Simmons University presents Point and Counterpoint , an exhibition of paintings and prints by Juan José Barboza-Gubo, Jennifer R. A. Campbell and Sydney Hardin from March 18-April 18 at the Trustman Art Gallery, located on the fourth floor, Main College Building, 300 the Fenway in Boston. A reception from 5Ð7 p.m. will be held on Thursday, March 21. Closed April 15. The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public.
Art is rarely made in a vacuum. The artists presenting in Point and Counterpoint slyly and overtly make the contemporary viewer aware of the ongoing visual legacy. They use iconography, art historical and pop references in multi-layered ways. Their images astound with technical virtuosity. This conversation across centuries and the shifting nature of arts’ meaning through time will pique both the initiated and those who are fresh to the discussion.
Juan José Barboza-Gubo, a Peruvian artist now working in Boston, presents both prints and paintings from his St. Sebastian series. His technique is multi-layered in both mediums. Barboza-Gubo uses religious imagery from the Renaissance and Baroque eras to explore emotion, suffering and the exploration of self and society in images that are violently fractured. Clarity and pure aggressive use of media war within the work. The meaty colors literally bring to mind the violence of the martyrdom of the saint in Sebastian Series, his 60″ x 96″ tumultuous evocation in oils.
Jennifer R. A. Campbell is a Canadian, currently based in Boston, who populates her large Bruegelesque scenes with contemporary people. We see global warming or class disaffectation through the lens of history and the 21st century. The Good Citizens League is a mix of bucolic perfection and a fight for resources, with some lust thrown in. A tray of sweets as might be offered at high tea are so richly painted as to make our teeth hurt at the excess. Like the Northern Renaissance artists, the level of detail and illusion of space in the landscape eerily creates a fully realized world.
Sydney Hardin considers the feminine in a funny but disturbing way, by painting homages to historical images featuring a nude blowup doll as her protagonist. The doll is mostly deflated, reinforcing the deflation of an actual woman, as in so many art images. Her Inflatable Love Doll Descending a Staircase , like its Duchampian reference, plays with the viewer’s expectations and wittly overturns them. The crisp edges and flattening color shapes are at odds with the limp and perpetually surprised doll.
Our continuing Lunchtime Lecture Series on April 3 at noon, will feature Professors Margaret Hanni and Gregory Slowik of the Department of Art and Music, who will explore how Baroque art and music speak to each other Ð their embrace of a spiritual message, the means by which each conveys emotion, drama, transformation, and their delight in complexity and layered meanings.
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.