Highlights from the Boston Art Book Fair

Earlier this month we participated in the 2022 Boston Art Book Fair put on by the Boston Center for the Arts. It was an exciting opportunity to explore the galleries, artists, collectives, and creatives in our city. Check out some of our favorite booths we saw:

Boston Art Review

The Boston Art Review brought an assortment of issues to purchase. It was wonderful to see AOG artist Pelle Cass’ work featured at another booth at the Book Fair. Cass’ photograph is featured on the cover of Issue 03: Tracing Movement.

bostonartreview.com
Instagram: @bostonartreview

View of the booth for the Boston Art Review in the Cyclorama at the Boston Center of the Arts.

Praise Shadows Art Gallery

Praise Shadows had a mix of books, posters, and other art objects to check out. We were excited to see one of our new favorite books, Designing Motherhood, out on the booth’s spread. It was a great opportunity of visitors to get a taste for what this growing gallery has to share with the Boston art community.

praiseshadows.com
Instagram: @praiseshadowsart

View of the booth for Praise Shadows Art Gallery in the Cyclorama at the Boston Center of the Arts.

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston

The ICA Boston had a selection of prints, books, and merchandise to choose from. We loved checking out the current exhibition book, To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood. The work of Barbara Kruger and Dr. Woo were showcased on apparel, as well as prints of Jordan Nassar’s work that is currently on view in the exhibition Jordan Nassar: Fantasy and Truth.

icaboston.org
Instagram: @icaboston

View of the booth for the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston in the Cyclorama at the Boston Center of the Arts.

Adri Tan

It was great getting to chat with Tan about their process and learn more about their work. Tan uses portrait photography to explore identity and authority of self. Digital textile patterns are created by restating the body into repeating patterns in the zine, I Objectify Myself to Subvert Your Gaze. The textile becomes an object, allowing for the portraits of the artist’s East Asian models to reject the stereotypes and to yield autonomy of themselves. In another zine, Fashioning a Sense of Self, Tan's photographs reclaims and explores the identities of women and non-binary people of color by allowing the models to wear what they felt most themselves in. We can’t wait to see what else they will be working on next!

adriannatanphotography.com
Instagram: @atangerinee

View of Adri Tan’s booth in the Cyclorama at the Boston Center of the Arts.

Paige Mehrer at Plum Press

We are delighted by the work of Paige Mehrer of Plum Press. Her whimsical images are enchanting and there mystical blues and purples of her palette drew us in!

paigemehrer.com
Instagram: @paigemehrer

View of Paige Mehrer’s section of the Plum Press booth in the Cyclorama at the Boston Center of the Arts.

Kareem Worrell

We got to have an engaging conversation with photographer Kareem Worrell about his photograph and practice. At his booth he presented the zine, Passenger, which features Polaroids from the passenger seat of a pivotal road trip he took at the beginning of his career. He told me that he had lost the photographs from the trip for over 15 years, but thought of them often. This body of work inspired a new series call Lonely Highway that documents views from the passensger seat once again. His book, Mile Marker, is a part of the ongoing he was selling at the fair. The book showcases seventeen years worth of images that capture the ever-changing landscapes and unique atmosphere that only occurs on the open road.

kareemworrell.com
Instagram: @kareemworrellphoto

View of Kareem Worrell’s booth in the Cyclorama at the Boston Center of the Arts.

We were thrilled to exhibit three of our represented artists: Pelle Cass, Cassandra Jones, and Kristina McComb, alongside these talented creatives in Boston. It was a great opportunity for us to connect with our Boston community in a way we had not done before, and the whole team felt excited and energized by the fair - we are so grateful for all of the amazing visitors we had. Through a collection of prints, books, and small sculptural work, we showcased new and returning work by each artist: prints by all three artists gained excitement while Cass’ and McComb’s newly released books were a hit. The remaining inventory is still available for purchase on the buy now page for the fair.

Gallery intern Lauren Hill and Assistant Director Kaylee Hennessey at the booth

Announcement: Boston Art Book Fair

Abigail Ogilvy Gallery is pleased to announce our first year of participation in the Boston Art Book Fair. The event is located in the historic Cyclorama of Boston’s South End neighborhood. The fair will showcase local Boston artists, creators, and businesses to connect Boston with the national art community, and facilitate connections between Boston creatives and prospective publishing partners.

