Press

Series: Winged & Whispered

Art New England, August / September 2006
Fort Point Arts Community Gallery/Boston, MA
www.fortpointarts.org
August/ September 2006 

Kate Farrington: LOCAL POETICS: WINGED & WHISPERED

Tamara Krendel’s curatorial project winged & whispered brings together five artists who are at various stages of their careers. This is her fourth group show choosing artists who practice what she terms “poetic realism,” which is mirrored in the subjects of the artwork, all from nature: sightless and wingless insects, Luna Moths pushing out their wings, wintering clouds of monarchs, empty nests, and a butterfly collection underneath a silent screened-in porch

 Subtexts proposed through the interplay between the paintings, sculpture, and installation is just one aspect of this engaging exhibition. This show succeeds because the dialogue it generates resonates beyond both the physical and conceptual boundaries of gallery space. The gallery is an extension of a mezzanine-level café in the middle of the Fort Point arts district in Boston. Its permeable setting provokes creative exchanges as evidenced by the formal opening (which included a live jazz presentation by The Krendel-Clark group). The informal gallery talk by participants, and the poetry reading by artist/poet Jenny Lawton Grassl. Maxine Yalovitz-Blankenship’s oil paintings employ symbolism about treasures from her life: paper birds from carnivals, nests, and keyholes that she elegantly described in her gallery talk. 

Krendel’s luminous watercolors convey the same care and dedication it takes to raise moths for two years, which she did for primary research in her studio, foregoing even leaving for summer vacation. Riyo Hiroto’s tiny silver forms combined with wood express her desire to communicate in a technically very difficult and demanding format. The semi-abstract, heavily loaded oil paintings of Elizabeth Awalt play on the modernist grid, such as in two small works in which strokes of paint create a rough screen to separate us from the moth and dragonfly caught behind. Lawton Grassl’s Cornell-like box constructions house pinned-down lines of poetry, perhaps referencing her childhood memories.

- Kate Farrington

Series: Animals Dreamed & Dreaming

The Boston Globe
Oct. 24, 2013
Cate McQuaid, exhibition tips

ANIMALS: DREAMED & DREAMING

Seven artists delve into the metamorphic power of animals and their worlds in this show, curated by Tamara Krendel. Protean, wild, and sometimes absent, they may suggest something of ourselves. Through Nov. 24. Concord Art Association, 37 Lexington Road, Concord.978-369-2578, www.concordart.org

- Cate McQuaid

Series: Winged & Whispered

The Boston Sunday Globe
Arts & Entertainment

July 20, 2008

Bugging out
Critters large and small and no need for bug spray

…and they’re not the only critters that have the art world abuzz.
By Cate McQuiad, Globe Correspondent

Order Insecta at Concord Art Association, 37 Lexington Road,
Concord, Through August 14 978 369 2578 concordart.org

“…Watercolor is the perfect medium to capture light shining
through a moth’s wings, and Tamara Krendel does a haunting job
in “Luna,Backlit” making her moth dark and monstrous, with lurid, green-yellow wings…”

-Cate McQuaid

Series: Tamara Krendel Greenhouses

Hobby Greenhouse, Summer 2006

Please click image to enlarge.

Meredith Goldstein, “Quick Picks”, The Boston Globe, Dec. 9, 2005.

Series: Cats and Caged Birds

ART NEW ENGLAND

August/September 2004

Essex Art Center/Lawrence, MA 
www.essexartcenter.com

FINNED & FEATHERED

“Without showing any detectable style biases, curator Tamara Krendel identifies the work of five artists included in this exhibit, which is broadly based on birds and fish, as poetic realism. She augments the visual presentation with written poetry, having asked each artist to submit at least one poem for the gallery notebook. The opening reception featured readings by Jenny Grassl, whose poems are also in the gallery; their typography and layering are as inviting as an artist’s sketchbook. Krendel’s sensitivity to both the natural world and poetic interpretations of it has toughness and wit, dispelling any criticism of identity politics that might be associated with the exhibit’s celebration of Women’s History Month. From the ironical leaps through history watched over by birds in Gail Boyajian’s five paintings to the droll, voyeuristic curiosity of pigeons courting and mating in Linda Price-Sneddon’s video, intellect and edginess face off against tenderness and often quite sumptuous color. The artists’ commitment to idea balances, if not overtakes feeling. In her poem, Price-Sneddon writes of “Vulnerable Tenacity,” an apt description of the forces of nature observed.

The thickly applied paint and fluid marks of Laurel Hughes’s and Elizabeth Awalt’s paintings fervently connect with their subjects. Hughes’s chickens are depicted close-up but generalized, their body language and postures telling all. Awalt, with great range and rich palette, manages to paint a reflected sunset immersed in all its exquisite drama without an ounce of sentimentality. Krendel explores the metaphors of a caged bid with fluent brushwork and an eye for lyrical light.

