Press Release: Standing Still

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr | Wilhelm Neusser

April 26 - May 28, 2023

Installation view: Standing Still

Abigail Ogilvy Gallery is proud to present Standing Still, a two-person exhibition featuring the artwork of Mishael Coggeshall-Burr and Wilhelm Neusser. Coggeshall-Burr and Neusser use painterly techniques to capture a strong sense of place and time that tie particularly to memory; memories the artists themselves have connected to these landscapes, and ones they aim to evoke in their viewers. Neusser’s serene evening skies and Coggeshall-Burr’s blurred cityscape compositions present an opportunity to slow down and focus on the here and now.

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr, Franz-Joseph II, 2023. Oil on canvas. 30 x 30 in.

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr integrates photography and oil painting to create novel and compelling images on canvas. Taking blurred shots with a 35mm camera, the artist captures memories often collected when he travels. The resulting images offer a distant yet immersive perception of places that are significant to him. The series on view includes imagery from very different stages in his life: Paris, Budapest, and Ukraine. In his Parisian scenes, the attention is on movement: the tension of starting a journey and being seduced by the unknown, by the way our eyes catch light when our bodies explore a new setting. His more recent works draw from his trips to Ukraine during the ongoing conflict with Russia. Coggeshall-Burr has been deeply involved in contributing to refugee aid with his wife Nadya, who started a non-profit in 2022. Offering complex but hopeful images, these layered memories mimic that desire to pause and slow down when the world keeps revolving around you, even when standing still. Coggeshall-Burr’s two most recent works feature the proud Franz Joseph - now “Freedom” bridge; trolley rails and bridge iron glowing a rainbow in the late light, a crisscross of golden clouds, street lamps just about to light. He reflects: “Nadya and I spent a few days exploring Budapest in November before she continued on to Ukraine for her Project Nadiya work, I back to children (and day job). The bridge was near our apartment, an art deco lattice of old cast iron and green paint, in the evenings teenagers collected from nearby universities, snapping selfies and jostling. It’s hard to put it into words, but this bridge felt like a kind of energy center for this area of the city, a magnet for youth, some kind of magic in it.”

Wilhelm Neusser, Nightglow (2305), 2023. Oil on linen. 40 x 36 in.

Wilhelm Neusser is a contemporary painter, known for his strikingly moody landscapes, rich in texture. In his newest series of Starry Nights, Neusser takes a familiar motif often used in his cranberry paintings and recalibrates the technique: paint drips morph from bright red cranberries to bright white stars set against a dark sky. Neusser thinks of this technique as central to his painterly language, and in a recent studio visited noted: “I’m simply using similar words to create different poems.” The technique itself of splattering paint on his finished canvas is somewhat random, an irony in the relationship humans have long had with constellations, their meaning and their seemingly fixed place in relation to the Earth. The serenity of these resulting scenes offers us a chance to stand still under these changing skies. Contrasting the deep blues and purples of the Starry Night series are Neusser’s Marshes, fiery red and orange landscapes that aim to push the romantic landscape towards a somewhat apocalyptic and anxious atmosphere. As with many of his landscapes, they are a memory of place and time - a dramatic scene Neusser recalls from his commute home from Montserrat during a teaching semester. For Neusser, “A landscape painting is a metaphorical space that invites the eye and mind to wander and wonder, and for the viewer to project.”

Building layered compositions, Mishael Coggeshall-Burr’s and Wilhelm Neusser’s paintings draw from memories and feelings summoned by different places and moments in their lives. In Neusser’s worlds, scenes are presented with a meticulous precision, creating a distance from the viewer. As a result, the landscape appears magnified, hyperrealist; like a flashbulb memory that directs the spotlight to reveal what gets our attention over what goes unnoticed. On the contrary, Coggeshall-Burr conceives blurred, vague memories, as if we were seeing them in the process of being forgotten. The resulting artworks immerse the viewer in these places, even when they may be unknown for them. The artists capture the images that lay on our eyelids right before we blink and the dichotomy of feeling all at once distant yet close by. Together, the artists start a dialogue that questions our relationship with landscape and its ability to engage us in a moment of recollection.

