was very illustrative and fun, so my illustration background really came into play. I was also able to commission illustration at these jobs which in turn helped me know about the process "behind the scenes." Becoming a great designer certainly helped me become a better illustrator. They go hand in hand.

KQ: How does your process differ when work on sequential illustrations for books versus doing stand alone image illustrations such as your ABC illustration or surface design?

JH: Sequential illustrations and surface design are are different industries and I treat them as such. They have different rules to play by. My artwork has a little bit of both and it is wonderful to get to work in both industries, sometimes the line gets a little blurred. One of the first thing is that in book work, there needs to be a unique character and storytelling, where surface design sometimes cater to a mass market and needs to be more appealing for a general audience, at least in the type of projects I get.

KQ: Do you do most of your work digitally? What do you like about working this way?

JH: Yes, it was not always this way. I use to pencil sketch and scan it in, work on top of it /re-draw it in Illustrator. Since then, I do my sketches in gray scale directly in Illustrator, which saves me a step of scanning. Deadlines and turnarounds are so tight that it makes my life easier. Lately, I've been using the Procreate app on the iPad Pro with an Apple pencil. I get to work on sketches on the go this way, and it is nice getting more of a hand feel back in my work.

KQ: Who are some artists that have influenced your work - either stylistically or conceptually?

JH: From childhood, one of my favorites was Richard Scarry, who wrote and illustrated Busy, Busy Town. During my art school days, J Otto Siebold blew me away with his style at the time and encouraged me that I could do children's books too. Now I've always been in love with many French illustrators; Marc Boutavant, Delphine Durand. I also love Mary Blair.

KQ: Do you have a favorite book that you have illustrated?

JH: They are like my children, it is hard to pick a favorite! But for now, a book that is very special to me is my first author/illustrator debut picture book, BEAR AND CHICKEN. It is being published by Running Press Kids this Fall.

KQ: Is there a type of work/a specific client/a specific project that you would like to do in the future?

JH: I would like to do more writing of my own books. I also have a secret wish of having my own animated series.

KQ: Where do you look to find inspiration for a piece?

JH: Inspiration comes from my daughter, who is now of the age group that reads picture books. As she gets older, I am hoping I can follow along and work on books for an older audience. I've always done very young work, for babies and toddlers.

KQ: Working with so many different clients, what are some things that you have learned about creating a brand/selling yourself in the industry?

JH: Do good work, always meet a deadline. Being an illustrator can be a very solitary industry but the tribe is such a great bunch, go out there and meet people, in person or online. Be involved! See if you can help someone else, start something fun. I'm constantly learning new things.