Powerful works on display at ‘Impact! Abstract’ exhibition
Twiggs Gallery in Boscawen has opened its 2022 season with “Impact! Abstract!” featuring the work of six local artists and on display through May 28.
“It showcases artists boldly approaching abstraction in completely different ways with a wide variety of media,” Twiggs Gallery Director Laura Morrison said. “Most of the artwork in this exhibit is on the smaller side, yet each piece really stands out on its own. It’s very powerful work.”
Each of the six artists answered a few questions via email about their inspiration and techniques.
Ann Saunderson
Acrylic, mixed media, oil & cold wax, monotype
What draws you to abstract art?
At first abstraction was just a challenge after having been a landscape and narrative painter all my life.
What was your artistic process in creating pieces for this exhibition?
It was surprisingly difficult to switch over and loosen up enough to enjoy the process. Once I accepted that I could paint over layers it was easier. And oil and cold wax helped and added the possibility of texture. Most of my work is really quite accidental. I may start with a theme, a concept, and then halfway through there’s a moment where the paint and I change directions and truly I’m just along for the ride.
How does your work in this exhibition make an impact?
My work is pretty dynamic. It doesn’t have answers and leaves a great deal up to the viewer. I love color and texture and I think those factors also give my paintings impact.
Daniela Wenzel
Oil painting, assemblage, ink drawing, driftwood pyrography and improvised quilt making
What draws you to abstract art?
What excites me about abstraction are the endless possibilities to depict facets of everyday life and the environment, without portraying clearly recognizable subject matter. An abstract work of art can mean many things to different viewers. I am specifically drawn to the emotional capacity in abstract art and its utter unpredictability. I rarely have a definite vision in mind when I start a new piece.
What inspired your choice of materials?
I enjoy free experimentation with color and techniques, pushing boundaries and being resourceful with my materials.
What was your artistic process in creating pieces for this exhibition?
While time stood still at the height of Covid-19 in the spring of 2020, I found myself home with my kids on the days I wasn’t working at Elliot Hospital. My three Lego assemblages were created due to lack of time to paint in the studio. A lover of any kind of colorful visual vocabulary, I improvised my art making and created simple color abstractions. I specifically enjoyed playing with color theory and depth by layering different shapes and hues. Legos are an incredibly fun and abundant art supply and after repeatedly stepping on them I realized they could be more than nagging booby traps. For the two oil paintings included in the ‘Impact! Abstract’ exhibition I also used pigment sticks, which are basically solidified oil paint in the shape of a thumb-sized crayon. The use of these is more immediate and less deliberate and the marks noticeably different than from a paint brush.
How does your work in this exhibition make an impact?
The paintings both reflect and resonate the same playfulness and positivity as the Lego assemblages. They contain colorful pattern work, evocative shapes and a variety of paint application techniques to carry a sense of spontaneity.
Kate Higley
Printmaking
What draws you to abstract art?
I was a painting major as an undergrad, discovered printmaking in my early 30s, and fell in love with the way it has to be done step by step. The focus on process slows me down in a good way.
What inspired your choice of materials?
These particular prints are intaglio drypoints. This means that the ink is snagged inside the lines rather than flowing across the surface. I use an expanded plastic material for the plate and all kinds of sharp objects to make an image. It is then inked, wiped, and put through a press onto dampened paper.
What was your artistic process in creating pieces for this exhibition?
The gallery inquired if I could submit some black and white images. With three older plates on hand, I printed those, became engrossed and created four more plates specifically for this exhibit. The incentive was the invitation and I think Laura Morrison, the curator, used the absence of color to break up the other more vibrant work in a lovely installation.
How does your work in this exhibition make an impact?
My interest is inventing small organisms swimming or tangled in imagined aquatic or marine environments. The concerns are ecological and environmental. As an abstract artist, my aims are quite different from those who work toward realism. Texture, movement and repetition are all used to create a mysterious and engaging space where the viewer can consider not just what is present, but what might be happening outside the picture place.