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr studied painting at Middlebury College, The Glasgow School of Art, and the Art Students League in New York. His artistic adventures have led him to many countries and continents, including China, Tibet and Nepal, where he garnered images for a show in Kazakhstan; London, UK, where he made his own art and installed a variety of artwork at the Tate Galleries for several years; Mozambique, where he met his amazing yogini wife Nadya; Germany, France, Hong Kong and Macao, as well as Central America and the Caribbean, 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.

Wilhelm Neusser was born in Cologne, Germany. From 1997 to 2001 he studied at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe with Professors Gerd van Dülmen und Harald Klingelhöller. He was also a guest student in art history and theory at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe with Professors Hans Belting und Siegfried Gohr. After his studies, Neusser lived and worked in Cologne until his relocation to the United States in 2011. His recent museum exhibitions include the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam, 2019), the Fruitlands Museum (Harvard, MA, 2019), and MASS MoCa (North Adams, MA, 2018). In 2020 and 2022 he was honored with a finalist grant in Painting from the Mass Cultural Council. Neusser’s work has been included in notable publications, including The Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, Artscope Magazine, Boston.com, and Big Red & Shiny. He lives and works in Somerville, MA.

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr: Ukraine Relief Exhibition

Ukraine: Courage has two colors
Solo Exhibition
October 19 - 30, 2022
Opening Reception with Artist: Saturday, October 22nd from 2:00 - 6:00 PM
Artwork Release Date: October 1, 2022

Half of any proceeds will be donated towards displaced Ukrainians within Ukraine via the nonprofit Project Nadiya.

Earlier this year in May, Mishael Coggeshall-Burr and his wife Nadya Tkachenko traveled to Ukraine, Poland and Slovakia in order to contribute to refugee aid following the Russian invasion a few months prior. Coggeshall-Burr, an artist based in Montague, MA, has an important connection with Ukraine and felt an overwhelming sense of urgency to travel to the country and help. While Nadya grew up in the former soviet republic of Kazakhstan, her father was Ukrainian, born in the countryside North of Kyiv, geographically in the line of the first Russian advance. When she and Mishael first met, they spent time traveling throughout Eurasia, mostly in Ukraine, visiting with friends and relatives in 2002. This travel left a strong impression on Mishael: two of their four children bear Ukrainian names, and he works the memory of these travels into his artistic practice. The recent trip led to a new series of paintings focused on Ukrainian relief efforts.

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr packing summer uniforms, medical supplies, radios and tactical supplies that he and his wife, Nadya Tkachenko, would deliver to contacts in Western Ukraine.

The May trip was the second war effort their family had participated in: In March, while Mishael stayed with their children, Nadya spent two weeks in Przemyśl, a town on the border of Poland and Ukraine, helping translate urgent needs in Ukrainian and Russian at the border crossing, making food at the World Central Kitchen, and finding housing for refugee families.  Just before leaving, she set up a crowd-funded campaign that was met with overwhelming support.  She used that funding to directly support families both in Poland and Ukraine, and efforts to ferry families to the border from the East through the purchase of a minibus, as well as arranging shipment of a recon drone, medical supplies, body armor, and more. It all finds its way into the paintings. It was then she thought of the idea to start a nonprofit to rebuild housing for Ukrainians in the West of the country, investing in Ukraine itself and providing homes for the millions of internally displaced people. (At last estimate, UNHCR says 7-8 million).

Nadya’s first trip resulted in source photographs of the border crossing and pro-Ukraine rallies in Krakow, as well as plans for a second trip for the couple in May.  In his artistic practice, Mishael’s paintings ultimately begin as photographs: this was the first time his source material had come from someone other than himself, and his and Nadya’s journeys inspired this new series focused exclusively on Ukraine. 

Nadya Tkachenko at the Ukraine-Poland border in March, helping ferry families to shelters in the Slava Ukraini (Glory to Ukraine) Bus.

Reflecting on a Ukrainian sense of place, its rupturing with the loss of peace, and the story of uncounted refugees at an unprecedented historical moment, Mishael’s images traverse a country at a crossroads of great devastation, sadness and brutality, but also filled with the incredible strength, resilience, compassion and humanity that Nadya and Mishael witnessed firsthand. On a deeper level, this series also explores our ability to unite in circumstances of turmoil, how a shared fate has brought out the good in so many people, and the importance of hope. Amazingly, Nadya's name in Ukrainian--Nadiya--means “hope.”

