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Conditions Altered

Dominick Takis and Bo Petran
March 4-April 23, 2022
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 17, 6-9PM
Closing Reception: Thursday, April 21, 6-9PM
Atlantic Works Gallery
80 Border Street, East Boston, MA 02128

Contact; contact@atlanticworks.org; 857-302-8363
Artists:  Dominick Takis: nicktakis@hotmail.com, Bo Petran: bopetran@comcast.net

Reviewer: B. Amore; amoreb@earthlink.net  917-748-3661

Dominick Takis and Bo Petran are two artists in love with materiality. Takis is a lover of nature, obsessed with the qualities of lichen, its texture, colors, and shapes. He makes use of actual lichen as well as creating lichen-like textures through means as varied as spray foam, caulking, screws, and paint. A sense of mystery abounds in the built-up layers, and they continually entice the viewer to look even deeper.

His knowledge of color relationships is a key. In the sometimes-dense thicket of the wall reliefs, bright elements catch the eye. Often, they are tesserae, small mosaic-like squares in primary colors of red, blue, or yellow, that glow out of the strata of lichen and branches, as in Altered #3 where they are like dots of blue sky around the central cloud of a bee’s nest. At other times, Byzantine or Renaissance faces will appear as if out of a fog of history, to surprise us with the contemporaneity of their gaze, reminding us that we may not be as distant as we think.

There is an iconic or shrine-like quality to the work which is quite arresting. They are three-dimensional palimpsests, each layer causing us to look beyond the surface of what lies before our eyes, discovering more loving touches, more surprises, more mystery created by this painter-sculptor who is clearly in love with nature, paint, history and a deeply rooted European sensibility.

Petran’s works, carefully chosen for major impact, are larger canvases that punctuate the white walls. The surfaces of the paintings are highly sculpted in acrylic medium. In  Untitled #3, the black and silver surface is roiling with energy. The rhythm of the motion over the entire canvas is a tour-de-force of painting, with the artist in skillful control.  Sensuous and full of motion, the surface looks like molten metal.

Untitled #2, in silver tones, is more lyrical. The patterned painting has a lighter touch and is enlivened by what looks like flecks of iridescent metallic powders. In Untitled #1, a field of flowers, is delicately configured. The petal-like shapes stretch before the eye, filling the landscape of the mind with a hopeful feeling.

The textures of Untitled #4 rise off the surface as if they might flutter up in a soft wind. Each one is carefully delineated, both contrasting and blending with the entire field. Two hanging sculpted forms, White Flower and Grey Flowers, animate the gallery space and dance with the branches of Takis’ energetic creations.

Conditions Altered is a reminder of the constant changes present in our lives, particularly during the pandemic, and brings attention to the inherent beauty that can be discovered by an adventurous eye. The sense of exploration and excitement of both artists is palpably present. The collection of works is a perfect blending of the transition from winter to spring and well worth the visit to the Atlantic Works Gallery, at the edge of Boston Harbor in East Boston.

Ian Babylon and AWG are inviting you to a scheduled
Zoom Opening Reception and super fun Dance Party!

WHEN: Friday, November 13, from 7:30 p.m. to…??
WHAT: Artist Talk: 7:30 – 8:00 p.m.
WHAT: Dance Party: 8:00 – 9:30+ p.m.

Housekeeping: Upon joining make sure your video is ON, audio OFF, and ensure you’re set to MUTE, unless you’re an exhibiting artist, or you’ve “raised your hand”

Dance Partiers are limited to the first 100 folks joining, so if you can’t get immediately onto the Zoom channel at 7:30, check back in at 8 or 9 p.m. No Cover! BYOB. We want you to join in!

Join Zoom Meeting

 

Gather round Netizens and let me sing to you a tale of the trim-ankled artists of Babylon & Co. We’ll talk, toast, and offer insight for this exhibition at Atlantic Works Gallery. Dialogue to conclude at 8 with more toasting, fun times, exhibition images set to good rump shaking music, with obligatory silly Zoom faces for what will surely be a lovely time. Looks like there are reasons to dance again. Save a spot for me on your dance cards for when we can do this in person?
See you there Sailors. xoxo IB et al.

Yesterday evening’s poetry reading with Joel Sloman

PoetryReading

Joel Sloman

 

The Atlantic Works Poetry Reading Series Continues on April 24th with a reading by poet Joel Sloman. A gallery party kicks off at 6:00pm, with the readings beginning at 7pm. Refreshments will be served.

Joel Sloman was born in Brooklyn in 1943 and grew up there.  In 1966, he became the assistant director of The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery, under its director, Joel Oppenheimer, and edited its journal, The World.  He is the author of Virgil’s Machines (1966), Bus Poems (1992), Stops (1997), and Cuban Journal (2000).   His most recent publication is a chapbook, Off the Beaten Trakl (2009).  Since 1969, he has lived near Boston, presently in Medford.

“Sloman can evoke sensory impressions with thrilling, hallucinatory precision; among them his anxious questions vanish and reappear like pilgrims wandering in an immense but enticing forest.” (from the preface to Stops (1997), Denise Levertov)

Kythe Heller’s poetry reading, scheduled for Thursday, January 23, 2014 (7-9PM) has been cancelled.

Heller will be joining us again at Atlantic Works in March, date TBA. Stay tuned for updates.

The Atlantic Works Poetry Reading Series opens on September 19th with readings by poets Erica Anzalone and Andrew K. Peterson. The reading coincides with Atlantic Works’s exhibition, Through & Through. A gallery party kicks off at 6pm, with the readings beginning at 8pm.

 

Erica Anzalone holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she was awarded a Schaeffer fellowship. Her first book, Samsara, is the winner of the 2011 Noemi Press Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Hotel Amerika, Pleiades, the Colorado Review, and many other journals. She is currently Book Review Editor of the literary magazine Interim.

Andrew K. Peterson‘s poetry books include some deer left the yard moving day (BlazeVox Books 2013), Karaoke Lipsync Opera (White Sky eBooks 2012), and Museum of Thrown Objects (BlazeVox 2010). His chapbook bonjour meriwether and the rabid maps was runner up in Fact-Simile Press’ Equinox Chapbook Contest and was published in 2011. He edits summer stock, an online literary journal.