Dates: November 4-6, 2022
Friday Eve Ticketed* Preview Party (preview offerings, dance party, film screening, food & drinks): 6pm-9pm
*Tickets are $30 and can be purchased here.
Saturday: 12pm-7pm: Free and open to the public
Sunday: 12pm-5pm: Free and open to the public
More details: https://bostonartbookfair.com/

Pelle Cass, “Thalia Beach Friday No. 2,” 2019, Ink print on heavy matte, 13 x 19 in. (Ed. of 15) 24 x 36 in. (Ed. of 10) 40 x 60 in. (Ed. of 3)

Abigail Ogilvy Gallery is pleased to present three of our represented artists at the Boston Art Book Fair: Pelle Cass (Brookline, MA), Cassandra Jones (Ojai, CA), and Kristina McComb (Gill, MA). We look forward to sharing an array of books, prints, and art objects by each artists. These artists share a special interest in the message produced by the relationships in their images. Along with this common curiosity, Cass, McComb and Jones each bring new life to their medium by combining traditional photography with a contemporary lens.

Pelle Cass constructs his compositions using a large collection of photographs taken from the same angle. He does not manipulate the original photography other than deciding which objects to omit and keep, and each component of the photograph remains in its same location in the overall composition. These choices produce an image conveying a sense of chaos and the passing of time. At the Boston Book Art Fair, Abigail Ogilvy Gallery will be presenting his new book “Pelle Cass” alongside prints from his series, Crowded Fields.

Cassandra Jones, “Lemon Ball,” 2019, Archival Ink Jet on 100% Cellulose, 24 x 20 in

Kristina McComb, “Boston Atheneum 2040,” 2021, Photograph - framed, 9 x 6 in, 36 x 24 in, 42 x 28 in

Cassandra Jones takes a different approach to the idea of repetition by collecting and collaging mostly found photographs into a work that comments directly on contemporary society. Their digital photography tells stories of a prismatic reflection of our self-involved, technology-based, snap-happy contemporary lifestyle. Their work will be available as prints at the Boston Art Book Fair.

Kristina McComb’s work explores the passing of time, similar to Pelle Cass’s images, as well as the relationships created from light, line, and texture. Differing from the work of Jones and Cass, McComb does not alter the objects in her images, simply capturing the existing in a striking composition. Her practice focuses on the intersection of photography and sculpture. At the show, we will be exhibiting her photographs from her ongoing series featuring the Boston Athenæum in addition to her most recent publication “An Archive of Time: A Life Lived in the Boston Athenæum” .

For more information about the Boston Art Book Fair, please click here.

Press Release: Back Together

BACK TOGETHER

June 10 – July 18, 2021

Installation photo, Back Together

Installation photo, Back Together

Featuring: Clint Baclawski, Teddy Benfield, Mishael Coggeshall-Burr, Austin Eddy, Marlon Forrester, Holly Harrison, Lavaughan Jenkins, Katelyn Ledford, Kristina McComb, Susan Murie, Wilhelm Neusser, Haley Wood, Natalia Wróbel

Abigail Ogilvy Gallery is proud to present Back Together, a group exhibition curated to showcase strong, new pieces by our represented artists, as well as introduce high quality works by emerging artists. Featuring primarily local artists, Back Together seeks to open dialogue with the Boston arts community, focusing on work that presents an interesting process or concept. It also serves as a celebration of reconnection after the pandemic. The artists featured represent many different mediums, disciplines, and ideas, and come together to form a full picture of the rich variety in contemporary art today.

Clint Baclawski (b. 1981, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania) is a contemporary artist working with photography, technology, light, and space.
His solo exhibition locations include San Luis Obispo, California; St. Louis, Missouri; Boston, Massachusetts; Edinburgh, Scotland; and group shows at the Chelsea Art Museum, Danforth Museum, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, San Diego Art Institute, The Jen Bekman Gallery, and the University College Falmouth in England. His work is included in private and institutional collections. Baclawski has been featured in FRAME magazine, The Boston Globe, The Creator’s Project, Boston Home magazine, Designboom, and The Collector’s Guide to New Art Photography Volume II. Clint’s studio is located in Boston’s South End.

Teddy Benfield works primarily as a painter, screen printer and photographer. His works consist of a mixture of the three mediums to create a dialogue between traditional still life genre painting and the relationships individuals have with marketplace and consumerism through the internet culture of today. 

