Jan. 17, 2019
NORTH ADAMS, MASS. — Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts’ (MCLA) Gallery 51 is pleased
to announce the first exhibition of 2019 “Colour and Form: Beauty in Abstraction”
will open on Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019, and remain on view through March 16, 2019. The
public is invited to attend a free opening reception on Thursday, Jan. 24, from 5
to 7 p.m. at Gallery 51.
“Colour and Form: Beauty in Abstraction” features works by Kathline Carr, Dawn Nelson
and Sarah Sutro. Collectively, their work explores the beauty, complexities, and depth
of abstract art, and how it inspires our curiosity.
“I believe the enduring interest in abstract art lies in its ability to inspire our
curiosity about the reaches of our imagination and its potential to create something
completely unique,” said
Arthur De Bow, curator at Gallery 51.
Using the international spelling of “colour” signifies the geographical reach of the
artists exhibiting work. “These artists have shown their work and instructed others
all over the world,” said De Bow. “The work displayed in this show has that same international
significance.”
Carr’s paintings and monotypes utilize the landscape as a point of departure for abstraction.
Her work explores form, process-driven failure, visual poetics, insouciance, dereliction,
reiteration, elegance, memory, light, contradiction, and deep rich black.
Carr (North Adams, Mass.) received her BFA in creative writing with concentrations
in visual art and feminist philosophy from Goddard College in Vermont, and holds an
MFA in visual arts from The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. She is the
author of Miraculum Monstrum, (Red Hen Press 2017), winner of the 2015 Clarissa Dalloway
Book Prize and was Best Book Award finalist in the category of fiction: cross genre.
Carr’s writing and art have appeared in Alexandria Quarterly, Entropy, Yew, Calyx,
Connecticut Review, Hawaii Review, Earth's Daughters and elsewhere; she has exhibited
in the Berkshires, New York City, Boston, Toronto, and Provincetown and is represented
by Fountain Street Gallery in Boston.
Nelson takes an instinctual approach to her paintings, utilizing large, layered washes
of color combined with gestural marks that drip, erase, recede, and emerge from these
layers.
Nelson earned a bachelor of fine art degree from Illinois Wesleyan University and
a master’s in education from Lesley University. In 2014, she retired from a 30-year
career as a middle school art teacher. Nelson splits her time between Jamaica Plain,
Mass., and North Adams, Mass.
Sutro’s paintings are also inspired by landscapes. She utilizes paint strokes, color,
textures, scraped lines, tones, and lights to create works with vivid horizontal lines.
Sutro (North Adams, Mass.) earned a bachelor of fine art from Cornell and Yale, and
a master of fine art degree from University of the Arts in London. With solo and group
shows in Boston, New York, San Diego, Berkeley, Belgrade, Bangkok, Montenegro, Dhaka,
and London, her work is in collections locally and internationally. A recipient of
a Pollock Krasner Grant, she has been a resident at the American Academy of Rome,
MacDowell Colony, Ossabaw Island Foundation, Millay Colony for the Arts, Blue Mountain
Center, and Art Dulcinium, Montenegro. She has for many years been a faculty member
at colleges and universities, including Emerson College, AIB at Lesley University
and Mass College of Art and Design. Her work can be seen in Joseph Carroll and Sons’
Boston Drawing Project. She is also a poet and writes articles and reviews for American
Arts Quarterly. Her book, “COLORS: Passages through Art, Asia and Nature” is in its
second edition (2011).
MCLA Gallery 51 is a program of MCLA’s Berkshire Cultural Resource Center (BCRC).
Through its various programs and initiatives, BCRC delivers cultural experiences that
embrace a wide range of aesthetic and conceptual points of view to support a diverse
and vibrant North Adams. The gallery is open Monday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.,
and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. For more information, call 413-662-5320 or go to www.mcla.edu/gallery51.
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) is the Commonwealth's public liberal
arts college and a campus of the Massachusetts state university system. MCLA promotes
excellence in learning and teaching, innovative scholarship, intellectual creativity,
public service, applied knowledge, and active and responsible citizenship. MCLA graduates
are prepared to be practical problem solvers and engaged, resilient global citizens.
For more information, go to www.mcla.edu.
For downloadable images: www.flickr.com/photos/bcrc/sets/72157688819950773/.
