Opening Reception:
April 20 from 5-7 P.M
Simmons University present Substantiation, an exhibition of mixed media drawings by Deborah Coolidge and photographs by Brooke Hammerle from April 18-May 22 at the Trustman Art Gallery, located on the fourth floor, Main College Building, 300 The Fenway in Boston. A reception will be held on Thursday, April 20 from 5-7 P.M. The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public.
Substantiation explores nature by using methods and imagery that poetically re-connects us to the material world. Deborah Coolidge’s tree images evoke memory and describe matter. Her textural drawings of trees in color and black and white are wonderfully descriptive and curiously metaphysical as she personalizes and abstracts each individual tree. Brooke Hammerle’s photographs depicting flowing water from the series Songs of Light evoke sound and movement while describing abstracted textural light and water. The work is mysterious and ethereal.
Deborah Coolidge received her MFA in ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her engagement with material is still evident in her drawings. They start with rubbings of trees; the furrows and knobs are the initial investigatory method in her process. As she works she deepens her understanding of the tree’s individuality as she both abstracts and particularizes her conversation with these stately living organisms, building layer upon layer of mark-making. Quercus weetamoo. N41°35.5’W71°11.1′ (oak, Weetamoo Woods, Tiverton) created with graphite on paper, calls to mind the compressed energy of this venerable tree. The tree seems to have a dark pelt scrabbled over with fragmented lines and circular shapes.
Brooke Hammerle’s peripatetic childhood and eclectic educational experience studying both painting and photography led to a long career at Brown University as photographer for the Bell Gallery and the Art departments. Hammerle’s Songs of Light series depicts her fascination with the musicality and rhythmic interplay of a stepped waterfall near her home in Providence RI. In Symphony III, scribbling lines of light undulate across a dark background suggesting mossy wetness and nothing in this world at all.
As Shakespeare’s Hamlet declares, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” These two artists manifest that sentiment with their lyrical drawings and photographs.
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.