Signage combines the modern product with interior space yet has the ability to transform the modern pedestrian back in time. Representational imagery introduces the past to the present and pays homage to hand painted signs as well as the comments of class and value in traditional still life painting while room for abstraction is absorbed within traditional advertisement qualities.

Teddy Benfield is a Boston based artist from Connecticut (b. 1992). He received his MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (2018) and his BFA in Visual arts from Union College (2015) as well as a certificate in Sneaker Design from Fashion Institute of Technology (2019).

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr, High Line IV.

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr, High Line IV.

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr integrates the art of photography and oil painting to create novel and compelling images on canvas.  Taking blurred shots with a 35mm camera, the artist searches for peripheral scenes with cinematic color and tone.  He translates selected images into abstract-realist paintings with convincing color, formal structure, and subtle references to art history.  Through his actions Mishael questions both the truth of photography and the fiction of painting: we enter a liquid, cinematic space, capturing the magic moment when Alice seems to step through the looking glass.  The photorealistic image melts away, the prosaic merges with poetry.

“We live in a mostly blurry world. Our eyes only actually focus on a tenth of our field of vision at any one time. Our viewpoint, emotions, and context blur our memories. The landscapes I paint are in some way our genuine environment: the backgrounds to our lives, always present and often out of focus.”

Mishael studied painting at Middlebury College, The Glasgow School of Art, and the Art Student's League in New York.  His artistic adventures have led him to many countries and continents, with many images from his travels featured in his art exhibitions. He lives, works and paints in Montague, MA with his wife and four children.

Austin Eddy, Every Duck In Its Place While Moving From Here To There Forgetting Nothing

Austin Eddy, Every Duck In Its Place While Moving From Here To There Forgetting Nothing

Austin Eddy was born in Boston, MA (USA) in 1986 and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He received a BFA in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Select recent exhibitions include: Fresh Windows Gallery in Brooklyn, NY (2018), SetUp 2018 Art Fair, Cellar Contemporary (Italy), Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, Boston, MA (2018), Ampersand Gallery in Portland, OR (2018), David Shelton Gallery, Houston, TX (2017), Dallas Art Fair (2017), Code Art Fair, Bendixen Contemporary Art. Copenhagen, DK. (2016), Agnes B. Gallerie, Paris, FR (2016), and Left Field Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2015). He recently completed the Liquitex International Residency in London, England (2018). Austin Eddy is the founder and curator of EDDYSROOM, a nomadic curatorial project launched in 2015. 

Marlon Forrester, born in Guyana, South America, is an artist and educator raised in Boston, MA. Forrester is a graduate of School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, B.A 2008 and Yale School of Art, M.F.A. 2010. He is a resident artist at African-American Masters Artist Residency Program (AAMARP) adjunct to the Department of African-American Studies in association with Northeastern University. He has shown both internationally and nationally, concerned with the corporate use of the black body, or the body as logo, Forrester’s paintings, drawings, sculptures, and multimedia works reflect meditations on the exploitation implicit in the simultaneous apotheosis and fear of the muscular black figure in America.

Holly Harrison lives and works in Concord, MA. She received an MA in creative writing from The City College of New York and a BA from Wesleyan University. Her artwork has been featured at galleries and museums throughout the country and is held in private and corporate collections nationally and internationally. Additionally, she has curated two well-received shows at the Concord Center for the Visual Arts, where she was subsequently invited to join the Board of Trustees.   

Lavaughan Jenkins, Skin I’m In

Lavaughan Jenkins, Skin I’m In

Lavaughan Jenkins is a painter, printmaker, and sculptor. He was raised in Pensacola, Florida and currently creates his work in Boston, MA. He received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2005. Since that time, Jenkins has become a recipient of the 2019 James and Audrey Foster Prize awarded annually by the Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston. In 2016, he was named Emerging Artist of the year at Kingston Gallery in Boston, MA, Jenkins is a recipient of the 2015 Blanche E. Colman Award and in 2002 received the Rob Moore Grant in Painting. He has exhibited his work most recently at venues such as Abigail Ogilvy Gallery (Boston), The Painting Center (NY), Suffolk University Gallery (Boston), and Oasis Gallery (Beijing). Jenkins donates annually to the Massachusetts College of Art and Design Auction which supports student scholarships.

