The concept for painter Lavaughan Jenkins’ new work “Reconstructed Figures”, currently showing at Abigail Ogilvy Gallery in Boston through October 1st, came to him as his ideas often do—in a dream. His previous series of oil paintings focused on texture in such a way that they could barely be considered entirely two-dimensional, given the way Jenkins slathered the paint onto the canvas. “I had a dream about them where I was walking through the paintings,” says Jenkins, “and that’s when I knew it was time for me to figure out how to make them three-dimensional.”

Jenkins’ interest in three-dimensional paintings centers around the idea of seeing the other side of the canvas, a concept that has fascinated Jenkins for years since he was an undergraduate at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. He returned to consult with professors who specialized in clay, but Jenkins didn’t want to use that medium. He wanted to sculpt with oil paint. “I figured since I’m a painter I should probably use oil paint,” he says.

The figures he created have skeletons of wire and molding paste with four to five dense layers—up to an inch-and-a-half thickness—of oil paint on top. These took Jenkins a year-and-a-half to complete and required a break from working on them before the show’s opening to give them time to dry properly. The pieces take up to four months to dry enough for travel and display, particularly in the leg areas, which Jenkins says are almost entirely made of paint, and in the sections using darker colors, which are more oil heavy.

Once dried, the figures are attached to spinning wood platforms and mounted on the wall to be presented as paintings traditionally are. The mechanism allows the viewer to experience the paintings from all vantage points, like the three-dimensional versions Jenkins imagined.

The figures are a manifestation of Jenkins’ own life, what he calls “the accumulation of things forgotten.” He points to images in ancient Egyptian art of figures called gift bearers, and he sees these figures within the same context. He is giving the gift of his life to the viewer.

“They’re like landscapes of my personal history,” says Jenkins. “My dad, women who have played a role in my life, mentors, artists who have helped me get to where I am right now. Those stories are now physical, and I won’t be able to forget them because they are documented.”

Jenkins still loves working in the two-dimensional, and his plan isn’t to move away from either that or three-dimensional, but rather to integrate them. One plan has him creating life-sized versions of clay and plaster. Another will find Jenkins creating portraits of his figures, which suits him fine.

“Everything that I do in 3D I’m going to end up painting in 2D,” Jenkins says. “I think they’re the best models now. They already look how I see the figures, so I don’t have to alter people, and also they don’t move, so they’re the best models. And they don’t complain about how bad I make them look.”

Lavaughan Jenkins–artist
Boston, Massachusetts
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Top image, Lavaughan Jenkins, all image courtesy of the artist

The post Oil Paintings Enter a New Dimension appeared first on Take Magazine.

Lisa A. Foster works from her sunlit home studio in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. A practice in line, form, and reproduction quilting fabrics that once lent itself as a coping mechanism for her childhood sexual abuse and resulting dissociative identity disorder, has transformed into a thriving professional career bolstered by unfathomable feminine strength and resilience. Now Foster’s art sings the song of women, telling the story of her past to give a platform for the broad and varietal female voice of the present.

Gesture On Green; 24″ Square | Photo by Kevin Downey

Foster has drawn since she was a child. She was always fascinated with line and form. Her grandmother, with whom she was close, was a quilter. Foster’s memories of Nana are of the floor of her workspace, collaged with quilting fabrics destined to become a blanket for her bed. This element of care has become a central theme in Foster’s process.

When she was pregnant with her first child—of which she has two, Forest and Summer—she developed an aversion to oil paints. “I immediately went to a quilting shop and knew just what I was going to start exploring,” she says. The new intolerance propelled her into sourcing reproduction quilting fabrics—old patterns recreated from the Colonial and pre-Civil War eras—in a way picking up where her nana left off. “That pregnancy gave me permission to explore the feminine medium. I felt an obligation to find something worth doing to replace oil paints,” says Foster. “At that point I allowed myself to leave that tradition and create my own with quilting fabrics.”

An unfinished piece in Lisa’s studio | Photo courtesy of the artist

Don’t mistake Foster’s work for collage. Her paintings, which manifest on stretched canvas in the form of nude self-portraits and hand gestures, are made with mixed media but result in a cohesive unit with indiscriminate compartments. “The hands and bodies are so symbolic, emotional and full of context. To take a nude female figure and attempt to simply make a shape out of it, well- it is almost impossible,” she says, “There is so much meaning and story to a nude female body and to a hand, that will never just go away, no matter how you pose or manipulate them. They are too powerful to diminish into mere form, this is one of the things I use and play with in my work.”

