WORCESTER, MA —

ORIGIN art exhibition will celebrate the official launch of JUNIPER RAG visual art and lifestyle magazine on February 5th from 6-10 pm at JMAC Worcester, 20 Franklin Street. Mali Sastri will perform. There will be over 55 pieces of art on display from local artists and about half from artists working all over the United States. Art audiences will be privileged as you just don’t see this kind of national show in New England. The exhibition will run until February 18. Artists from the first three issues of the magazine were invited to participate in this group show in downtown Worcester, Massachusetts. With JUNIPER RAG we connect artists with curators, interior designers, buyers, galleries and collectors outside of their present communities in a time when Covid-19 has turned the art world upside down. About 120 artists, photographers and creative businesses have been featured in the first three issues. Come ready to buy and watch our social media @juniperrag for information and images of the artwork. If you are collecting, you will want to get there early.

Local highlights include work by our first cover photographer Frank Armstrong, whose show American Roadsides: Frank Armstrong’s Photographic Legacy will be opening soon at Fitchburg Art Museum. Champion of racial equity, photographer Archy LaSalle and artist Tara Sellios, known for her wide format photography, are both parts of the collection of the MFA. ArtsWorcester’s Sally Bishop Prize winner Kat O’Connor and CMAI artists John Pagano and Cesar Rodrigues, who is currently on view at Worcester Art Museum will also have work in the show.

Multi-award-winning artists include: Robin Reynolds, Shabnam Jannesari, Lisa Barthelson, Lydia Kinney, Patti Kelly, Don Hartmann, Scott Boilard, Karen Nunley, Kate Morgan, Piya Samant, and Keri Anderson. Collage artists: Peter Wise and Monica DeSalvo. Award-winning photographers also included: Lara Alcantara-Lansberg, Erica Chick, Greer Muldowney, Al Weems and Nathan Fiske. Encaustic artist: Neil Wilkins, Sculptor Rebecca McGee Tuck, Printmaker: Tatiana Flis and textile artist Alice Dillon, and Paper artist Ann-Marie Gillett will be showing as well as Outsider/Visionary artists, Howard Johnson Jr. and Mike Cannistraro. Johnson, “has spent his entire career creating images of things that most of the rest of us could never see, or even imagine,” says Fitchburg Art Museum’s Nick Capasso. Out-of-state participants include: Namisha Doongarwal, San Francisco, currently showing at SFO Museum; Jen deKlaver of Southampton, NY; Marinès Adrianza, Michelle Lubin, Claire Maen, sculptors Julia CR Gray and William Peterson from California; John Buron, Derek Hoffend and Jenny Brown from Rhode Island; Deborah Orloff, Ohio; Pooja Iyer, Virginia; Shabnam Jannesari, Nebraska

JUNIPER RAG is an upscale visual art and lifestyle magazine, founded February 2021, by design and marketing agency Atelier ID Global’s, Michelle May and Payal Kripalani Thiffault. The creative economy is such a significant part of every ecosystem from business to entertainment. The magazine features the work of creatives and creative businesses from all over the world, as we share their contribution to community and mark how they are essential. Our commitment is to deepen serious emerging, middle to professional level artists’ relationships with viewers, offering new opportunities to share their work and expand their networks. Currently, we are working on an online gallery to support the sales of select artists.

Join us! Opening & Launch Party: February 5th, 6-10 pm at JMAC Worcester, 20 Franklin Street. (Masks & immunization cards please!)

Watercolor sketches used as studies by renowned artist and fine art photographer Tara Sellios will be for sale at ORIGIN, opening February 5th at JMAC in Worcester, MA. Sellios' work pictured here is in the permanent collection of the MFA. The piece is titled No. 3 (Impulses Series), 2012, triptych archival inkjet print, each panel 30×24″.

Three recent studies will be included in the show. Sellios is known for her deeply moody photographs that are first captured in detailed sketches, presented in sculptural form and then, photographed with a wide format camera. Her process and stories are dramatic and often connected to symbolism, religion with a deep understanding of all aspects of art history to bring her imagined scenarios to life.

She is one of the most captivating artists in New England. We are thrilled to give collectors the opportunity to purchase three of her studies at ORIGIN. There is just something magical about seeing the artist's rendering in pencil on paper. Tara's 140# watercolor studies will be on view Feb 5-18th in Worcester, MA. See more of her work and the final photographs on Tara’s website: tarasellios.com