Katelyn Ledford is an artist living and working in Boston, Massachusetts, but born and bred in the American South. She received her MFA in Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2019. Ledford’s work is a consideration of the role of images in shaping the curated portrait of women at large and individually while also reflecting on the complex and often painful reality of what it means to be a woman and artist. She uses appropriated images sourced from historical paintings, television shows, social media, and Google fever dreams while contrasting them against improvisational symbols and shapes in order to create deconstructed portraits. The tone across her work lies in a mix of cynicism, humor, and absurdist logic— like the feeling of sucking on a sour candy, you smile through the pain and pleasure.

Ledford was featured in SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2020 in a two-person booth, “The Person- Less Portrait,” curated by Abigail Ogilvy Gallery. She has been featured in exhibitions internationally with select group exhibitions at Monya Rowe Gallery, New York, NY; Public Gallery, London, UK; Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, Boston, MA; and Plan X Art Gallery, Milan, IT.

Kristina McComb's practice focuses on the intersection of photography and sculpture. Through layering images and light, McComb examines the passing of time, merging past, present, and future in a haunting composition. Present is one in a three-part series of lightbox sculptures. Printed on acetate and suspended in backlit steel structures, McComb’s photographs drift and overlap, appearing fragile and untethered. She arranges selected fragments from a range of different shots into one coherent image, defined by their relationships with each other. The foreground is sharp and clear, while the background layers blur into ghosts of the original image. This subtle play of light, line, and texture creates a delicate exploration of transience versus permanence.

Kristina McComb is an interdisciplinary artist from Western Mass. She graduated with Distinction from Greenfield Community College, receiving her Associates of Science in Visual Art with a concentration in Photography. McComb also holds a BFA from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Her work has been exhibited since 2014, most notably at the Brattleboro Museum and Arts Center in Brattleboro, VT and the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts.

Susan Murie is a New England-based artist. She most recently exhibited at the Members Prize Show, Cambridge Art Association, 2021 and was awarded Artist of the Year by juror Ben Sloat, Director of the MFA in Visual Arts program at Lesley Art + Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Susan was also awarded a CAA Artist of the Year, Members Prize Show, 2020, by juror Jessica Roscio, Curator, Danforth Art Museum at Framingham State University. Her artwork was published in the London-based INKQ, Inky Leaves Publishing, Issue 9, Spring 2020 as well as featured in The Hand Magazine, Issue #26 in the Fall of 2019. Her work was juried into and sold at the MassArt Auction in 2020 and 2019 and is juried into the 2021 auction as well. Murie’s work has been featured on The Curated Fridge, Autumn 2018 Show (Somerville, MA) curated by Kat Kiernan Editor-in-Chief of the photography magazine Don’t Take Pictures, and The Curated Fridge, Spring 2018 Show curated by Francine Weiss Senior Curator, Newport Art Museum. In addition to private collections, Murie’s work is in the permanent collection of Fidelity and the City of Somerville.

Wilhelm Neusser’s artwork has been widely exhibited and he has received numerous awards and fellowships. His recent museum exhibitions include the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam, 2019), the Fruitlands Museum (Harvard, MA, 2019), and MASS MoCa (North Adams, MA, 2018). In 2020 he was honored with a finalist grant in Painting from the Mass Cultural Council. Additional awards and recognition include the MASS MoCA Studio Program (2017), Vermont Studio Center (2013), Finalist, Wilhelm-Morgner-Prize, Soest (2010), International Artist in Residence, Boots Contemporary Art Space (St. Louis, MO, 2009), ZVAB Phönix Art Prize (2007). Neusser’s work has been included in notable publications, including The Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, Artscope Magazine, Boston.com, and Big Red & Shiny.

Wilhelm Neusser was born in Cologne, Germany. He relocated to the United States in 2011, and currently lives and works in Somerville, MA.

Haley Wood, WOAD, Page 1

Haley Wood, WOAD, Page 1

Haley Wood is a fiber artist, surface designer, and musician living in Boston, MA. She has recently received her BFA in Fibers at Massachusetts College of Art & Design. Haley is influenced by 1960’s and 70’s folk horror films, illuminated manuscripts, mid century home decor, and her Omi. She also plays guitar and violin for the Croaks.