Foster wants each piece to seek justice in the battle for women, using pieces of herself, her past, her own story, and the resurrection of the feminine tradition of her Nana’s quilt-making. That physical phenomenon is exactly what Foster attempts to do with form in the abstract realm. The history and power of the woman to heal is expressed in Foster as a woman, as a survivor, and resonates through her work.

Bullets, Bombs, Grenades 72” x 48” | Photo by Kevin Downey

At this point, Foster’s work has grown to be completely independent of her troubled past. “I do at the end want to make my art broader. That feeling before of relying on my work to live just doesn’t exist anymore. It has really gotten to be a profession and gotten to be art. I’m not dwelling on my past and I don’t want my work to,” says Foster, “It’s an attempt to contribute to a very male dominated art history in a very female way. But it is also a plea to all of us to hear all the stories and all the cries of all the women.”

The Salon Show at Abigail Ogilvy Gallery | Photo courtesy of the artist

Lisa’s work has recently appeared in the Abigail Ogilvy Gallery and at Art Market San Francisco.

Lisa A. Foster–Artist
Longmeadow, Massachusetts
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All photos courtesy of the artist

The post Foster’s Care appeared first on Take Magazine.

Recently, it’s been the cultural trend to rope off the beginning of the year to catch up on all the moments, movies, music, and writings we missed last year. So, once you’ve caught up with Moonlight and/or finally get around to listening to the newest And The Kids album (released summer ’16), consider looking ahead to our Artists to Watch for 2017.

Though we do have favorites of our own, we could not adequately survey the region for artists to watch without consulting a few of our many trusted curators and friends: Abigail Ogilvy, Owner of Abigail Ogilvy Gallery in Boston’s South End; Randi Hopkins, Director of Visual Arts at Boston Center for the Arts; and Ian Alden Russell, Curator at Brown University’s David Winton Bell Gallery.

All of these artists sculpt, paint, record, and perform works worth following, especially considering our current social and political climate. Since we’ve recently been reminded that we cannot rely on the centralized leadership of our democracy to defend our integrity as human beings, or the integrity of thought through the defense of facts and mutual respect, we look to artists like these as our true cultural gatekeepers. The artists on our list are people we can trust to use bold expression, tenderness, and knowing imagery to question the status quo. Sometimes they hold up a mirror to our culture. Other times, they hold up a loudspeaker or a puppet mask, a paintbrush, a bouncy ball, or a digital camera.

These cathartic, sarcastic, pointed, paradoxical, and, most of all, inimitable artists are who we’re watching in 2017.

Nabeela Vega, Visiting Thahab (series, ongoing) | Photo courtesy Robin Allen LaPlante

Nabeela Vega | Boston, MA

Using photography, performance, and video, Boston-based artist Nabeela Vega creates immersive works that examine elements of our individual experiences of the social world as it intersects with identity, personal politics, and queerness. Oftentimes, the work calls into question our taken-for-granted notions about bodies, media, and gender. As Hopkins points out, “Vega’s rich exploration of the contemporary presence and experience of the Muslim femme takes forms that are performative, collaborative, generous, vulnerable, and exquisitely beautiful. The artist takes risks with their own body to think about our greater body as citizens and humans, work that feels vital and particularly brave today.”

Tanja Hollander | Auburn, ME

“This month sees the premiere of the entirety of Tanja Hollander‘s Are you really my friend? at MASS MoCA, the Maine-based photographer’s epic endeavor to photograph all 626 of her Facebook friends,” says Russell. “Bringing her across the nation and around the globe, the work probes the issue of friendship and connection in our digitally mediated age. Questioning the boundaries between personal, public, and online life, the project presents us with intimate portraits she took of the personal spaces and environments of the people she is connected to via social media.”

Teatime, 2016, Acrylic and mixed media on steel 18 x 12 in. | Photo courtesy Abigail Ogilvy

Katie Wild | Pawtucket, RI

“Wild’s striking, cinematic paintings transform the tradition of figure and portraiture to achieve a contemporary understanding of the human condition,” says Ogilvy. “In her most recent series, Steampunk, Wild references photographs she took of real people at a steampunk festivals. In 2016 she was a recipient of the Fay Chandler Emerging Artist Award in Boston, MA.”

Kai Franz | Providence, RI

“Originally from Cologne, Germany, Kai Franz makes sculptures and drawings that confront and complicate the relationships between process and artifact,” says Russell. “Testing and questioning the potential of computer-aided design while appearing as formal aesthetic statements in their own rights, Franz’s works and projects are strong examples of the tradition of critically and technologically-engaged art making in Providence.”

