Gary Bower - These paintings, the Walmouth set, were inspired by earlier work done in Whitewater, Walmouth County, Wisconsin over 30 years ago. That earlier set used only black lines on a white ground. They were stark, cold and restrained, and they have haunted me for sometime. Most of my non-objective work since then had been packed with mark and color. They were dense and overwrought. They were built slowly and resembled masonry rather than open calligraphy.

By contrast, these paintings relate to their earlier counterpart: open, spare and dependant on drawing rather than a gradual accretion. Like much drawing, these either work or not: there is no fixing. I know within three sessions whether the piece might survive; only half do.

Like most of my non-objective work, this work only seems to be successful at this modestly large scale. The size of the gesture and mark is critical. When the shape scale is large enough, the invoked space can be consequential. This condition also allows the deployment of the incised hard-edged line to both mock or emphasize the fluid drawing as well as fragment and undermine the organic.

I habitually write on the back side of the canvases. Often I quote prose, either fictional or not: sometimes I quote my own journals. In the set shown here, I have quoted sonnets by Jenny Koortbojian and various haiku poets. The economy of these forms seems fitting for this work.

Peter Monroe - Green Houses of Massachusetts

Monroe's new work features 20 vibrant prints of old green (and one blue) houses in the fading New England towns of Holyoke, Chicopee and Pittsfield.

Why green houses? “It’s my favorite color like my father’s. The houses are different than the upper middle class suburban homes in which I grew up,” he
explains.

Much like the houses he has vividly photographed, Monroe obtains the absolute highest reproduction and color quality by exclusively using discontinued and/or
out-of-style photo technology. The 20 images, which took over seven years to capture and print, were shot with a Linhoff Technicardin 4x 5 camera, color negative Pro 100 film (since discontinued), printed on Kodak Ektacolor Supra paper (since discontinued), and printed in his bedroom darkroom, again featuring
discontinued products like the Jobo light-tight drum.

“My philosophy is: if I am not doing everything the opposite of everyone else in the world, I’m on the wrong track.”

Laura Evans - Constructions or Work on Paper

(materials include: paper bags, acrylic gel, shellac, gouache, wax, thread)

By using brown paper lunch bags which are familiar and commonplace, Laura Evans integrates the repetitive rhythms and rituals of everyday domestic life into a construct for her art. This work on paper bags has roots in the anonymous handwork and pieced quilts of America’s past and also references Minimalism.

These bags have been used and show evidence of their former lives. They were containers for lunches, hardware, coffee and bagels, or other small purchases. Because they are mass-produced, they are often printed with logos, numbers, recycling symbols and even the names of the factory workers who make them. The paper is sometimes treated with acrylic gel, shellac, paint, wax or stitched with thread, but often it is allowed to be it’s plain self. Even though, by definition, paper bags imply a modular sameness, each of these works reveals Idiosyncrasies. They are part of an American vernacular.