Studies for “The Architecture of Memory and Loss” 2024-2025, Drawings: Ink and Colored Pencil on Paper.
On April 26th and 27th, from 1 to 6 pm, artists in DUMBO will open their doors to the public as part of DUMBO Open Studios, offering a rare look inside the art studios along the Brooklyn waterfront. Since the 1970s, DUMBO has been shaped by its vibrant art community. This interview series highlights a handful of participating artists in 2025. Each response offers a glimpse of what’s waiting behind the studio door. Rodney Ewing has been in DUMBO since 2022. His studio is at 20 Jay Street, #M09.
Tomashi Jackson: Across the Universe at Tufts University Art Galleries
August is the height of summer and a great time to see art. The city is quieter and less crowded (I went to the First Friday openings and actually got to talk to people AND look at the art!) and the satellite exhibitions throughout the region are exceptional. Museums and galleries continue to host dynamic summertime events and there’s still a calendar full of community festivals and block parties that will highlight some of Boston’s most talented artists. Here are a few shows to have on your radar as you travel in and around the Boston area this month.
In conversation with Adèle Eisenstein and Saba Farhoudnia
No Signal, 2022, acrylic on acrylic mirror sheet, 7 panels, 48×16” ea., 48×112”. Photo: Farzan Ghasemi
Reflection, the solo show of Saba Farhoudnia in Jamaica Center for Art & Learning, highlights the cruel and tragic practice of so-called “honor” killing, by way of individual stories which give the victims their voice back, and shed a light on this reality for far too many women, girls and LGBTQ+ (taking at least 5000 lives annually per the United Nations Population Fund). The ensemble of individual panels and stories welcomes the visitor into a colorful and intriguing landscapes. Adèle Eisenstein, the curator of the show, says that the layers of paint reveal a reflective surface, which delivers a direct message to the observer—this might have been you. While dishonor killing is the most extreme end of the spectrum, the subject addressed also touches upon and exposes stratified layers of gender-based violence.
Abena Motaboli, The Pieces that hang far up above – in you, in me, in I, in We, in Us, 2019 Plastic Tarp. Dimensions variable approximate 12ft x 12ft x 12ft. Photo courtesy the artist
The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB) is a volunteer, female-led, artist-run project. TIAB 2020 launched in March in New York City at Brooklyn Museum, and continued in September through December at EFA Project Space, Greenwood Cemetery, and virtually, presenting 60+ artists. This interview series features 10 participating artists.
Abena Motaboli is a Southern African born educator, visual artist, and writer based in Chicago. She grew up in Lesotho, a landlocked country in Southern Africa, before moving to the U.S where she obtained her bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts at Columbia College Chicago and at L’Institut Catholique de Paris in Paris, France. With a strong commitment to social justice work in the South and West sides of Chicago and being an immigrant, her artwork comments on displacement, immigration, the African diaspora, and the loss of the sense of home. In her intricate plastic installations and meditative line-work in her paintings, she uses ephemeral material such as plastic, tea, dirt, and coffee to comment on colonialism, past memories, and the culture of creating.
During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.
Alison Lowry, with handmade glass awards at the Business to Arts awards ceremony in Belfast
Alison Lowry is a glass artist living and working from her studio, ‘Schoolhouse Glass’ in Saintfield, Co. Down in Northern Ireland. In 2009 she graduated from Ulster University with an Honors degree in Art and Design. Since then she has won numerous awards including first place in the category, ‘Glass Art’ at the Royal Dublin Society in 2015 and 2009, the Silver Medal at the Royal Ulster Arts Club’s Annual Exhibition in 2010, the Warm Glass Prize in 2010 and 2011 and more recently the Bronze Award at Bullseye Glass’ exhibition for emerging artists, ‘Emerge’. Alison exhibits nationally and internationally, and her work is held in several public collections. Her current exhibition, ‘(A)Dressing our hidden truths’ is currently on display at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin
