My very dear friend, artist Lee Essex Doyle is exhibiting her newest work at Childs Gallery in Boston in a solo show called Chimera. Lee is many things—mother, friend, artist, and traveler. Her wanderlust defines her style and her work.
Lee excels at capturing the essence of a place in her delicately and boldly colored and detailed works, which depict architectural impressions of her journeys, from India to Greece to Italy to Havana.
Here is a sampling from the beautiful show:
Chimera by Lee Essex Doyle at Childs Gallery, 169 Newbury Street, Boston through August 30, 2019.
Last weekend I held a pop-up art gallery event on the Cape. My husband hung 96 works of art on our very bare white walls. It was so much work, but it looked fantastic, and ultimately everyone had fun. We even sold some pieces.
We hung oil paintings, acrylic on board, ink and pastels on rice paper, collage, acrylic on canvas, encaustic, and others. Styles included graphic abstracts, abstracted landscapes, portraits, marine-inspired abstracts, and more. We also had a lot of photography, which I will post next Monday.
Here is a sampling of work we displayed from 18 different artists. You can check out some installation photos on my StyleCarrot and StyleCarrotCurates Instagram accounts, as well as some artist’s feeds; we used #artandcocktailstruro. If you’re interested in learning more about or purchasing any of these pieces, email me at stylecarrot@gmail.com
Kristi Kohut, Chromatic Harmony #12 Acrylic, ink and pastels on Mulberry rice paper, 11.5×16.5 inches, $840
Jenny Prinn, Sun on the Shore Acrylic on canvas, 24×24 inches, $1,100
Carolyn T. Burns, Can We Get a Puppy? Acrylic on canvas on panel, 10×8 inches, $400
Kishore Kumar, Exuberance 1
Acrylic on canvas, 12×12 inches, $250
Lee Essex Doyle, Prada I Palazzo Papadopoli Turquoise, Venice
Mixed media, 12×12 inches, $2,000
Amanda Hawkins, Untitled 2015
Acrylic on canvas, 14×14 inches, $375
Maureen Holub, Taffy Acrylic and mixed media, 24×18 inches, $850
If you’ve been reading ARTmonday regularly you know I am a devotee of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston art sale. I have yet to attend the MassArt Auction, but with my new burgeoning curatorial career I am very excited to go to this year’s art auction on April 9, 2016.
I am also thrilled to have been invited to the Montserrat College of ArtArtrageous!30 Auction, which is this Saturday, April 2, 2016 in Gloucester. Montserrat College of Art is an accredited art school in Beverly, Mass., on the North Shore.
There are 16 pieces in the live auction, including work by my friends Lee Essex Doyle and Tess Atkinson (who is part of the Webster Art Project I curate). I saw many of these artworks a few weeks ago on exhibit at NAGA Gallery on Newbury Street and they’re quite wonderful. You can check out my @stylecarrotcurates Instagram for some installation shots. They’re tagged #artrageous30.
The silent auction includes over 120 artworks, including abstracts, landscapes, photography, collage, sculpture, etc. My absolute favorite piece is She thought it was love but it turns out to be adult onset ADD by Marcia Hermann, below.
Throughout Artrageous!, Montserrat students and faculty will create artworks live while you watch. Questions are encouraged, and all works will be available to bid on as they are made. In addition, there are 200 raffle tickets on sale for $100 each. The winner gets to choose any item from the live or silent auction.
The pieces are all online, though to bid you either need to attend or contact Montserrat for a bidder proxy.All proceeds raised at Artrageous!30 help provide funding for financial aid for Montserrat students.
Here are my top 15 picks from the Montserrat College of Art Artrageous!30 Auction.
Bayview Lane, Amanda Hawkins
Acrylic and charcoal, 12”x24”, $500
I love when I have the opportunity in my work to showcase local Boston artists and makers. For the last couple of months I’ve been working on a interior decor scheme for a model apartment at Troy Boston, a brand new, upscale, “green” rental building in SoWa. It’s a little outside my usual scope of projects and it’s been fun. You may have seen the initial post I did about it, when I was determining the color scheme for the apartment—Impressions: Creating a Color Palette of Charcoal + Dusty Rose. The final palette is indeed based on this post, with plenty of textural elements, including velvet, sheepskin, cork, plywood, and copper.
The best part has been curating the artwork. The art collection is the distinctive feature of the overall design and I hope people will view it as an exhibition rather than mere decoration. The pieces, which include paintings, photographs, sculpture, and mixed media pieces, are all done by New England-based female artists. Some of these Boston artists are talented friends (Lee Essex Doyle, Tess Atkinson, Grace Hopkins), others are young artists whose pieces I’ve purchased over the years at the SMFA Art Sale (Laura Beth Reese, Eugenie Lewalski Berg), others are artists I’ve become familiar with through blogging (Cig Harvey, Alicia Savage, Anastasia Cazabon, Anna Kasabian, Rachel Cossar, Winky Lewis, Jenny Prinn), and others are Boston artists who are new to me (Heather McGrath, Linda Cordner).
I knew from the start that I wanted to include a statement artwork of a partially obscured woman; a moody fashion-y photograph of an elusive woman. I was able to get a few, though no oversize pieces due to the prohibitive cost of printing. Nevertheless I think the collection will hold together well. At the end of this post, you can see my current hanging scheme for the main wall, and for over the bed. I also plan to print a few of my own Instagram photos to pin or (washi) tape up.
Here I present to you the Troy Boston Model Apt #1409 art collection featuring over a dozen Boston area artists. I hope you love it and will learn more about these talented women, all of whom have generously lent me their artwork.
Winky Lewis, Portland, ME Black and white photo of the artist’s daughter
Eugenie Lewalski Berg • Six Couples Cast concrete relief with graphite and oil pastel
Boston, MA
Linda Cordner • Bayside Sky • encaustic
Linda Cordner created this large encaustic for the apartment after seeing my color palette inspiration post.
SoWa, Boston, MA
Tess Atkinson • Vista Series
Color photograph face-mounted on plexiglass
Boston, MA
Heather McGrath • Sunset in Iceland Color photograph printed on sheet metal
SoWa, Boston, MA
Anna Kasabian, North Shore, MA Tide Pool III • stoneware
This many not be the exact piece that will hang. Anna Kasabian is lending me three pieces, which I will see when she drops them off next week.
Jenny Prinn, Maine
Little Footsteps I • Oil on canvas This is not the exact canvas I’ll be hanging. Jenny Prinn has graciously offered to paint an original work for the project.
If you’ve been following my art posts for a while, you’ll have seen work by my very talented, very dear friend Lee Essex Doyle. Two years ago Boston’s Childs Gallery showcased “Dreams of Dawnridge,” watercolor paintings based on the glam Los Angeles home of artist and designer Tony Duquette. In 2009 I featured her “Postcards from India” series depicting impressions of Indian temples and palaces in Rajasthan, which she showed at Peter Marcelle Contemporary in New York. (I am lucky enough to own two from that series.)
Lee Essex Doyle’s newest show, “Illuminated Moments” opens at Childs Gallery on Newbury Street in Boston this Thursday, January 22nd, 2015 (previewed on Artsy). The works are inspired by Doyle’s recent travels to Venice and Havana. This latest series of watercolors reflect the vibrant light of the two cities. The palette is more pared down than in years past, but the compositions just as masterful and the lines and patterns as intriguing and pleasing as ever. The stairways, with its curlicue railings are invitations to explore and the lanterns and chandeliers are enchanting.
I can’t wait to see Lee and her beautiful paintings in person on Thursday, but until then we can gaze at these . . .
Study for Palazzo Cini, Venice, 2014
Prada II Yellow, Venice, 2014
Prada II Giustina, Venice, 2014
Cini Panes Grey, Venice, 2014
Study for Palacio de la Condesa de Revilla De Camargo, Havana, 2014
Door to Palazzo Polignac, Venice, 2014
Study for Palazzo Priuli, Venice, 2014
Study for Scoula Grande Stair, Venice, 2014
Courtyard, Palazzo Grimani, Venice, 2014
Study for View across Fondamenta Osmarin, Venice, 2014