Since her return, Nadya has set up the nonprofit Project NADIYA for rebuilding and renewal of Ukraine, and has so far raised over $150K towards housing in Ukraine.

In May, the couple canceled a long-awaited trip to the South of France and reconfigured flights to head to Ukraine together, bringing with them around 300 lbs of supplies in huge duffel bags, which the airlines checked for free.  They spent time in Krakow and Przemyśl, Poland meeting and supporting recent refugees, a day in Lviv, Ukraine photographing and meeting with architects about the designs for housing – capturing around a thousand photographs and making additional drawings. Mishael describes historic monuments covered in sandbags, and stained glass windows hidden by sheet metal in an effort to save them from shrapnel, huge placards and posters everywhere urging смілість (smilist): courage. 

Mishael and Nadya dropping off the supplies they hand-carried with a contact in Lviv, Ukraine in May. These supplies were then ferried to the front by early June.

In the southwestern city of Uzhhorod, Nadya met with government officials to discuss refurbishing older buildings into housing, while Mishael drew and photographed the city and its people. The artist also noted that the emotion of the situation was difficult to capture visually alone – trying to find the delicate balance between documenting the situation through photography and respecting the emotional impact of the war on Ukrainians was not easy.

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr, Close the Sky, 2022, Oil on canvas, 10 x 8 in., $950

This series of paintings differs from past artworks – instead of recalling pleasant memories of travel, these paintings aim to highlight the war from a perspective many Americans may not have seen yet, and in doing so, Coggeshall-Burr hopes to raise both awareness and funds necessary to aid Ukrainians directly impacted by the war. In a time where we are inundated by news from television and social streams, the purpose of the painting is to allow us to focus on the issue at hand in a slower way, take time to think about it, and contribute to the relief efforts. They aim to more deeply resonate with the viewer in a unique way.

The series will debut at his home gallery in Montague, MA in October 2022 and then the show will travel to Abigail Ogilvy Gallery (Boston, MA) where the artist is represented. In addition to the paintings and drawings on view, Coggeshall-Burr recorded sounds of cities: peace protests in Krakow, people going about their days in Uzhhorod – bringing a further sense of memory and reflection to the body of work.

Ukrainian refugees from all walks of life gather for a peace rally every day in Krakow, Poland, They march to the US embassy, chanting that NATO "close the sky, save Ukraine, save the world.”

Press Release: Size Matters

July 20 - August 28, 2022
Allison Baker | Holly Harrison | Cassandra C. Jones | Coral Woodbury

Installation view, Cassandra C. Jones and Allison Baker in Size Matters

Abigail Ogilvy Gallery is proud to present Size Matters, featuring gallery artists Allison Baker, Holly Harrison, Cassandra C. Jones, and Coral Woodbury. These four artists play with scale, quantity, and implicative imagery – sometimes subtle, sometimes overt. Size Matters is dedicated to the constituents; the parts that make up the whole; the pieces that come together to form something larger than the sum of its parts. Demonstrated by the materiality and thematic functions of the work, each artist engages with the idea of collective power in their own way. Embodied first individually, and then reinforced as a group, the exhibition is a force to be reckoned with in a way that aims to radiate the power of united women.

Allison Baker, Still Life of Lives Past and Present: propagation, 2022. Coloraid on coldpress paper. 24 x 18 in.

 Allison Baker’s color-blocked, still-life collages are created using layered coloraid on coldpress paper. Often working towards a reclamation of domestic spaces, Baker’s work seeks to investigate hegemonic femininity as a site of transgression and resistance. Her work playfully engages scale as a cue to surreality, or that not all is as it appears. The artist’s use of familiar objects – a matchbook, cleaning products, an oyster – create the feeling that something is not quite right and the syrupy artificiality of Baker’s color palette only reiterates this feeling. The objects themselves, recognizable and utilitarian, become devoid of their intended use - a beer bottle becomes a vessel of propagation; a book of matches spills match sticks that bend and contour like fabric; and a pile of melting ice cream sprouts hairy legs to become endearingly anthropomorphic. 