Mutsu Crispin, Mapping the Day, 2015, bouncy balls, plexiglass, stainless steel, 41″h x 41″w x 2.25″d | Photo courtesy Mitchell Giddings Fine Arts

Mutsu Crispin | Brattleboro, VT

Atlanta, Georgia transplant turned Southern Vermonter mutsu crispin (aka John DiGeorge) is a performance artist, filmmaker and. . .bouncy-ball sculptor? Last year, DiGeorge found a way to make those familiar, seemingly childish forms simultaneously fun and subversive. We’re sure we can find some comfort in these delightfully bright pieces as the year turns potentially darker. “. . . the balls float forward and back within their designs or wanderings, rhyming with their cast shadows, ghostly glows, nearby hardware and reflections,” says the artist. “These dear objects from our childhood are animated and transmogrified, speaking in a chorus at once lighthearted, humorous, mysterious, and ecstatic.

Matt Neckers, Crash Site, 2015, 72 H x 24 W x 24 in | Photo courtesy the artist

Matt Neckers | Eden, VT

“Neckers’ Portals hidden in forests, a rocket in a tree, a parachute caught in branches—Matt Neckers’ installations interrupt the serenity of the woods,” says Russell. “Fascinated by the impact of mechanization on our imagination, Neckers opens up earnest, generous, and sustained conversations about the world we inhabit, the others that may exist, and the precarious journeys between.”

Arien Wilkerson | Hartford, CT

“I am Arien aka TNMOT AZTRO aka ARI AZTRO.”

Wilkerson is one of Hartford’s many young Renaissance Men. His list of current projects is too long to add here; suffice it to say that Wilkerson, at age 25, is an uber-accomplished dancer, film artist, activist, artistic director, and overall creative mastermind. In the words of our dear friends at Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, “He’s too black, too vocal, and too flagrant. He’s also one of the few indispensable figures in Hartford’s ever-continuous push to art and cultural prominence. Say hello to the city’s new brash monarch.”

Toby Sisson, 2015 Black Tears, Ink and beeswax on paper 7″x5.5″ each, approx. 6.5’x16′ overall | Photo courtesy the artist

Toby Sisson | Providence, RI

“Toby Sisson‘s encaustic paintings and drawings rigorously explore the metaphoric potential of abstract form,” points out Russell. “Often contrasting shades of black with shades of white, Sisson’s works are informed by personal narrative and her mixed race heritage. Her images and forms offer open-ended prompts for poetic reflection on the assumed oppositions and conflicts with which we struggle—personally, emotionally, and socially.”

Michael Stasiuk, Marco the Magician, 2012, 25″ x 24″ x 10″ metal crumber pan, darning egg, rhythm stick fragments, assorted wood fragments | Photo courtesy Abigail Ogilvy

Michael Stasiuk | Portsmouth, NH

“His multimedia sculptures assemble found objects into playfully illustrated characters,” says Ogilvy, “each with a unique personality. His choice of material imparts a sense of nostalgia and memory, imaginatively re-purposing everyday objects that accompany us throughout our lives.”

J.R. Uretsky and Scott the cat | Photo courtesy the artist

J.R. Uretsky | Providence, RI

If you read Take, you already know we’ve had a crush on J.R.’s awkwardly signature brand of brave, big-feeling, truth-telling performance for a long time. Yet it’s not only her magically strange, emo-queer performances to watch out for in 2017. Specifically, it’s J.R.’s puppets that will lend you space to emote and bring us all solace as 2017’s social and political climate sags and twists. “The characters that emerge through her performances are relatable yet also alien and non-specific,” says Hopkins, “forging an ambiguous space where emotion is the remaining constant.”

Titus Kaphar, Space to Forget, 2014, oil on canvas, 64 x 64 x 2 3/4 inches | Photo courtesy Jack Shainman Gallery

Titus Kaphar | New Haven, CT

Kaphar creates new histories with each work he paints and sculpts. It’s through his careful reinterpretation of the past, mixed with artful exclusion and deconstruction of specific images that makes his work powerful, “In my work I explore the materiality of reconstructive history. I paint and I sculpt, often borrowing from the historical canon, and then alter the work in some way.” says Kaphar “I cut, crumple, shroud, shred, stitch, tar, twist, bind, erase, break, tear, and turn the paintings and sculptures I create, reconfiguring them into works that nod to hidden narratives and begin to reveal unspoken truths about the nature of history.”

Inside shot of Love Shack instillation featuring video loop of “Waking Up And Getting Up Has Never Been Easy”, instillation and video by Coe Lapossy | Photo courtesy the artist’s website

Coe Lapossy | Boston, MA

Ever wonder what it’d be like to wake up in a super-cozy, literally endless bed? Well, Lapossy has theorized it, and has many more other immersive, speculative works ready for the upcoming year. “Lapossy brings feminist sass and romantic charm to smart sculptural and installation work,” says Hopkins. “Pop culture seeps into her artistic vocabulary with ease, for example weaving 20th-century art history together with early 90s romantic-fantasy film in a setting that evokes the vaudeville vibe of the magician’s trick.”

Nabeela Vega – Boston, Massachusetts
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Tanja Hollander – Auburn, Maine
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Katie Wild – Pawtucket, Rhode Island
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Kai Franz – Providence, Rhode Island
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Mutsu Crispin – Brattleboro, Vermont
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Matt Neckers – Eden, Vermont
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Arien Wilkerson – Hartford, Connecticut
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Toby Sisson – Providence, Rhode Island
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Michael Stasiuk – Portsmouth, New Hampshire
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J.R. Uretsky – Providence, Rhode Island
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Titus Kaphar – New Haven, Connecticut
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Coe Lapossy – Boston, Massachusetts
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VISITING THAHAB AT SUPERNOVA PERFORMANCE ART FESTIVAL | PHOTO COURTESY THE ARTIST

The post Artists to Watch 2017 appeared first on Take Magazine.

There are plenty of places throughout New England where art junkies and collectors can access work from important and popular artists, alive and dead. Abigail Ogilvy offers patrons of her Boston gallery and art collectors a different experience; the opportunity to show, see and purchase art by our region’s emerging artists. She’s our direct line to these soon-to-be-famous artists and provides space for developing artists first individual or group show – those crucial moments of initial exposure in an ever-changing art market.

Mini Panda Yeux Violets, 2015 | 10.2 x 10.6 x 3.1 in., 3,600 straws

After graduating from Dartmouth with a degree in art history, Abigail began her career in the art world working for two galleries in Florence, Italy where she learned the art and science of representing living artists. After spending some time working in other adjacent industries and startups, Abigail decided it was time to start her own thing – a contemporary art gallery that focused on emerging and mid-career artists.

Abigail started by doing at least two to three studio visits a week, building mutually beneficial relationships with local artists. Now, after just one year of operation, Abigail’s dedication is paying off, “In just one year, three artists made it into the museum of fine arts summer auction,” said Abigail, “our artists [have been] picked up by other galleries and have been featured in other shows around the city…another one of my artists received the Fay Chandler Award.”

Framed Blue, 2015 by Katie Wild | Oil and acrylic on Plexiglas with paper collage and mixed media, 72 x 36 inches

In addition to showing and representing emerging artists, Abigail seeks to make the downtown Boston arts scene more accessible to all kinds of people. She accomplishes this through her programming at the gallery, hosting over 40 events in the last year ranging from artists talks to flower arranging classes. According to Abigail, it’s all a part of her strategy to diversify and enliven the Boston arts scene, “having events that aren’t necessarily just about the art – a combination of some sort of programming and the art, it get’s people in the door.”

In addition to broadening her audience of arts patrons and makers, Abigail also strategically works to lend gravity and importance to her emerging artists in the wildly competitive, nebulous art market. When curating group shows, Abigail mixes in lesser-known artists’ work with the work of more popular artists as a way to prioritize and legitimate the work of her emerging and mid-career folks. This selective and strategic arrangement asks audiences to contextualize the work of the undiscovered with that of the well-respected, “…it’s strategic in that I want people to think very highly of our gallery and our artists because they truly deserve that recognition.”

Town + Country, 2015 by Holly Harrison | 14 x 11 in., Mixed Media on Wood Panel

Over the next year, Abigail plans to bring her work outside the walls of her gallery and into other parts of Boston’s South End. She wants to bring her signature programming and novel artists’ work to new spaces all over the city like the Millennium Tower. It is in these new spaces where Abigail will engage new audiences and continue her invaluable work – ensuring the success of our next generation of artists.

Abigail Ogilvy is the curator and owner at ABIGAIL OGILVY GALLERY in Boston Massachusetts. Be sure to keep up with her rigorous line up of events and numerous exhibitions via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

All images courtesy Abigail Ogilvy

The post The Art of Emergence appeared first on Take Magazine.