Gallery Talk

On November 1st, The Fitchburg Art Museum hosted an open gallery discussion with three of the artists featured in the Land Ho! exhibition, Sally Curcio, Sandy Litchfield, and Sue McNally. The artists were invited to converse about their works and the inspiration that brought them to life. The artists all spoke about the roots of their pieces and what truly motivates them. This was my first gallery talk and it was a more than remarkable view into the artist’s world.

The first artist to speak, Sandy Litchfield, elaborated on how she draws much influence from maps. She uses them as reference points for the layouts of her paintings, mixing and matching different maps and landscapes. She works on assembling the foundation of her artwork until she is pleased with it and wants to develop it further. I immediately drew a connection between Litchfield’s approach and how the curators of FAM assemble exactly which canvases they want their in the exhibit and where. Litchfield continued by explaining that her vision for each painting isn’t loyal to one specific place but rather a collaboration of locations and landscapes. This artist and her artwork ultimately relates back to one of the big themes of Land Ho! which is a mixture and collection of landscapes and artists.

Sally Curcio then enlightened the audience about her unique bubble sculptures. The bubble sculptures themselves invoke a sensation of intimacy. They are smaller in scale and invite the onlookers to investigate the details that Curcio has laced into each one. Every time I take a closer look at the sculptures, I always think about the even smaller people and creatures than might inhabit the landscapes she’s carefully crafted for us. Curcio carried on by stating that, at beginning her process with the sculptures, she grew fonder of the idea that each artwork has a “flavor of sweetness” and found that the artworks succeed with just a sampling of sweetness. If you take a look at all of her work, the vibrant colors and the whimsical shapes of the items she has chosen to function in the sculptures absolutely give off this vide of sweetness.

Concluding the discussion was Sue McNally who pulls inspiration from her roadtrips around the United States. She travels across the country, experiencing a multitude of scenary and paints her works based on her recollection of the most vivid landscapes. McNally dissected her artwork further by saying that “I make representational paintings with a bunch of little abstract paintings within them.” This statement interested me and after the gallery talk had finished, I explored her work further. If you section off different portions of any of her paintings, you can definitely see that the sections themselves could be their own works of art. This idea alone gave me a new perspective on the exhibit and I found myself taking a look at many of the works that I had already become familiar with in order to find similar instances of more works of art within the works of art.

Land Ho! will be displayed in The Fitchburg Art Museum until January 10, 2016. Be sure to check it out and experience the art for yourself!