Cassandra C. Jones, Double Barrel, 2019. Archival inkjet on cotton rag pearl. 30 x 20 in. Ed. 1 of 2

 Similarly, Cassandra C. Jones’ plays with humor and scale in her work, skillfully rendering images out of scaled down objects and often using the repetition of a singular element to form something entirely new. Her artworks are a reflection of consumerism on our individual images and on our environments. The three cacti in the exhibition are undeniably phallic from afar, but as with all of Jones’ work, closer inspection reveals the curious components of the image: in this case, beach balls. This series was a response to wildfires in California that sent microplastics into the air, soil and water, resulting in a colorful super bloom of flora. Jones intends to render the ease in which our natural world absorbs the objects we delight in.

 Coral Woodbury’s artwork is rooted in the reclamation of power. An artist and art historian, Woodbury has spent the past two years tearing through an original copy of Janson’s History of Art, a prominent textbook that completely omitted women until Janson’s death in 1986 – and painting the images of the artists made purposefully absent in this history. There is an undeniable power in numbers, and Woodbury’s aim to rework every page of the text perfectly illustrates this.

 Holly Harrison’s exploration of avian motifs stems from a simultaneous appreciation for both the strength and fragility of her subject matter, as she delicately renders each individual bird to create a synchronized, and intermingled flock. The viewer is left with a snapshot of a murmuration, with a collective of birds flying gracefully across the horizon line. As with each of these compelling artists, the work reminds us that we are stronger together; that there is strength in collective power and organized movements; and that when we are a part of something larger than ourselves, none of us are ever truly alone.

Holly Harrison, True Blue, 2022. Mixed media and found papers on wood panel. 36 x 60 in.

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Allison Baker earned her MFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design, a BFA in Sculpture and BA in Gender Studies from Indiana University. Her work investigates hegemonic femininity as a site of transgression and resistance. Allison clawed her way into higher education with a thesaurus and words she cannot pronounce; currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Sculpture and Studio Art at Hamline University where she tries to impart some knowledge of finesse, persuasion, and manual labor.

 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.

Coral Woodbury, Eileen Agar, 2022. Sumi ink on book page. 11.375 x 8.625 in.

 Cassandra C. Jones was born in Alpine, TX (USA) in 1975 and lives and works in Ojai, CA. She is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with an MFA in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts and received her BFA from California College of Arts with a concentration in Photography/Glass. Jones has been awarded artist residencies in Germany, the Czech Republic, Canada, and across the United States, and her work has been exhibited both throughout the United States and in Europe. Select recent exhibitions include: Digital Worlds: New Media from the Museum’s Collection, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX (2018), The Awakening, Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, Boston MA (2017), Ritual and Desire, Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS (2017). She has received several awards and residencies, including the Egon Schiele Art Centrum, Drake Hotel Artist Residency, Invitational, Toronto, Canada (2006), and the Vira I. Heinz Endowment awarded by the Virginia Center of Creative Arts (2004).

 Coral Woodbury is an historian and as an artist who critically reinterprets Western artistic heritage from a feminist perspective, bringing overdue focus and reverence to the long line of women artists who worked without recognition or enduring respect. Her work reclaims space for them, bringing women together across time and place in art that recasts and re-crafts the story of art. Coral has long worked internationally, beginning with a residency in Italy with Rosenclaire, her mentors for 30 years. She has been honored with a grant from the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities, and has exhibited at Opening Press Week of the 58th Venice Biennale, the Taragaon Museum in Kathmandu, and in the unsanctioned #00Bienal de la Habana in Cuba. In 2020 her work was selected for Area Code art fair.

Press Release: I'll See You Again, Soon

June 1 - July 17, 2022
Mishael Coggeshall-Burr | Susan Murie | Wilhelm Neusser | Natalia Wróbel

Wilhelm Neusser, Fence/Marsh (2125). Oil on paper, framed. 33.5 x 26 in. 2021

Abigail Ogilvy Gallery presents I’ll See You Again, Soon, featuring gallery artists Mishael Coggeshall-Burr, Susan Murie, Wilhelm Neusser, and Natalia Wróbel. The exhibition pulls together four unique styles that individually explore themes of nostalgia through personal experience.

