“Animals: Dreamed & Dreaming“

Concord Art Association • Concord, MA. Concordart.org • October 19–November 24, 2013

Curated by long-term painter Tamara Krendel and two years in the making, this imaginatively and considerably stretches the concept of “animals.” The works by nine artists range from realistic and representational to fanciful and electronically produced. Some suggest forms in the process of emerging, others portray stasis and calm. They enact the theme across painting, sculpture, prints and installations.

A number of the most interesting interpretations are abstract. Elizabeth Awalt creates a series of circles taken from the form of frog eggs. These are exceptional in both color and layered form. In larger oil paintings she captures the swirling momentum of eddies on ponds. Some, such as Swimming in Circles, suggest insect or animal life caught in the moving whirlpool.

Susan Heideman represents nature in very large sewn watercolors with collaged monotype fragments. Her Proteanna series shows nature and its denizens constantly evolving in gracefully arced compositions that recall Chinese landscape painting scrolls.

Modern technology informs the light installations of Beth Galston and the kinetic sculpture of Steve Hollinger. Emerging from a sea captain’s box placed in a fireplace, sparkling lights suggest the flight of fireflies that Galston saw from her porch in Carlisle at dusk, evoking a dance of light and evanescence. In Hollinger’s Pods, strings with glass containers surround mechanical seed-like elements to create continuous sound as well as sight.

Created more traditionally, the small box-wood carvings of Anne Oldach represent with skill and humor an octopus, a manatee, a caterpillar and other creatures large and small . An encaustic and mixed-media collage of a shining frog is vibrant and amusing. Also traditional in representation are curator Tamara Krendel’s watercolors, with her cat as featured feline muse in a number of drawings.

The works in this exhibition, inspired by the animal and insect worlds, range from tiny (a mere two inches) to tall (some 8 x 5 feet). The most exciting are installations that recreate a world of wonder and diversity. Yet each vision is different, as the media change from traditional to experimental. The Concord Art Association, founded in 1917, has attracted artists who practice an impressive gamut of media, as reflected in this special sampling.

– Alicia Faxon