Natalia Wróbel is an artist based in Encinitas, CA after spending time in New York City, Boston, Amsterdam, and Berlin. Wrobel studied Studio Art and Art History at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. She furthered her study at the Lorenzo de'Medici Institute in Florence and then the New York Studio School (NYSS). She received the NYSS Mercedes Matter Fellowship in 2012, and the Murray Art Prize in 2015. In 2017, Wrobel completed a painting residency at the Berlin Art Institute. Her work has been featured at international art fairs including Art Basel: Miami, Texas Contemporary, and Art SouthHampton and has been an official selection at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and MassArt Auction. Her paintings have been featured in publications in the US and Europe, in coursework at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and are included in public and private collections around the United States, Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia. Wrobel's work is represented by Abigail Ogilvy Gallery in Boston, MA.

International Women's Day 2021

To celebrate International Women’s Day this year, we asked our artists to tell us about the women they look up to and how they have inspired them, whether it was an artist, a relative, or an important figure in their lives:

Holly Harrison

“An artist who never fails to inspire me is Eva Hesse. Her work has a different aesthetic than mine, but I love how open and inventive she was with her materials and how committed she was to her process. I’m fascinated by how quietly riveting her sculptures are, and how she used mundane, fragile materials and transformed them into strange and compelling shapes. On more than one occasion, I’ve been drawn to a piece at an exhibition, only to find out that it’s one of hers.” - Holly Harrison

Susan Murie

“I love Helen Frankenthaler's work for its beauty, innovation and scale. In recent years, I made special trips to see her work; to the Art Institute of Chicago for Helen Frankenthaler Prints: The Romance of a New Medium, in 2018 and The Provincetown Museum of Art for Abstract Climates: Helen Frankenthaler in Provincetown, in 2019. Her free and experimental painting continues to inspire me to try new things in my own work.” - Susan Murie







“I am inspired by women who persevere and overcome, to live, love, teach, lead, create, nurture, challenge, protest, sing, play and in their own unique way, leave the world better than they found it.” - Lisa Foster

“There are so many women who inspire me each day, but the most impactful is my mother. Her creative and curious nature opened the doors to my imagination countless times. Her studies and love of art history brought us to countless museums growing up. During this very challenging year of pandemic, she continues to be incredible supportive and inspiring, with our long phone calls discussing topics from Herodian art and history to her childhood memories and currently daily survival stories. Her generosity with her friends and the women of her community is well known. Much love to my mom, Linda Basson Freiberg!” - Ariel Basson Freiberg

“Vija Celmins has inspired me since I was in undergrad. She was one of the first contemporary artists I was introduced to and I immediately fell in love with her sublime paintings and drawings. Her unabashed use of extreme photorealism helped give me permission to also practice Photorealism, a sentiment that has carried through in my practice to this day.” - Katelyn Ledford

"While I could talk endlessly about so many women who have inspired me, I can’t help but think about the person who I have never wanted to disappoint. A lot of who I am as a person, which is reflected in my artwork, came from my Grandmother. Growing up I spent a lot of time with her learning to bake, learning about gardening, making puzzles, and playing in the woods behind my grandparents’ home. Before deciding to pursue art, I thought of pursuing cooking because of her and even worked in a kitchen during the summers I was in art school. Some things that I have carried over into my art practice are, if you’re going to do something, give it your all, and to remain true to yourself." - Kristina McComb

“First person who popped into my head is Jadé Fadojutimi. I’ve been a fan for a few years now, her paintings are so wonderful. She is the youngest person to be collected by the Tate!” - Amanda Wachob

“I have turned to so many female artists for guidance and insight in my work, and courage for myself. But let me reach back 500 years to Renaissance Florence to Artemisia Gentileschi. Artemisia suffered grave repression, injustice, rape, and torture; she lost her mother at age 12, and 4 of her 5 children. Yet she was bold and strong and sure. ‘I will show Your Illustrious Lordship what a woman can do,’ she wrote to a patron. ‘You will find the spirit of Caesar in the soul of a woman.’ And damn, could she paint!” - Coral Woodbury

“Georgia O'Keeffe has always inspired me for her unique vision, independent spirit, and fearlessness. She moved from New York to New Mexico in 1949 on her own and built a studio out in the countryside. She forged a strong spiritual connection to the landscape that is illuminated in her powerful paintings.” - Natalia Wróbel