Ethel Hills
Acrylic
What draws you to abstract art?
I started in abstract art almost accidentally. I was working in watercolor and started using a wet in wet technique to drop unusual colors into my landscapes. That led me to being more experimental and more colorful, letting go of realism in favor of design and color. The bottom line is that I’d much rather have a luscious crazy colorful painting than one that looks like a photograph.
What was your artistic process in creating pieces for this exhibition?
The pieces in this exhibit were painted with lots of play and experimentation. I put shapes and marks on the panel or canvas and then keep playing and experimenting, looking for surprises, and looking for what speaks to me. At some point in the process I start to see what the painting is about. At that point the refining, rearranging and adjusting are a bit easier, because I have an emotional direction for the painting.
What inspired your choice of materials?
Acrylic is a great medium for this type of playing around, trying things out and changing things.
How does your work in this exhibition make an impact?
Hopefully these paintings make people think and make them smile. In general, I think that abstract art asks more of the viewer. The artwork isn’t always a quick read. It’s an invitation to look and think and feel. My paintings are kind of two sides of a coin. The ‘Mud Season’ ones are dark and rich, but with strong lights. They’re the contrast between the dark and messy parts of life and the brighter things, such as hope and joy. The brightly colored ones, from the ‘Early Spring’ series, are joyful and reminiscent of the contrast between snow and the coming spring. But that’s just my read on them. Everyone gets to bring their experience to the work and make their own judgments and their own stories.
Grace Mattern
Mixed media collage
What draws you to abstract art?
I’ve been a writer since I was young and have published two books of poetry. … Poetry is an abstraction of sorts, using as few words as possible to express the meaning of moments and events in our lives. Ten years ago I began to make image-based collages, layering figures and backgrounds to reflect multiple dimensions. That led me to an interest in combining image and text to create an additional layer of meaning. From there I began to make abstract collages because I was intrigued by the process of creating meaning without representational images. I enrolled in an online course in abstract collage in the spring of 2021. Through that class I learned different techniques for mark-making and printing collage papers and committed to a regular practice of collage-making. I’ve been regularly making abstract collages since.
What was your artistic process in creating pieces for this exhibition?
The pieces in the exhibit were created using techniques I’ve learned over the past year. The pieces arose from experimentation with techniques and materials and building trust in my instincts regarding composition and how to create meaning through abstraction.
What inspired your choice of materials?
I’m intrigued by meaning that can arise from unexpected combinations of materials. Sewing on paper, then painting the paper and cutting out shapes is included in three of the collages in the exhibit. I’m also drawn to the effects of layering transparent paper with varied prints, and what can emerge from that process. That’s reflected in the pieces in the show also.
How does your work in this exhibition make an impact?
As a longtime writer and somewhat beginner visual artist, I’ve always struggled with the question of how art has an impact in the world. I’m a lifelong social justice advocate, and worked for the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence for 30 years. The current focus of my activism is racial justice and land conservation, which overlaps with recognizing the ongoing contributions of indigenous peoples who have stewarded this land for thousands of years. I believe that the act of creation itself is activism, as it’s a gift to the world to express ourselves through art, music, poetry, etc. I hope the impact of my work in the exhibition is to create excitement in people to find whatever creative expression is meaningful to them and put it out into the world.
Becky Barsi (Artsy Barsi)
Interdisciplinary with a focus on mixed media assemblage
What draws you to abstract art?
The element of experimentation, chance, and the unknown draw me to create abstract compositions.
What was your artistic process in creating pieces for this exhibition?
It all started by deconstructing a bullet and playing with the gunpowder inside. After a few singed fingertips I learned how to safely control this mild explosive. Following these experiments I considered the broader significance of this media and how it could be juxtaposed with traditional art media.
What inspired your choice of materials?
So much of my life is lived in motion. Going, going, going. I often forget to stop and observe the subtle details of the life around me. … ‘Texture in Motion’ is a response to the chaos of a life that had intended to be more reflective and aware. Developed over the past year, this mixed media work was created as a meditative process and bridges three unique media. The work plays with the physical properties of a fluid medium, bending and twisting, sometimes colliding with colors (acrylic ink). It is balanced by the varied, yet structured, textures that are interacted with on a daily basis (security envelopes) and are tied together by the contrasting unpredictability of a volatile explosive (black powder). This work is a reflection and metaphor of a life.
How does your work in this exhibition make an impact?
There is a visceral reaction to working with gunpowder that can’t be avoided. The anticipation of the ignition, when the flame touches the volatile grain, adds an extra beat to the rhythm of my heart. The chance, the unknown result of this material instantly impacting the surface and surrounding materials, adds to the anticipation and impact of this process.
A poet’s perspective
New Hampshire poet laureate Alice B. Fogel (2014-2019) will be at Twiggs Gallery On Saturday, April 16, from 1 to 3 p.m. She will be reading from her new book of poems inspired by abstract expressionist art, Nothing But: a series of indirect considerations on art & consciousness. There will be a book signing opportunity after. The event is free but seating is limited; reserve a ticket at twiggsgallery.wordpress.com.
How did you use abstract art to inspire your writing?
What I wanted to do was to start with abstract expressionist artworks — without describing or explaining them — and bring to language those same disruptions to our stream of consciousness that occur when we encounter the unexplainable. … I’m so grateful for the opportunity to transcend mundane logic by means of nonrepresentational material — mineral, color, form, texture, light, shadow — I hoped the poems would create a conversation about reality, illusion, embodiment, perception and thought itself.
Was there any piece in particular that originally made you think, ‘This could be the basis for a poem’?
The very first poem I think I wrote for this series was based on my response to a painting called ‘Field Notes, No. 59,’ by Andrew Moore, that I saw in a gallery in Asheville, North Carolina, Blue Spiral. (The poem is ‘Notes for 59,’ which opens the book.) I was so taken with it that I began to contemplate how abstract art, while not representing recognizable, ordered figures from our daily lives, can still represent a great and necessary part of our primal or archetypal human experience. I wondered if language could confound and re-orient us the same way.I took off from there.
How did you find the artwork that you drew your inspiration from? Local galleries? Online?
Some of it was from galleries, and a very few from artists whose work I already knew. But because I was injured and immobile at the time, I found most of it online through websites. Not the best way to view art, but it was a life-saver that I could view it at all.
Why abstract as opposed to representational art?
If I saw a painting and I could say, ‘That looks like a tree/house/river/anything!’ then I wouldn’t use it for this project. I didn’t even like using a totally abstract painting if it had a title that was too directive, like ‘Loneliness’ or ‘Rain in Winter.’ … I wanted to be affected in my heart or my gut or my skin while being clueless in my mind. I’m basically examining consciousness itself, building up a first-person plural, collective conversation, poem by poem, about reality and illusion, embodiment and spirit, perception and thought, as well as about art itself. Whether my response was infused with humor or wonder or ache, the art became … akin to a religion — a way to access the transcendent by means of pure material.
Explain the subtitle of your new book.
Thank you for asking about this.The book starts with an epigraph from William James’s The Stream of Consciousness, written in 1892: ‘Consciousness is in constant change … a series of indirect considerations…. The only breaches that can well be conceived to occur within the limits of a single mind would … be interruptions, time-gaps during which the consciousness went out….’ The book’s subtitle reflects that concept. … It’s probably no surprise … that these poems are not narratives or linear lyrics. So I also hoped that by providing a pretty concrete hint of what the poems are after, the subtitle would help people know what they were getting themselves into.
Twiggs is calling this exhibition “bold and powerful.” Do your poems fit that description as well?
That’s not for me to say, but that’s definitely how I think of the art that inspired the poems in this collection.
Featured photo: “If only…” by Ann Saunderson. Courtesy photo.
