We've moved! Find us at 238 Bridge st, Northampton

Artworks by Heath artist Frederick Burrington, October 3rd to November 2nd.

Frederick Burrington is a seventh-generation resident of Heath, a small rural town (pop. 706) in the Berkshire foothills at the VT border. He describes Heath as a place where land and sky meet, where future and past coexist in an uneasy truce, where nature transcends the human presence. The light and landscape here can haunt and beguile — it is an endless source of inspiration for him. It is also place with long agricultural traditions and a deep reverence for the land. He seeks to document and preserve the landscape, history and traditions in his art for future generations and those who have yet to discover this beautiful place. Frederick creates his highly-detailed realist artworks in a variety of traditional mediums: oils, egg tempera, pastel, watercolor, and ink. He explores different mediums as he continues to explore the land and sky.

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 3rd, 5-8pm, during Amherst Arts Night Plus

About Frederick Burrington:
Frederick has been fascinated by light and landscape since childhood. He has exhibited his work locally since 1984. He lives in Heath, with his wife Victoria, in the house his family has lived in for four generations.

Cover image: detail from “Stones“, pastel, 2019

Photography by Gregory W. Brown, September 5th – 28th

Landscape photography requires patience and a willingness to look and listen slowly. Imperfect Horizon is an unconventional collection of landscapes that highlight unusual perspectives and aspect ratios. Many include subtle or abstracted man-made elements, both in the images and in the techniques used to render the images. The images as a whole create a fragmented horizon-line — spanning time, place, and technique. The exhibit includes photographs shot with digital and film cameras.

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 5th, 5-8pm, during Amherst Arts Night Plus

About Gregory W. Brown:
Gregory started taking photographs in his teens — shooting 35mm and developing and printing in his school’s darkroom. His interests shifted to music in the mid-’90s and he went on to become a composer and conductor (MM, DMA) with several CDs of his music currently available. The last several years have seen him return to photography as a balance to his musical pursuits. He shoots both digital and analog cameras in a variety of formats. Learn more about Gregory at: gregorywbrown.com

How old were you when you created your first artwork?
I was always making noise when I was a kid, so I think my first artwork would have been musical and very disorganized. I did a lot of photography in high school — developing the negatives and printing in the darkroom. That was really the first time I was creating anything that I would still stand by today and call ‘artwork.’

How has your style changed over the years?
I’m a terrible judge of my own style, so I really can’t say.

When did you know you wanted to be an artist?
I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

Why did you choose your medium?
My sense of medium is extremely fluid, so I’m not sure I ever really choose. It’s more like the idea chooses the medium. I sometimes have ideas that I understand to be best rendered in a medium that I have no abilities in, so I just enjoy it in my head and then let it go, or try to share it with someone who has those skills.

What inspires you?
The big things grow out of very small moments or ideas. I get inspiration from a lot of different places, but it’s almost always the finite and narrow that lead me to the best results.

Where do you work?
Wherever I am.

What is your creative process like? How do you work?
I’m not much for keeping schedule. I’m constantly thinking about the projects I’m working on, but the hands-on work generally gets done whenever I feel moved to get at it — or based on a deadline.

What do you like about being an artist in the Pioneer Valley?
I love being surrounded by so many people who are similarly moved to create and share their creations. When I am working on landscapes the light is marvelous here. It’s no wonder that the area has been a home to landscape artists going back to the early 19th century and earlier.

What is your favorite piece that you’ve created?
I think the favorite thing of mine that I’ve created is a piece for choir called un/bodying/s, which is inspired by the creation of the Quabbin Reservoir. I had the joy of working with an amazing poet (Todd Hearon) and choir (The Crossing) to create something that speaks to the most human and intimate aspects of life as they relate to the elemental forces that shape our geography and economy. When Innova created the CD they used some Quabbin photos of mine (one of which is in the show) for the cover and liner art.

Paintings and drawings by Greta Gundersen, August 1st to 31st

Greta Gundersen was a prolific Belchertown-based artist who passed away in 2017. This exhibit is a selection of oil paintings and graphite drawings from her large body of work.

Greta was primarily a painter of abstract landscapes. She described them as “[hovering] between abstraction and representation.” Her works have an ethereal quality. The drawings have identifiable single subjects — bats, birds, bulbs of garlic — but they exist in a hazy liminal space. She captured the essence of her subjects and gave us delicate images that feel like dream visions preserved before they fade upon waking. Her paintings extend this dreamlike quality. There is no immediately discernible location, and often a simple title gives little clue, such as “Landscape #45” or simply “Untitled“. But these pieces draw us in, they speak to the non-verbal part of us, the places we can’t describe clearly but we know exist. These are transitional images that exist between what is and what might be.

“I strive to create a picture plane that does not admit to being a painting, to blur the border in between the air surrounding the work and the work itself, to create a place of enigma that people can stand in front of and enter into in whatever way they choose. A successful landscape painting is one that seems familiar yet not readily identifiable — is it sky, land, water, or something else altogether?”

These works are being made available by her husband Peter Lobdell so they can be seen and appreciated – to get her work out of storage and back out into the world. For this reason they will be priced at less than half their appraised value. Near the end of her life, a gallerist and art critic wrote to Greta, “Some people leave children behind them, but you will leave paintings. And they’re good paintings, works that will be able to make their way in the world when you’re not here.”

Opening Reception: Thursday, August 1st, 5-8pm, during Amherst Arts Night Plus

Hear Greta Gundersen talk about her work in this wonderful video shared with us by Shoshona King.

About Greta Gundersen (1952-2017):
A native New Yorker of Norwegian descent, Greta Gundersen lived in New York City, California, Spain, and South America. From 1981-1990, she was the director of BACA Downtown, a nonprofit visual and performing arts center in Brooklyn, where she curated more than 80 exhibitions and nine years of theatrical programming, which earned her an OBIE “for keeping experimental theater alive and well in New York City.” In 1990 she became the Artistic Director of The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council at the World Trade Center. For over 10 years she served as a panelist and consultant with The Rockefeller Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., The Jerome Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, The Jim Henson Foundation, among others, reviewing work by artists and organizations from around the country. She left New York City for western MA in 1995 to paint full time. She had been an Artist-in-Residence at the Millay Colony for the Arts in New York, and at Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic, and apprenticed with painters Miguel Arguello in Spain and Francisco Ruiz in Colombia. Her work was featured in numerous exhibitions in galleries and museums in the US and abroad including: Gerald Peters Gallery, New York, NY; Thornwood Gallery, Dallas, TX; Gerald Peters Gallery, Dallas, TX; Amsterdam’s, New York, NY; TNT Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; and Fair Oaks Gallery, San Francisco, CA. Learn more about Greta at: gretagundersen.com

Banner images:
“The Nascent Shift – AM”, oil on canvas, 20×20″, 2015 (detail)
“The Nascent Shift – Twilight”, oil on canvas, 20×20″, 2015
“The Nascent Shift – Night”, oil on canvas, 20×20″, 2015 (detail)