Not surprisingly, most of the selected poems are image and nature centered (Mary Oliver was the choice of more than one artist). As noted by Krendel, the poet as muse or inspiration is not the intention; rather, the artists and poets meet in their observation of nature as a vantage point for perception.”

-Meredith Fife Day

Series: Tamara Krendel Greenhouses

Art Matters. VOL.6-NO.9 JUNE ’87
Exhibitions In Sight

by Burton Wasserman

“Chrysanthemum Greenhouse in Morning Light,” by Tamara Krendel at Widner thru June.

“Variations of human form and many different flowers all figure quite prominently in the two solo offerings currently on view (through June 27) at the Art Museum of Widener University in nearby Chester. Specifically, they consist of paintings by Tamara Krendel in which colorful blossoms appear repeatedly, and sculptures by Anne Oldach in plaster, fiberglass and bronze, embodying 3D presences with such titles as “Mountain Child,” “Wood Nymph” and “Walking Man.”

Dealing directly with subjects as diverse as rhododendrons, delphiniums and day lilies, Krendel exercises considerable poetic license, freely transforming the shape of growing plants and botanical settings in which they’re found into oil and watercolor compositions rippling with light and patterns of excitement. Poetic transcriptions of her most naked perceptions, these pictures are not observations based on external realities as much as they are playful inventions; inspired composites of jewel-like incandescence, sparkling vitality and imaginative joy.

Most interesting of all Krendel’s designs based upon greenhouse interiors. Powerful images in which the perspectives are suggested by the architectural construction are counterpointed by a profusion of assorted plant forms. They manifest an offbeat balance of agitated vitality and earthy strength.”

-Burton  Wasserman

Series: Tamara Krendel Greenhouses

The Boston Globe
August 8, 1985
Critic’s Tip

“Boston painter Tamara Elizabeth Krendel has a reputation  for lovingly detailed watercolors of greenhouse interiors. Krendel, who has painted greenhouses in America and Europe, recently spent a year painting some of the most beautiful examples in New England, capturing the way light shining through the glass affects the colors of delicate petals and leaves. Krendel’s work is on view through Aug. 30 in the Hunnewell Visitors Center of the Arnold Arboretum on the Arborway in Jamaica Plain.”        

–Christine Temin

The Boston Globe, Friday, May 10, 1985
CRITICS’ CHOICE

“Paintings Through Glass Houses – Tamara Elizabeth Krendel recently spent a year painting watercolors in New England Greenhouses. At the Hunnewell Visitors Center, Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain, through August 30.”

-Robert Taylor

Series: Tamara Krendel Greenhouses

Hobby Greenhouse, Vol. 11 No. 2, Spring 1989

Noted Massachusetts Artist Paints Pictures of Greenhouse Interiors
By Jan Hale, Bedford, MA

“Gordon College in Wenham, MA, recently hosted an exhibition of paintings by Tamara Elizabeth Krendel whose superb paintings of European and American greenhouse have earned her an international following.

On exhibit were twenty of Ms. Krendel’s recent works in both oil and watercolor including both greenhouse interiors and gardens. Two 48” x 38” oil paintings of greenhouse interiors were a glorious rendition of the sight we all long for when opening the door to our greenhouses. The array of flowering plants was captured in glowing, bold colors and shapes. The greenhouse benches and other paraphernalia were depicted in strong, solid strokes that conveyed their structural integrity.  You could feel the plants growing in the light that poured through the glass roof.

Two watercolors were of particular interest since they were of night  scenes in a greenhouse. How many of us have gone into our greenhouses at night for a last check and seen the outlines and subdued colors of our plants and flowers in the dusky light with the sky above? Ms. Krendel has faithfully painted this picture to evoke the same feeling of a mysterious vibrant plant world waiting for the dawn.

Ms. Krendel’s paintings are realistic in that particular plants-orchids, streptocarpus, etc.-are readily identifiable; however, she has achieved this realism with bold, controlled strokes and a minimum of fussy detail. The result is that the plants live and their delicate beauty is felt as well as seen. Space, atmosphere, and perspective are achieved with the good structural shapes of the greenhouse and equipment.

In the artist’s statement she says:

“I paint from direct observation choosing a subject which intrigues and captivates me, and choosing a period of light which evokes the particular spirit of the place or subject.

“I work for stretches of light no more than three hours on each painting. In some cases returning to catch the same period of light for time periods of several months, and in others, of several years. While painting, I remain as receptive as possible to the feeling and physicality of the place or subject. As things change and grow with the light over time within the particular setting, they affect and alter the structural variables within the painting and the perceived reality is established. In this way I am able to get closer to the mysterious spirit and poetry of light and place.”

Ms. Krendel studied painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Belgium, the University of Pennsylvania where she received her MFA, and at Yale University. She has had numerous exhibits and her paintings hang in collections in the U.S., Europe, and Israel. She teaches painting and she also accepts commission work. Her paintings will be on exhibit again from June 12-Sept. 18, 1989 at The Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain, MA. If an exhibition of her paintings should come your way, don’t miss it.”

- Jan Hale