Chikanobu, Juxtaposed Pictures of Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety: No. 4 M in Ziqian, woodblock print on Japanese paper. Aoki Endowment Collection, Scripps College.

The Boston University Art Gallery at the Stone Gallery presents the first exhibition to comprehensively examine the thirty-year career of one of Japan’s most popular and prolific woodblock print designers, Yoshu Chikanobu (1838–1912). Born into a samurai family, he became an artist famous for images of warriors, kabuki actors, beautiful women, children, and the imperial family. Chikanobu was known for creating brocade prints (nishiki-e) in rich colors and extraordinary detail. This exhibition features fifty prints that document the artist’s career as he initially advocates modernization in the 1880s, but then turns to promoting traditional Japanese values in the 1890s.

University Gallery at UMass Lowell

Ellen Wetmore: Selected Works

Ellen Wetmore, Joys of Lactation, digital print, 2007.

UMass Lowell is pleased to introduce the newest member of the art department faculty with this solo exhibition. Ellen Wetmore is a
cross-media artist. Her current artwork examines the perks of motherhood, while past work has included a talking carpet, insects, and mutant vegetables. She teaches video, digital art, and foundations.

Wetmore earned a BFA in sculpture at the University of Michigan and an MFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She is a member of the Boston Sculptor’s Gallery, and has exhibited both regionally and nationally. Her work was recently featured in Trainscapes at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park.

Brian Burkhardt; Unidentified Mutated Jellyfish, Consuming Plastic Grocery Bag (green and white stripe), mixed media, 10 x 8 x 13”, 2006. Courtesy of the artist.

Zoologia Fantastica is an exhibition featuring the work of seven artists who address aesthetic and ethical issues concerning our natural world, especially in relation to the animal kingdom.

The exhibition draws on similarities to Jorge Louis Borges’ 1957 anthology, Manuel de Zoologia Fantastica or Book of Imaginary Beings, in which Borges compiles descriptions of fauna from distant mythology, as well as those which sprang from the imaginations of Poe, Homer, Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis, Kafka, and Confucius. The artists in the exhibition have each created bodies of work which relate their personal interpretations of the natural world. Curated by Cristi Rinklin.

Elizabeth Murray, Duck Foot, oil on canvas, 1983. Rose Art Museum. Gift of Mr. Gerald Lennard.

Environments and Empires, curated by critic Dominque Nahas and artist Margaret Evangeline, will feature several works from the Rose’s permanent collection with new work from emerging artists. The curators take the theme “environments” as suggestive of a state of mind invoking stillness and immanence, and “empires” as invoking an arena of movement and future possibility. This exhibition addresses how the will to power conditions and impacts psychic, physical, and material environments in unanticipated—and often unforgettable—ways.

Virginia Peck, Inner Realm, oil on canvas, 44 x 42".

In the front gallery, a winter salon introduces new oil paintings by Israeli artist Orna Ben-Shoshan, as well as selected works by other gallery artists.

Virginia’s Buddha Room

Virginia Peck, an artist who dedicates herself solely to painting the Buddha, returns to create a Buddha room in the rear gallery. The room will feature her new paintings, antique Buddha sculptures from the gallery collection, Asian temple ornaments, and luxury antique Oriental rugs. The room will be open to the public for meditation and breathing. Virginia, a meditation practitioner herself, will lead a meditation session in the room.

Depot Square Gallery's annual holiday art and artisan show includes a wonderfully diverse selection of artwork? watercolors, oils, prints, photographs, fabric, fiber, collage, drawings, ceramics, and encaustics. For this exhibition, our selection of member artists is enhanced by the addition of twenty additional artisans, adding dolls, cards, paper cuts, stained glass, mobiles, ornaments, scarves, pillows, knitting, judaica, ceramic animals, and a wide selection of jewelry.

Depot Square Gallery is twenty-six years old, making it one of the oldest cooperative galleries in the region. With more than twenty members, the gallery continues to maintain its high standard of artistic excellence.

Lois Tarlow, Deep Discovery.

Through the years, Lois Tarlow’s work has evolved from direct observation, to subjective interpretation, to abstraction. A pronounced change occurred in Lois’ work during the mid-nineties, when she found herself using the residue of fire—ashes and charcoal powder—to convey the sense of bleakness. She stated, “It was the first time that [I] had a real interchange with my materials. It was not a matter of mustering oil paint and brush to depict an image, it was a conversation with new… materials that actually suggested new concepts.” Regis is pleased to present a selection of work completed since 1997.

JeongMee Yoon, SeungHyuk and His Blue Things, light jet print, 48 x 48", 2007.

Cornucopia provides a visually stimulating portrait of contemporary America’s obsession with acquiring consumer goods—and some of its environmental and psychological consequences. It features large-scale photographic works by Xing Danwen, Chris Jordan, Brian Ulrich, Jeong Mee Yoon, and an installation by Portia Munson. Exploring the vast and the minute, each artist investigates the impact of the large amounts of "stuff" thatwe accumulate. Although alluring in terms of beauty, the images possess a disturbing undercurrent. There is, indeed, a message wrapped within the aesthetic. Once apparent, it may prompt viewers to reconsider their role within this seemingly never-ending cycle of production, consumption, accumulation, and discarding.