"Celebrating 25 Years with Arden Gallery"

Installation view of my solo,  Joanne Mattera: Celebrating 25 Years with Arden Gallery, up through the end of March

One of the pleasures of getting older is the history we create for ourselves with family, friends, and colleagues. I am fortunate to have several long-term relationships with galleries, fruitful associations with colleagues who have become friends. In the previous installation, you saw Director's Choice: Celebrating 30 Years at Kenise Barnes Fine Art, a group show curated by Kenise Barnes with some of the artists who have been with her over the long haul. In this post, I share with you photos of my solo show with Arden Gallery, Boston. Gallery director Zola Solamente selected work to represent our quarter century together.

2000 to 2025: twenty-five years in two  images

Above, Uttar 5, 2000, encaustic on canvas on panel, 12 x 12 inches

Below: Call and Response 31, 2025, oil and oil pastel on 300-lb Fabriano hot press, 25 x 25 inches framed

At left: Uttar 295, 2006, encaustic on panel, 37 x 37 inches framed. Scroll down and we'll continue around the gallery
Photo courtesy of Arden Gallery

Silk Road, clockwise from top left: #331, 2016; #370, 2017; #335, 2017; #345, 2017; all encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches

A constant through the years: square format, saturated color, the grid more or less in evidence--with an occasional foray into hard-edge geometry

Photo courtesy of Arden Gallery

Deja Vu, 2000, encaustic on canvas on panel, 12 x 12 inches

There's a grid etched into the surface

Mudra 17, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches

Silk Road 457, 2019, encaustic on panel, 18 x 18 inches

I titled this series Silk Road, not only because of the fabric-like shimmer and texture, but because of the way my ideas about the interaction of color and surface travel from painting to painting, a long road of chromatic and textural expression. 

Silk Road 496, 2020, encaustic on panel, 18 x 18 inches

Silk Road 469, 2020, encaustic on panel, 18 x 18 inches

Left: Uttar 252; right: Uttar 258, both encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches

I started Uttar in 2000 and continued it through 300 paintings, concluding the series in 2005. I was inspired by the saturated palette of the paintings of Renaissance Siena and the miniatures of India and Persia. The grid was an important element of the composition in Uttar

Diamond Life, 2022, encaustic on panel, 25 inches point to point

Occasionally turn my attention of hard edge geometry. I guess you could call it the rigorous yang to the succulent yin of color field. Many similarities remain: the saturated palette, my abiding interest in the surface, the richness of encaustic paint. The grid is skewed at an angle

Diamond Life 31; Chromatic Geometry 20, 2014; Chromatic Geometry 34, 2015; Diamond Life 15, 2012; all encaustic on panel

Below: We continue around the gallery, with the entrance at the far wall

Around the corner: three Silk Road, from top: #453, 2019; #374, 2019; #348, 2017, all encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches. On far wall, paintings by Isabelle van Zeijl

Celebrating 25 Years with Arden Gallery is up through March 31. 

Arden Gallery is at 129  Newbury Street in Boston.

Click here for hours and info about the gallery; here for more about my solo.

Big appreciation to gallery director Zola Solamente, who curated the exhibition, and her partner, Rick Boomer, who welcomes you when you visit.

Oh, and here's a look at the two small paintings on the left side of the installation view that opens this post:

Silk Road 312

Silk Road 311

Both 2015, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches

Director's Choice at Kenise Barnes Fine Art

"A Journey Worth Celebrating"

Longevity is a relative rarity in an art world where galleries come and go. Sometimes you get lucky and find yourself with a gallerist who works as hard as you do. Kenise Barnes is one such gallerist. Her current exhibition, Director's Choice: Celebrating 30 Years at Kenise Barnes Fine Art, features the work of artists who have been with her through the long haul. The gallery is located in the Kent Barns complex in Kent, Connecticut.

Director's Choice is up through April 13.

"Thirty years ago, I never could have imagined that what began as a small idea would become a life’s work," says Kenise Barnes. "I am proud to say that the gallery supports many artists in a multitude of ways allowing them to continue their important contributions and work. The rewards, the complexities, and the sheer tenacity that being in this business for three decades requires are many: countless studio visits, writing hundreds of press releases and letters of recommendation, juggling finances in a fluctuating marketplace, managing personalities of artists, collectors and art advisors, marketing, sales, parties, dinners, long installation days, endless loading and unloading my SUV, gallons of white paint only eclipsed by the gallons of white wine and so much more. It has been a journey worth celebrating.

"Director's Choice brings together some of the many artists who helped establish the gallery and with whom we have longstanding relationships: Daniel Alselmi, Jackie Battenfield, Gabe Brown, Cecile Chong, David Collins, Susan English, Gregory Hennen, Michiyo Ihara, Mary Judge, Andrea Kantrowitz, David Konigsberg, Margaret Lanzetta, Joanne Mattera, Laura Moriarty, Margaret Neill, Jill Parisi, Melanie Parke, Donna Sharrett, Eve Stockton, Josette Urso, Eleanor White, and Tricia Wright." 

Gallery hours: Thursday-Saturday, 11:00-5:30; Sunday, 12:00-4:00
More info

Director's Choice features figuration and abstraction, nature and geometry, brilliant color and richly achromatic work. We're going to travel clockwise around the gallery and then walk into the annex space, whose entrance is at left on the fall wall 

Cecile Chong, three by Tricia Wright

Cecile Chong, Self Service, 2021, encaustic and mixed media on panel

Tricia Wright, Small Matters (hand and flower), 2023, 23-karat red gold leaf on handmade paper

Continuing around, Tricia Wright, Donna Sharrett

Below: Donna Sharrett, Hitkwike Green River Watershed, 2021, fabric, trimming, thread, guitar strings, and ball ends

Margaret Lanzetta

Installation view above

Below: foreground, Glinda, Good Witch of the North, Wizard of Oz 1939, 2016, stoneware with graphite finish; on shelf: Princess Diana,  Spencer Tiara, UK, ca. 1930, 2016, porcelain; print: Marquess Marchioness 1, 2021, oil-based inks, paper and Mylar relief monoprint on Rives BFK paper

Foreground left: Margaret Lanzetta, Joffrey, Game of Thrones, 2011, 2016, stoneware with graphite finish

Continuing around: Eve Stockton, Mary Judge, Susan English

Eve Stockton, Falls Var. 10, 2022, woodblock print with colored and silver inks on paper

Continuing around: Mary Judge, Susan English, David Collins, David Konigsberg

Mary Judge, Pollinator, 2020, oil on linen

Susan English, Seagirt, 2024, tinted polymer on Dibond panel

David Collins, Here and There, 2025, acrylic on canvas

David Konigsberg, Sprite and Anemone, 2022, oil on canvas

Turning the corner to the next wall, with Josette Urso, Jill Parisi, Gabe Brown

Josette Urso, Overview, 2019, oil on canvas

Jill Parisi, Earth and Sky Star, 2021, hand-colored digital prints on hand-cut, pigmented, handmade lotkah paper pinned with black enameled brass tipped entomology pins to fabric-covered Ethafoam, Dibond, and wood strainer in acrylic shadowbox

Gabe Brown, Water Diaries, 2021, oil on linen on panel

View of wall from opposite angle: three by Jill Parisi, Gabe Brown, Margaret Neill

Margaret Neill, Sweet Talk, oil on canvas

With our tour of the first gallery complete, we head into the smaller second gallery, passing this work by . . . 

Daniel Anselmi, Untitled (7-14), 2024, painted paper collage on panel, 12 x 18 inches

Entering the second gallery: Laura Moriarty, left; Eleanor White

Eleanor White

Above: Earthbound, 2022, crushed jade, snakeskin shed, porcupine quills, bonded copper, fossilized wood, eggshell, wood ash, glassbeads, polymer medium on painted paper

Below: Hanging on back wall, Untitled, 2025, sodalite, labradorite, mother of pearl, kyanite, ruby, volcanic rock, howlite, polymer medium on  painted paper, 21.5 x 15 inches framed

On wall: Donna Sharrett
On pedestal: Laura Moriarty

Laura Moriarty, clockwise from top left: Many Moons, Heart Geode, Flint #12, Flint #10, Flint #14, Flint #15, all encaustic

Donna Sharrett, Hitkwike Pocantico River Watershed 2019 #1, 2021, fabric, trimming, thread, guitar strings, ball ends

Continuing around: Gregory Hennen, top; Melanie Parke, bottom

Center:Cecile Chong, Nada Extraño/Nothing Strange, 2024, encaustic and mixed media on panel; diptych

Gregory Hennen, Long Shadows Feb Wyatt Mt, 2022, oil on panel

 Melanie Parke, Flora Seeds, 2023, oil on canvas

Cecile Chong, Andrea Kantrowitz

Andrea Kantrowitz, Vernal Pool, 2024, sumi ink and pumice on Mylar mounted on acrylic panel

Jackie Battenfield, Michiyo Ihara, Joanne Mattera, Mary Judge

Jackie Battenfield, Coral Fling, 2018, acrylic on Mylar mounted on acrylic panel

Detail below

Michiyo Ihara, Snowflakes #139 Companions, 2015, graphite on paper

Joanne Mattera

Above: Silk Road 410, 2

Below: Silk Road 412, both 2018, encaustic on panel

Joanne Mattera, Silk Road 415, 2018, encaustic on panel

Mary Judge, Primavera Pop 36, 2023, powdered pigment on paper

Finishing up the tour: Battenfield, Ihara, Mattera, Anselmi (more accurate color below)

Daniel Anselmi, Untitled (4-20), 2024, painted paper collage on panel

Brava, Kenise Barnes, right, with Patricia Miranda