In his latest works, Wilhelm Neusser plays with perspective, using a combination of brushstrokes and etching to create a space that appears just out of reach. A chain link fence acts as a barrier between the viewer and a romantic landscape, suggesting a voyeuristic longing for an indeterminate place or time. Neusser paints his pieces in one sitting, etching the fence before the paint dries. This technique invites speculation on whether it rests in the foreground or background, creating a feeling of contextual limbo for the viewer that contrasts the idea that one is looking at a very particular physical place. Initially visualized during the pandemic, Neusser’s fence series builds on the idea of an untouchable landscape and the way humans interact with the natural world.

Natalia Wróbel, First Breath. Oil on canvas, 60 x 60 in. 2021

Natalia Wróbel presents two of her newest artworks in the exhibition: First Breath, and I’ll See You Again, Soon. The former is a musing on the idea of the conditions present as something is forming, right before coming into being. While creating this piece, Wróbel was contemplating the miracle of life and all the elements working in tandem to create the whole, which was particularly inspired by the recent birth of her son and the awe and mystery she has felt from his powerful spirit. Wróbel created these two paintings together, and in I’ll See You Again, Soon, she further explores the magnetism of spirit through her strong relationship with her beloved grandparents, Zofia and Jerzy Zientra, who have since passed. Wróbel’s sweeping, vivid colors illustrate the warm visual memories of summers spent at their garden home in Warsaw.

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr further explores the concept of nostalgic reflection through the integration of photography and oil painting. Coggeshall-Burr references images from his travels, selecting peripheral scenes with cinematic color and tone. His newest body of work further iterates these feelings of nostalgia: in La Parisienne (Blue Hour), we see a scene from the Latin Quarter of Paris at the end of a workday, as Parisians make their way across the busy Blvd St Germain, climbing out of the Odeon Metro, meeting friends for an aperitif at Le Relais Odeon, carrying themselves for all the world like actors on a set: handsome, ineluctable, intent on their purpose. This scene is common in Coggeshall-Burr’s works, which pull from memories. He integrates his personal experiences into the paintings while also leaving room for the viewer to feel nostalgia for the place.

Mishael Coggeshall-Burr, La Parisienne (Blue Hour). Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 in. 2022

Susan Murie’s artwork is based in photography, capturing images with a camera to create the negatives assembled in floral compositions actualized through intricate cyanotypes. She explains, “As I gather imagery, I am drawn often to flowers, some animals, windows and doors, clouds, and found objects that have appeared out of nowhere and seem to bring me a message or meaning. These then become part of my thinking about the ethereal nature of things, fragile bonds and the materiality of cyanotype.” The deep Prussian blues offer the duality of allowing the viewer a total immersion, while also creating a vast visual distance between viewer and image. Murie’s practice serves as a visual record of her own thoughts and emotions at the time of creation, drawing from an archive of images that range from florals to household objects reminiscent of her life and her family. Each resulting cyanotype is a unique object in itself, and a record of time.

Susan Murie, Lucky. Cyanotype on paper, 45 x 30 in. 2022

When combined, the four artists’ work inspires a sense of introspection and examination of the transience of the past. They employ their own respective styles to capture a sense of nostalgia, using color, collage, and photography to transport the viewer to a place that will only exist in memory: places they wish to share.

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Mishael Coggeshall-Burr 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.

Susan Murie is a New England-based artist. She currently has work on exhibit in the National Prize Show, Cambridge Art Association and recently at the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Art 8th International Call. Her work was exhibited in the 22nd Annual Frances N. Roddy Exhibition 2021 at the Concord Art Center where her work, The Crossing, received a prize awarded from juror Sam Adams. In 2021 and 2020 Murie was awarded Artist of the Year in the Members Prize Show at the Cambridge Art Association. 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 has been juried into and sold at the MassArt Auction in 2021, 2020 and 2019. Murie’s work has been featured on The Curated Fridge, Somerville, MA. 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.

Natalia Wróbel (b. 1989) is an artist based in Southern California. Wrobel studied Studio Art and Art History at Dartmouth College. 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. Wróbel's work is represented by Abigail Ogilvy Gallery in Boston, MA.