This portrait of artist Robert Henry is one of many photographs by Ron Amato on exhibit at PAAM, June 28 – August 18.
by Rebecca M. Alvin
The beauty of the Provincetown art scene is that you don’t have to pick one show to go to each week. The usual Friday night art stroll is an invitation to dip in and out of the many galleries in town, to walk Commercial Street in search of beauty, provocation, and inspiration, from the Schoolhouse Gallery on the east end of the street out to the west end, making detours onto Bradford Street for a few galleries, as well. What follows is a guide that suggests a few shows, in relatively chronological order of their opening week, however, most galleries are open late on Friday nights, whether or not they happen to have a new show opening. These are just some highlights to make a point of seeing, as you make your way through the throngs of art lovers each week of the summer season.
Opening this weekend at Gallery 444 is an interesting artist named Matthias Lupri, who creates paintings of inner landscapes, abstract work and archetypal paintings. This gallery is a for-hire space, so the artists who come in from week to week are varied and some will only be here this year, and only for a week or two. Lupri, however, has a longstanding relationship with Provincetown and comes every summer for multiple shows. In addition to his current show, running through July 10, he will return for shows August 7 – 28 and then again September 18 – 25.
Over on Bradford Street, at the corner of Pearl Street, the Fine Arts Work Center offers a season-long group exhibition, Edge Condition, which opened a few weeks ago and runs until August 23 to be exact. The show, curated by Matt Bollinger, features the work of 19 different artists exploring in vastly different ways the concept of edges, whether obvious or concealed in their nature. The exciting show will travel after its Provincetown run to New York City for the highly regarded Armory Show in September, so we are lucky to have the chance to preview it here.
Traveling west to the Whalers Wharf Mall, which houses several artist-owned galleries, you’ll find an exhibit of James Frederickpaintings at Frederick Studio, June 21-30. Frederick exhibits through the season here, showing off the various dimensions of his style, this time with a show called Elemental Sustenance, featuring paintings of the natural elements on Cape Cod, through images of beach fires, kayaking, biking, swimming and the dunes.
Opening Friday, June 28, at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) is a show of Ron Amato’s photographs of the artists of Provincetown. Curated by local artists, Midge Battelle and Pasquale Natale, the exhibition gives us portraits of those who are still with us as well as legendary artists like Pat de Groot, who passed away in 2018. In addition to the opening on the first night, there will also be a gallery talk on Thursday, July 18, and the show will be up through August 18.
As we get into the Fourth of July weekend, many will be preoccupied with clubs and glitzy drag shows, concerts, fireworks, and other festivities, but there are also some interesting shows opening that weekend, including these two, which are conveniently across the street from each other. Ray Wiggs Gallery doesn’t do a lot of opening receptions, although they have exhibitions throughout the season. On Friday, July 5, Wiggs welcomes local artist Ned Monroe for a show introducing him to us. Monroe has had a lifetime of experience in fashion and he brings this to his fine art. With a strong focus on patterns, sometimes including human forms, Monroe’s work is unique and a welcome addition to the art scene here. The show runs July 4 – 10.
Across the street at Simie Maryles Gallery, artist Larry Preston will be featured in an exhibition entitled In the Footsteps of the Flemish Masters, July 5 – 11. Preston’s incredibly realistic still life paintings juxtapose unusual items without ever veering into the territory of surrealism. His work is perfect for this gallery, which is known for its celebration of traditional, European-inspired oil paintings, although there are a variety of mediums and approaches featured.
On Friday, July 12, over at Stewart Clifford Gallery, Jan Donley is featured in a show called The Worry Goes Deep, which runs through August 14. Donley worked with Clifford to create a beautiful video about the human condition, which can be seen on the gallery’s website. Trained in more traditional practices, she now works with digital tools to create iPad images, often depicting observed moments between people on trains, nature subjects, and sometimes text.
That same day, a few steps away, Bakker Gallery opens a show of works by the legendary local artist and sign-maker Jackson Lambert, which runs through July 28. Lambert was a much-loved local fixture who created works, often on wood or other materials as both a fine artist and a commercial artist. His signs, cartoons, and a local column in the Provincetown Banner, are recognizable immediately. With the sale of the White Horse Inn earlier this year, which held a sizable collection of Lambert’s work, the Bakker team was able to acquire many works that have not been seen, at least not for a long time, and put together this really important historical show that you definitely will not want to miss.
At Berta Walker Gallery, they often open three or four shows at once. July 19, they do this with works by the incredible late master of collage and assemblage Varujan Boghosian, painters Mike Carroll and Brenda Horowitz, and Ted Chapin, whose magnificent constructions are created from things like old adding machines and encourage thought about greed and corporate life today. These shows run through August 10.
The Schoolhouse Gallery, right nearby also likes to open multiple shows at once, and this same week, they have shows by Schoolhouse regulars, Paul Stopforth, Mark Adams, Kahn & Selesnick, Breon Dunigan, Sean Flood, Anna Poor, and Ted Kincaid, as well as new work by Fred Liang, whose installation will be on view there from July 19 – Augsut 7, featuring projections of moving images, printed materials, and wall pieces in an immersive environment.
Art Love Gallery has been in Provincetown just a few years, but in that time has brought us some very contemporary, unusual pop art, photography, and works in various media and modern approaches. July 25 – August 31, they will host Wisconsin artist Donald Topp, who works in silkscreen and painting to create works that comment on the ways in which the media and entertainment products are used politically.
