IN THE ANNEX: MAY 2022
May 4 - 29, 2022
David Covert + Patricia Crotty + Robert Sullivan
SoWa First Friday Art Walk: Friday, May 6, 2022, | 5:00–8:00 PM
A focus on capturing divergent forces takes over the Annex in May. Robert Sullivan highlights the shifting and changing meaning inherent in his work. Patricia Crotty’s work hovers between representation and abstraction. David Covert records a world of invisible forces and visible constraints
The ANNEX is a section of the Gallery where we spotlight new work by regional artists.
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David Covert
David Covert’s work currently encompasses painting, printmaking and semi-sculpture. This work refers to falling bodies and boundaries and speaks to arrested time. The simple objects in each work interact with gravity and the explicit boundaries of the frame. The presentation is light-hearted, as evinced by the bright, dynamic palette. The use of ubiquitous cardboard fragments ties the work to the years of the Pandemic, when there was a constant supply of this wonderful art supply arriving daily. So, making the best of, and constraining the gravity of the unexpected situation informs the work.
Covert has been involved in art making for more than fifty years, continuing to look, draw, paint, and occasionally sculpt. His formal training has been instruction at the Student Art Association at MIT,classes at the Museum School of the MFA, Mass College of Art, and the DeCordova Museum school and local printmaking workshops. The work has been shown in juried competitions and small group shows at the Arts League of Lowell and at the Cambridge and Concord Art Associations. The work is in private collections and in the collection of the Cambridge Trust Company. His studio is in Arlington, MA.
Patricia Crotty
Patricia Crotty is a painter and mixed-media artist whose colorful paintings and collages hover between representation and abstraction. Inspired by the beauty of nature, made even more precious by climate change, her works reflect how connected we all are to one another and to the natural world. Often starting from a landscape sketched on-site, she adds paint, drawn line, and collage elements to create multi-layered works that explore questions of perception and what may lie beyond. Her work is influenced by the powerful gestures and color of Abstract Expressionists such as De Kooning and Mitchell, as well as the softer focus and spiritualty of Impressionists like Monet and Bonnard, and the heightened color and energy of Expressionists like Matisse, Soutine, and Nolde.
Crotty earned an MFA and DEA (post-master’s degree) in painting and multi-media at the Sorbonne in Paris. Living in Paris and travelling in Europe to draw and paint en plein air had a lasting impact on her work. Her photography and video works also influence her studio practice. Crotty has participated in group and solo shows in New England, New York, Paris, and Amsterdam. Her work is in collections in the U.S. and Europe. She lives and works in Arlington, MA.
Robert Sullivan
Robert Sullivan’s work puts a contemporary lens up to the traditions of figure painting and narrativity. Color theory, transparency, and conceptual frameworks embedded within the imagery push the expected conventions of the genre towards unfamiliar, allusive meaning. Holbein, da Vinci, and Ingres comprise some of his classical influences, but the contemporary inspirations of Richter, Yuskavage, and Baldessari factor in as well. Sullivan’s technical facility with paint is a product of his traditional training in the craft, but the conceptual platform of his work is wholly modern, drawing upon theoretical models within today’s visual culture. This creates a working duality within his pictures, allowing painting’s storied past to have a dialogue with the discourse of the present moment.
Sullivan received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in NYC, majoring in both Painting and Illustration. He earned his MFA from Lesley Art+Design in Cambridge, with a concentration in Critical Theory and Studio Art. He has taught studio art for nearly two decades, and is now a lecturer at LA+D in Integrated Studies. He has had numerous solo and group shows in the New York City and Boston areas. His work is in collections from this same region, but are also as far-flung as Ireland, Italy, and New Zealand.