BRATTLEBORO — Three new exhibits featuring sculpture, painting, and video open at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) on Friday, May 9.
“Cloaked and Revealed: Sculptural Paintings by Marela Zacarias,” “Opposing Forces: New Paintings by John Gibson,” and “All the Days of the Year,” a video installation by Walter Ungerer will be on view through June 22 - along with the continuing “Flora: A Celebration of Flowers in Contemporary Art.”
A free, public opening reception for the new exhibits is set for Friday, May 9, at 5 p.m. at BMAC, 10 Vernon St.
In “Cloaked and Revealed,” Zacarias forms window screens into large, sinuous shapes that she paints with bold colors and geometric patterns. Her “sculptural paintings” billow across walls or envelop everyday objects - a television, a tricycle - evoking both sumptuous textiles and Depression-era public murals, while reflecting her interests in the histories of objects and sites, and in politics and current events.
Zacarias will discuss her work at BMAC on Thursday, June 5, at 7 p.m.
Gibson paints pictures of balls - individually and in groups, each colorful orb covered in designs of dots, stripes, swirls, or other patterns.
Gibson, based in Easthampton, Mass., and a professor at Smith College, says she paints balls “because they are the most simple and fundamentally different thing from the flat surface of a painting that I can think of. I like that elegant opposition of forces. Every day I try to wring a 'real' ball out of a flat surface, and every day I can't quite do it.”
Gibson will give an artist talk at BMAC on Thursday, May 15, at 7 p.m.
“All the Days of the Year” by Ungerer, an experimental filmmaker, is a visual and aural meditation on place. Ungerer recorded 10-second segments describing a 360-degree view from a point on a Maine hillside overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
Filming at different times of day and night, in all seasons, in varying weather, and simply taking in the sights that entered the camera's eye for a year, Ungerer draws attention to the often-overlooked everyday beauty of a place.
Ungerer will host an exhibition of his works over the weekend of May 16-17 at the Center for Digital Art (www.centerfordigitalart.com), 74 Cotton Mill Hill, Brattleboro.
“Flora: A Celebration of Flowers in Contemporary Art” examines the influence of flowers on visual artists. “Like their living models, the artworks on view offer us objects of beauty and contemplation,” BMAC says on its website.
Artists include Bobbi Angell, Marta Bernbaum, Amber Cowan, Floyd Elzinga, Tom Fels, Janet Fish, Richard Jacobs, Robert Kushner, Tanya Marcuse, Nan Montgomery, Anne Morgan Spalter, Christina Stahr, and Jimmy Wright.