Opening Reception:
September 13, 5-7 p.m.
Simmons University presents Nona Hershey – Rewired, from September 5 – October 4 at the Trustman Art Gallery, located on the fourth floor in the Main College Building, 300 The Fenway, in Boston. A reception from 5 – 7 p.m. will be held on Thursday, September 13. The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public.
Master printer and draftsperson Nona Hershey presents lyrical work that pushes and pulls space and shape. Current work engages with the “techno-chatter” of our world full of unseen transmissions, while older work plays with the pentimento of surface.
Hershey’s technical expertise allows the surface texture, color and optical effects of lines to immerse the viewer into a world of uncertainties. In Can You Hear Me Now, the title of a five panel work of graphite and gouache on paper, that most prosaic of statements is imbued with a sense of menace. The clouds’ ethereal color seems to have leaked from the orange radiating lines of static that travel across the surface. The towering clouds suggest an Albert Bierstadt painted storm while the frenetic orange lines elicit a desire to wear a safety helmet. Hershey asks, “What don’t we see? How are we as organisms being affected by the continuous streams of data crazing our sky?”
The Wire Series, an earlier body of work produced in Rome of intaglio monoprints with hand drawing, shares a common sensibility of seen and unseen with the recent work. Wires concretely described, pop out from complex textures. The images’ background surfaces evoke Roman walls, conjuring centuries of human activity. The walls’ mystery is hinted, nothing is certain. The wires in the foreground, clearly seen now, posit a future where they too will sink into oblivion, barely remembered.
Nona Hershey’s work is humanist; its beauty serves to draw the viewer into a discussion of the ephemeral, mysterious and uncomfortable questions of life. More work by Hershey will be on view in September at Soprafina Gallery, 450 Harrison Avenue, in Boston, see: soprafina.com.
Trustman Art Gallery hours are 10 AM – 4:30 PM, Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, 10 AM – 7 PM on Wednesday and Thursday. The gallery is free, open to the public and wheelchair accessible. For more information, contact Kyle Mendelsohn at (617) 521-2268 or find us on Instagram.