IN THE ANNEX: NOVEMBER 2021
October 27-November 21, 2021
A_Marcel, Annie Newman, Duncan Reid
SoWa First Friday Art Walk: Friday, November 5, 2021, | 5:00–8:00 PM
Drawing inspiration from personal experience, the artists of the November Annex exhibition make linkages—image and text, the real and the surreal. Annie Newman juxtaposes portraits of those who have influenced her with complementary images and text. A_Marcel uses societal memes to create works that link the personal and the political. Duncan Reid focuses on the spacesuit as a vehicle to represent the relationship between perception and reality.
The ANNEX is a section of the Gallery where we spotlight new work by regional artists.
PRICE LIST (PDF) ➢
A_Marcel
A_Marcel’s work is a play of text and image, a pitting of the real and surreal, and a disorienting glitche of fact and fiction. A_Marcel amplifies the language of the meme to counter the mimetic demands of the mundane. Their work is politically personal and personally political commentary. A_Marcel’s practice is transdisciplinary and draws from the vernacular of graphic design, critical and queer theory, the theatre of the absurd, music videos, and performance art. They’re obsessed with heterotopias and hot dogs. A_Marcel is a copy of a copy without an original.
A_Marcel is a conceptual video artist scholar and speculative designer based in Boston. Their visual practice circles the visual arts, design and performance art worlds. They hold a BA in philosophy and political science from Columbia University and a MFA in graphic design from Vermont College of Fine Art (VCFA). Their thesis was called Hot Dogs 24/7 and encompassed a play, video and performance. Recent art highlights include: performance in the Nick Cave Joy parade, video screening in Integrated Conference in Belgium, 24 hour performance piece at the Magenta Suite gallery in New Hampshire, a performance/video at the ARC Gallery in Chicago, a 3 person show in at VCFA, and work in a group show at Fluffy Crimes in Chicago.
Annie Newman
For the past few years, Annie Newman has been working on Influencers, a series of portraits of persons who have influenced her life through their work or spirit. The selection of her subjects – from immediate family to famous painters and activists – has been as exciting a personal journey as painting them. She counts a handful of notable portrait artists – Chuck Close, Alex Katz, Annie Leibovitz, Alice Neel and Amy Sherald, plus local painting teachers, fellow students and Instagram artists – as influencers. Her Companions series has grown organically out of the portrait work. From simple color studies that complement the icon, to enigmatic images that relate to their life’s work, the companion pieces aspire to enrich the portraiture.
Raised and educated in Chicago, Newman was surrounded by creative people, cultural activities, and a dynamic visual landscape. That context inspired a B.A. in art history, a M.A. in architecture, and two-decade professional career in design. Today, she splits her time between making and promoting the arts outside Boston. She plays an active role in art organizations, including Art Wellesley, the Wellesley Public Art Committee, and the Art in the Park Steering Committee. She has exhibited in several local group shows. She enjoyed her first solo exhibition of Influencers in March 2021 at the Wellesley Free Library.
Duncan Reid
Duncan Reid’s work juxtaposes the futuristic theme of outer-space exploration with various classical or aging techniques. His work focuses on the human element of the spacesuit and lunar exploration, rendered by hand, on wood. Though his oil paintings are based in classical methods, his acrylic process of distressing or aging the work is a practice that he has taken years to develop. Using these ideas together creates a narrative for individual exploration by seasoning a high-tech, sterile theme with nostalgia and memory. Reid’s own memories of watching the Apollo astronauts land on the moon, and other space missions, are a launching point in his approach to the work.
Reid’s parents were both artists, and he grew up around art and antiques. Though most of his training comes from this, he also studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Rhode Island School of Design. Reid has been a graphic artist for more than 30 years, a career that added to the variety of techniques in his toolkit. His work has been included in a juried, group show at Zullo Gallery in Medfield MA, and last winter he had a major presence in an exhibition at Linden Ponds in Hingham MA. His art is in private collections, both locally and internationally. His studio is in Norwood MA at a complex coincidentally dubbed The Norwood Space Center.