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The exhibition Video Villa: New Paintings by Barbara Grad features more than a dozen abstract paintings by Boston-based painter Barbara Grad. The works illustrate the artist’s command of painterly abstraction, both geometric and organic. The exhibition—Grad’s first solo museum exhibition—is on view February 4–May 28, 2011, at Kemper at the Crossroads, 33 W. 19th Street. Admission is free. |
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| The exhibition opens with a free public reception 6:00–8:00 p.m., Friday, February 4. The artist will be present. Artist Barbara Grad and exhibition and Kemper Museum Curator Barbara O’Brien will speak about abstraction in “Finding Our Way: A Conversation about Abstraction” from 2:00–3:00 p.m., Saturday, February 5, at Kemper at the Crossroads. The talk is free. |  Above: Barbara Grad, Traffic, 2008, oil on linen, 42 x 48 in., Courtesy of the artist |
| The exhibition’s paintings, some joining together two canvases, were created between 2008 and 2010 and take inspiration from the dynamic intersection of worlds seemingly at odds; maps (found in a cache stored by her son) offer secret entry into gaming worlds, and the aerial topography of the boundaries between the built and the natural world. Translucent layers of brilliantly hued and hard-edged maplike shapes stand as metaphors for the duality of time and place. Grad transforms notions of pictorial space into impressions of instability and inherently unpredict- able experiences. While abstract, viewers may see city grids, land masses, tributaries, graffiti, and other recognizable forms in Grad’s painterly universe. | |
| Born in Chicago, Grad received her BFA and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and since 1981 she has been a member of the painting faculty at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. She has been an artist in residence in Ireland, Hawaii, and Australia, and a professor at the Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art in France. She has been the recipient of several grants and awards, including the Artist’s Resource Trust Fund of the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation and the Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Grant, among others. | |
| Grad’s works are found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and well as corporate collections, including Fidelity Investments in Boston. She has participated in a number of group exhibitions at galleries and museums across the country and had solo gallery exhibitions at Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA, and The Gallery at First Parish, Weston, MA, among others. | |
| Organized by the Kemper Museum, the exhibition is accompanied by a brochure with an essay by Barbara O’Brien. The exhibition was first on view this past fall at the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham, Massachusetts. | |
Finding Our Way: A Conversation about Abstraction Teacher Burnout Buster: Linking Geography and Art About the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art The Kemper Museum (4420 Warwick Blvd.) is open 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m., Tuesday–Thursday; Thank you |
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Past exhibitions and other releases: