Gurari Collections is pleased to present Japanese artist Mitsushige Nishiwaki’s third solo exhibition of copperplate etchings in – URBAN ICONS, March 6 – June 28, 2020.

Mitsushige Nishiwaki’s imaginative use of iconic urban scenery are the backbone of his etchings. Whether it is Paris, London or New York, his work is fanciful, yet reminiscent and familiar, offering narrative stories that have an “outsider art” point-of-view. Due to their gigantic scale, Nishiwaki’s silent, but animated figures, populate his work with child-like expression.

Our experiences in travel, to the cities he depicts, use historic urban icons that are familiar. What becomes revealing, is that Nishiwaki seems to make each culture immediately identifiable by using these icons as actors in his large and small sized etchings.

Rooftops turn into outward expressions of the private lives and activities from within. Street scenes are naïve and whimsical, often presenting everyday contexts – the bakery, flower shop, and the like. All of his characters, buildings and people, contribute to the universal familiarity of urban life. 

In some of Nishiwaki’s artwork, scale relationships are exaggerated, creating juxtapositions in the composition. This mixing up of scale enhances the story that is being told. His art turns urban fabric and city living into matter that heightens and amuses us about urban dwelling.

Beginning in 2009, and self-taught in intaglio, Mitsushige Nishiwaki’s etchings are on copperplate. For highlighted color, he etches on plastic so as to intensify the color. Dating back to 1584 the German Hahnemuhle paper he uses is of the highest excellence as is the Charbonnel etching ink Nishiwaki uses. His larger works are made up of a series of abutting small print-plate sizes, providing a visible armature for the artwork. 

Nishiwaki is a graduate of Hosei University in Tokyo and received a graduate degree in graphic design while studying in Arizona. He works as an artist and graphic designer in Tokyo. His artwork has been exhibited in Japan, France, England and the United States.

Gurari Collections invites you to see URBAN ICONS,  an exhibition of etched work-on-paper.

In Wendy Artin’s new exhibition, Révèle, the American artist explores absence, beauty and the corporeal in her representation of the human form.

Révèle brings together 57 pieces in watercolour, charcoal and chalk on white or brown paper capturing both live models and statues, all caught in a fleeting glance that belies stunning craft.

The work reflects an ongoing conversation around stone and flesh that Artin has pursued as one of the world’s most brilliant watercolourists, while pushing her into new technical achievements.

“Artin’s work oscillates between the effortless grace of the human body asked not to move and the stillness of marble that craves to move,” says André Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name. 

The collection also includes stunning watercolours of summer figs and peaches, which Artin captures in all their juicy decadent flesh. 

“If you thought the peach in Call Me By Your Name was hot, check out Wendy Artin’s,” says says Aciman. In his latest book Find Me, he also shares an appreciation with Artin for the most ambrosial fruit of all, the fig. 

In Révèle, Artin shows fragments of the human body, allowing the viewer to imagine the rest. The light chalk or brushwork adds to our sense of a fleeting glimpse, caught in time.

“Having the information be just barely there, almost there, or suggested, allows for breath, for relief,” says Artin.

“The space to breathe has always been for me the white of the paper,” she says. “Using brown paper instead meant doing something different. I wanted them to look as if they had just happened, like, poof! The white chalk barely grazing the surface before flitting off again, like pollen.”

Fragments reveal, give meaning, beauty, perhaps unease. Here the human body is present in all its pulsating life, its joy and fragility. The live models are in voluptuous poses, sprawled out after merriment and bacchanal.

“They’re a celebration of our round bodies, velvety torsos, our smooth skin reflecting who we are in all our lovable fascinating seductive selves. All too often hung shamefully in the bedroom or bathroom, we need to liberate the nude,” she said.

Artin lives with her family in Rome. The once upon a time nomad arrived there 25 years ago, where she would start a rock collection in hopes of weighing her down to one spot.

“I still think about those rocks when I think of the materials that I use. The rocks are the chalk and the charcoal. Watercolour is like flesh, while charcoal and chalk are hard and cold, but give the illusion of light and depth and warmth,” says Artin.

The Eternal City provides one side of the coin in the fountain for Artin, with its classicism and its eloquent light being a constant companion.

And if nudes can cause the eye to avert, statues invite closer inspection. With all Artin’s work, the viewer is drawn in and up close rewarded: the illusion vanishing into the abstraction of chalk dust or the residue of pigment from watercolour evaporated.

“Stone imitates flesh in statues, and then again once removed is the watercolor or charcoal imitating the light on the stone that imitates flesh,” she said.

Statues and live models, motion and stillness, anatomy and light, fragments asking questions of absences, Artin’s latest exhibition will please her current admirers and surely bring her new fans.

The show will be up from Friday, November 1st to Sunday, December 9th, 2019

Gurari Collections is pleased to present an exhibition of themes, styles & techniques by Leon Steinmetz. Entitled NOURISHMENTS, the exhibition shows off Steinmetz’s versatility in his interpretations, both in medium and in theme, with artwork ranging from Their Majesties, Gogols’ Diary of a Mad Man, as well as, Ladies and the Devil.  New, recently completed projects feature Robspierre Dreams – oil on board, Don Quixote - tempera on archival acrylic sheet, and the Horsemen – pen & ink.

 H.A. Crosby Forbes, Philanthropist, Collector and Curator Emeritus of the Peabody Essex Museum, spoke of his art -

 “Steinmetz is a quintessential contemporary artist; but what makes his art unique is his almost palpable connection to the Old Masters. In his works –comic or tragic, figurative or semi-abstract – he tackles the same timeless themes they did, but expresses them in an unmistakably modern language.”

 There is a spirited liveliness in Steinmetz’ compositions. His cast of players are eccentric - as portrayed in his trademark – intertwining the comic and tragic complexities of the human condition.  Steinmetz’s mark making, in whatever chosen medium, eyedropper with ink (Ladies and the Devil), spectracolor (Memento Mori), or brush with Sangira ink (Commedia Dell’Arte), are thoughtfully executed and playful with a dash of mischief.

Leon Steinmetz is a contemporary artist. His art is in the permanent collections of leading museums: the British Museum in London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Pushkin State Museum, Moscow, the Albertina in Vienna; the Dresden State Art Gallery in Dresden; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. His last two solo Museum exhibitions were in the Pushkin State Museum, 2019-10, 2016. He has published three artist books, and has recently completed drawings, for a soon to be published, little known work by Jane Austen, called The Beautiful Cassandra, Princeton University Press.

To see the full inventory for this show, please go to John Hopkins' artist page.

JOHN HOPKINS

CARRIERES – QUARRIES OF PROVENCE
EXHIBITION

monotype work-on-paper

June 1 – July 8, 2018
Opening Reception - Friday, June 1, 2018, 6-9pm

Gurari Collections is pleased to present American artist John Hopkins’ solo exhibition of monotype printmaking in CARRIERES – QUARRIES OF PROVENCE.

To set the context of this exhibition a brief background about the Carrieres and this region is important. Located near Arles and Avignon in the Provence region of France, the stone extracted from the area is of a white slightly calcareous limestone. Named after the town of Les Baux de Provence, the stone’s formation dates back 20 million years. One quarry, Les Grands Fonds, which opened in the 19th century, due to the increased demand for white limestone in building design and construction, closed in 1935 because steel and concrete became more economical to use. Today, Les Grands Fonds is known as the Carrieres de Lumieres - and features artistic light shows using projections on the immense subterranean walls of the quarry.

Light, space, shade, shadow, mass, immensity and monumentality. What do you do when as an artist you confront taking on the challenge to envision/depict these characteristics artistically? John Hopkins has adroitly merged his formal training in art and architecture to create “images that explore the boundaries between abstraction and representation with emphasis on maintaining the unique qualities of light and depth of the carrieres.” He understands the carrieres to be “incidental” architecture, having been carved for utility, yet the residual spaces offer towering expanses of monumental proportion.

His choice of monotype printing in black, white, and grey values, reveal the light, shadows, and textures that he has explored in this series of prints. “The image is created directly on an unprepared plate, and the etching press is used to transfer it onto a sheet of paper.” Each monotype is an original unique work of art.

The artwork in this exhibition was a result of a year-long exploration of the Carrieres. Hopkins' process took him from producing charcoal drawings daily on site, and then using these drawings as a reference for the monotypes, which are the final expression of his investigation.

John Hopkins lives and works in Berkeley, California and Goult, France. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Yale University and a Masters degree in Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Through Hopkins Studio, John engages his love of producing art and practicing architecture as compatible pursuits.

Gurari Collections invites you to see Carrieres – Quarries of Provence an exhibition of monotype work-on-paper.

Gallery hours are by appointment or Tuesday - Saturday, 11am to 6:00 pm; Sunday’s 12 – 4 pm. Telephone: 617.367.9800; email: inquiries@gurari.com.

To see the full inventory for this show, please go to Wendy Artin's artist page.

Wendy Artin, NYC Marilyn Innocent, 24”x41”, 2017

WENDY ARTIN - HERE TODAY 

Athens, Rome, Paris, London, New York
Watercolor Wallscapes and other Recent Work

November 3 – December 10, 2017

STALKING BEAUTY

Gurari Collections’ November exhibition, WENDY ARTIN - HERE TODAY - Athens, Rome, Paris, London, New York, features vibrant, spirited paintings of fugitive urban walls by virtuoso watercolorist Wendy Artin.  

Beautifully stained stencils, torn posters, printouts, spray-painted marks, drips, cracks, rust, hinges, beloved faces peering out of flat walls: these urban accumulations occur in many streets in many cities. We often walk by oblivious to their accidental beauty—but with her forty-plus watercolor paintings of captivating wallscapes, Artin invites us to pause and contemplate the ephemeral, the vulnerable, the fragile. 

In large, medium, and small-scale format, Artin’s wallscapes will be on display until December 10, together with a selection of blossoming branches and quick figure paintings. 

Wendy Artin, Big Pile of Wall Paintings, June 2017

“These are walls that I love to look at and take detours to see again,” says Artin. “Unlike the bas-reliefs from antiquity that I have painted in the past, they will disappear in a matter of months. Like a wild garden, they have no one designer, no master architect. I have taken some liberties moving things around and swapping out certain images, but this is basically how the real walls were as I stood in front of them. 

Wendy Artin, Paris On Danse, 9”x12”, 2017 - Athens Motorcycle, 9”x12”, 2017 - Rome Cinema America, 7”x10" 

“I try to make the paintings both elegant and clumsy – full of information, but not trompe-l’oeil – in and out of focus, crisp here and watery there. As diverse as faces in a city crowd, there are line drawings, paintings, stencils, photographs — all different ways of portraying people, in all different sizes, like a fairytale. Artistically this gives me freedom to play, to paint in a variety of different ways. I can change the color, the focus; I can allow the watercolor to shine with its full versatility. I can stay right on the edge of illusion, with the image moving back and forth between 2D and 3D: very hand-made paintings of usually machine-generated postings. The layering and different focal points are like improvisational jazz where the sweet themes that you recognize shift and change as you become carried away by the next bit till suddenly there is a new tune, a new picture, a new face. 

Wendy Artin, London Blue Amy, 9”x12”, 2017

Many of the walls have images of famous people who died too young: Amy Winehouse, John Lennon, David Bowie, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Muhammed Ali. They are posted or painted in order to remember, to have the people live on, but they are so temporary — pasted paper, stencils! There is something quite touching about the fragility of these pieces of paper that are trying to prolong the too short lives of these idols.“ Fleeting lives, fleeting images — along with the well-known icons are glimpses of Artin’s husband, Bruno Boschin, who died in 2014. 

Wendy Artin, NYC Muhammed Ali, John and Yoko, 26”x41”, 2017

Paradoxically, it was Artin’s trip to Athens to see the Parthenon frieze at the new Acropolis Museum that began this new series. On her way to visit the famous sculptures she doubled back to admire a fragment of a wall, with Greek graffiti and a tiny Madonna stencil. The urge to put faces on facades reaches back in time and across cultures – but is their purpose similar? 

And in today’s fast traveling world, is there a difference between the walls of different countries? “In Rome, it is almost as though it is just one polite person posting, since there is a respectful space around each image,” Artin notes. “In Paris, there are often images of scantily clad seductive women. In New York, the walls have an irresistible ME FIRST! energy, chaotic layers covering up earlier offerings. Why are they here? Was someone randomly standing by that wall, looking at a magazine, when it occurred to him to cut out and paste up photos of his favorite cars? Did he do it with foresight, intention, a message, a mission? Where did he get the glue? I am interested in what the people who posted were thinking, but even more I am interested in the ultimate combination of different layers and messages and images—the sheer visual joy of marks on a wall that I have sought to translate into marks on a page.”

Artin’s paintings are time capsules and travel pieces. Viewed from one angle, they tell stories that draw you in and want to be completed, and from another become pure dynamism and raw beauty. The mix is dizzying and mysterious like city life seen for the first time. 

Wendy Artin, Oleander, 7”x9”, 2016

Artistic Advisor at the American Academy in Rome, Wendy Artin completed her undergraduate studies in French Literature and Painting at the University of Pennsylvania and her Masters of Fine Art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In 2015 she had a solo exhibition, entitled Rocks, Paper, Memory, at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her paintings are collected by Steve Martin, Eric Fischl, April Gornik, Princess Caroline of Monaco, Isabelle Adjani, Howard Stern, John Guare, Adele Chatfield-Taylor, Pierre Passebon, and Jacques Grange. She has exhibited in New York, Boston, Rome, Milan and Paris. Her work has been featured in Pratique Des Arts, American Artist, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Gourmet, Elle Decoration, Cote Sud, French Vogue, Elle, Carnet, and the Boston Globe, among other publications. She has been featured on BRAVO television's Arts & Minds. 

Wendy Artin, Callista, 8”x14”, 2017

We invite you to visit WENDY ARTIN – HERE TODAY: Athens, Rome, Paris, London, New York, Artin’s eleventh solo exhibition at Gurari Collections. The exhibition is in our gallery in the South End of Boston, 460B Harrison Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, 02118.

Gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Sunday 12 - 4 p.m. or by appointment. Telephone: 617.367.9800

email: gerard@gurari.com website: http://www.gurari.com Contact: Russ Gerard

Wendy Artin, Rome, Cinema America 2017, photo by Lily Artin Boschin

Gurari Collections is pleased to present, for the first time in Boston, Japanese artist Mitsushige Nishiwaki’s solo exhibition of etchings: From TOKYO– It’s a beautiful day in {PARIS NEW YORK LONDON}.

Derived from street scenes of Paris, New York and London, Mitsushige Nishiwaki’s spirited etchings are characterized by their seemingly naive, innocent, daydream-like sincerity. His etching technique is textured and bold, yet the art has a delicate and whimsical facility about them. Populated by his imagined personalities, the buildings and streetscapes he depicts are familiar to our experiences and senses. Each etching is a narrative that conjures up a singular place where we have been before.

Roofscapes become outward expressions of the lives and activities from within. In some of the artwork, scale relationships are distorted, creating juxtaposing in the composition. This magnifies the story that is being told. Nishiwaki turns urban fabric into a living entity that always engages and reminds us of the familiar.

Beginning in 2009, and self taught in intaglio, Mitsushige Nishiwaki’s etchings are on copper, and for highlighted color, on plastic. He uses German Hahnemuhle paper and Charbonnel etching ink. His larger works are made up of a series of abutting small print plate sizes, providing a visible armature for the artwork.

Nishiwaki is a graduate of Hosei University in Tokyo and received a graduate degree in graphic design while studying in Arizona. He works as an artist and graphic designer in Tokyo. His artwork has been exhibited in Japan, France, England and the United States.
Gurari Collections invites you to see From TOKYO – It’s a beautiful day in {PARIS NEW YORK LONDON} an exhibition of etched work-on-paper.

Gallery hours are by appointment or Tuesday - Saturday, 11am to 6:30 pm; Sunday’s 12 – 4 pm. Telephone: 617.367.9800; email: inquiries@gurari.com.