Celebrating 20 years in town, Bowersock Gallery always has a wide range of art work on view in their front and back rooms, with the center gallery focused on new exhibitions. Friday, July 26 – August 7, Joe Lupiani’s animal/human figures with attitude will be featured. The detail work is incredible in these wood sculptures, achieving truly lovely and realistic subtleties of the fabrics they wear and their physical mannerisms. Lupiani’s chimeras will be joined by the moody landscapes of Darlou Gams and the work of Christopher Gowell, an artist equally skilled at sculpture and painting.
As this is a special week in Provincetown when LGBTQ families are especially celebrated during Provincetown Family Week, Greg Salvatori Gallery is bringing in a special guest, artist Carlo Trevisan, all the way from Italy, for a show of his latest paintings called Surreal Joy, July 26 – August 1. His works are fun and playful, and appealing to all ages. Nearby at Egeli Gallery, where you can find artist/gallerist Arthur Egeli’s work at all times, there’s also a show of John Clayton’s beautiful and colorful landscapes July 26 – August 1, as well.
As we head into August, there are plenty more shows to pencil in on your calendar. Galeria Cubana, across the street from the public library, is a space exclusively for Cuban art, often managing to bring in the artists on special visas, when they can, to offer us an opportunity for cross-cultural direct communication. The work in this gallery is stunning and varied. This year, visas have not yet been confirmed for most featured artists, but Luis Rodriguez (a.k.a. NOA) always has compelling, colorful, and complex work on offer. He will be featured in a solo show, Punto de inflexión (Turning point), August 1 – 12, and is planning to attend in person, so this show is extra special.
Nearby at Four Eleven Gallery, Mary Giammarino’s works are lush and colorful, contemporary impressionist landscapes painted en plein air in Provincetown and in Vermont. She regularly shows at Four Eleven and will do so along with Elspeth Slayter, who showed a lovely monoprint painting there earlier this season. It should be a gorgeous show, running almost all month long, August 9 – 22.
Gaston Lacombe normally shows his own work, often paintings of brightly colored boats inspired by Marsden Hartley, at his Studio Lacombe in the Whalers Wharf mall. But he also frequently features other artists, including thins year Thor Jansen, who had a show last Halloween here and returns now with new ideas and techniques he learned in Thailand and has now employed in his pottery. That show will be up August 9 – 15.
Rice Polak Gallery has a group show August 17 – 28 that features three artists working in very different, yet complementary styles. Ellen LeBow is primarily known for her black and white, etched drawings, which have strong graphic qualities and demonstrate her great use of dynamics, both in terms of grayscale shading and representation of movement. Julie Levesque is a multimedia artist utilizing many different materials and forms in her installations, photography, and constructions. And Jennifer Goldfinger also mixed mediums with her illustration sensibilities to create interesting pieces featuring photographs combined with encaustic and oil painting techniques. Each artist’s work stands impressive on its own, but shown together, there is likely to be some unexpected linkages.
William Scott Gallery fills their space for the second half of August with works by three gallery artists, including Paul Wirhun, whose work is on the cover of the magazine this week, and painters Christopher Sousa and Chet Jones, both talented artists with distinct perspectives and approaches. While Sousa is often focused on the human form, Jones paints houses and environments with great attention to shape and color and mood. Wirhun uses a special technique working with eggshells to create textured, colorful images. The three show at the gallery August 16 – 28.
The weekend just after the Carnival Parade is often a subdued one, but there are some galleries opening shows that weekend, including Larkin Gallery, featuring the work of the late Thomas Antonelli, who used to run the Antonelli Giardelli Gallery. Antonelli’s landscape paintings are unusual, colorful, and approachable, offering a different take on the usual subject matter here. His solo show runs August 23 – September 11. And Alden Gallery will feature Jim Broussard and Robert Morgan, August 23 – September 5. While Broussard paints subdued portraits of our environment, whether land or sea, Morgan’s work often focuses on the people, men in particular, who inhabit those spaces, so it will be a nice pairing.
And finally, On Center Gallery has plenty of shows all season, but it culminates in a big group show August 30 – September 5, giving us a chance to revisit all of the artists in the spacious, two-level gallery on the corner of Center and Commercial streets. Featured in this show are Lorraine DeProspo, Kevin Box, Jay Maggio, Malu Tan, Joey Brock, Simon Waranch, Ryan McMenamy, Kate Ryan, Jill Rothenberg-Simmons, Jarrad Tacon-Heaslip, and Provincetown treasure, Marian Roth, whose gorgeous show happened in May to kick off the season. The works represent such a wide range of creative styles and mediums. It feels like the perfect ending to what promises to be another amazing, provocative, and joyful summer of art.
Gallery List
For complete, up-to-date schedules and opening reception information, as well as special events, please consult these websites for the places mentioned in this feature, listed here in alphabetical order:
Alden Gallery aldengallery.com
Art Love Gallery studiojackie.com
Bakker Gallery bakkerproject.com
Berta Walker Gallery bertawalkergallery.com
Bowersock Gallery bowersockgallery.com
Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC) fawc.org
Four Eleven Gallery fourelevengallery.com
Frederick Studios frederickstudioprovincetown.com
Galeria Cubana lagaleriacubana.com
Gallery 444 gallery444ptown.com
Greg Salvatori Gallery gregsalvatori.com
Larkin Gallery larkingallery.com
On Center Gallery oncentergallery.com
Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) paam.org
Ray Wiggs Gallery raywiggsgallery.com
Rice Polak Gallery ricepolakgallery.com
Schoolhouse Gallery galleryschoolhouse.com
Simie Maryles Gallery simiemaryles.com
Stewart Clifford Gallery stewartcliffordgallery.com
Studio Lacombe studiolacombe.com
William Scott Gallery williamscottgallery.com
