BRATTLEBORO — Beginning May 5, The Dianich Gallery will exhibit new work from Massachusetts artist Molly Hatch. The show will run through July 30.
Hatch designed her newest body of work, titled “Passage,” with the gallery space at The Dianich in mind - a space distinctively suited to sculptural floor pieces. While she is better known for hanging plates on the wall as paintings, “Passage” is largely focused on sculptural objects displayed off of the wall, with only two of the five pieces in the show hanging.
Featuring new ceramic sculptures and drawings, the inspiration for “Passage” comes from both historic and contemporary textiles and patterning found in home interiors.
“Stack I,” “Stack II,” and “Stack III” play patterns off of each other in the way one might find pattern combinations in a home and concentrate the eye on these juxtapositions, encouraging the viewer to see the patterns and colors in a new way.
“Wall Stack” engages pattern similarly, juxtaposing a pattern on the side to a pattern from a head-on view, an optical play that encourages the viewer to walk around the piece, viewing it from all sides as a three-dimensional painting.
To bridge past work with the formation of this new body of work, Hatch has included one small wall painting of 16 plates titled “Passage,” which explores the geometry in pattern through the combination of a geometric contemporary block pattern and a historic 18th century Chinese foliage pattern.
The Dianich Gallery exhibits work from artists in Vermont and the surrounding area.
Hatch, a Florence, Massachusetts-based artist who grew up on a dairy farm in Vermont, is the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of painters. She received her BFA from the Museum School in Boston in 2000 and has recently shown work at the Philadelphia Arts Alliance and The Museum of Fine Arts in 2013. Her work is currently installed and included in the permanent collection of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.