Tortured Separation, Ukraine, 2022
Recently, we were asked to guest curate the Newton NOW community show at Nearby Gallery in Newton Center. The gallery is an artist-owned showroom and community art space. The mission there is to create opportunities for emerging and mid-career artists and make contemporary art and art education accessible to Newton and surrounding communities.
Nearby Gallery presented its 2nd annual community artist exhibition, opening last Saturday evening. Among the stellar works presented in the selection is this collage by Wendy Seller.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT:
Following my heart and burrowing through my expansive collection of image fragments, I search for a spark that stops me in my tracks. This serves as a seed that at its best explodes into multiple directions and begins an unpredictable journey into the intangible crevices within my brain. The concepts behind my work can begin with pictures taken on my morning walks, or through scanning visual references from my visual library. Some elements might link the viewer to a time that came before us.
For a decade I have been exploring a new method of painting that requires sharp attention, new found knowledge in contemporary digital image-building, and a honing of my painting skills. My work involves a back-and-forth fusion between digitally-edited processes using collage that I combine with my long-term passion for hands-on painting with gouache. I experience significant flexibility with the layering attributes afforded to me digitally, and contrast these qualities with the quieter, more traditional layering techniques that have been used by painters for centuries. By investigating the evolution of these two polar-opposite artmaking approaches, I seek to develop intangible worlds that enable me to delve deeper into my imagination.
The studio tools that I use most often include a computer, scanner, color printer and gouache paint. The unfolding of my artwork demands a daily practice -- on the computer or with a brush -- to better sculpt my images or refine my surfaces.Wendy Seller’s practice seamlessly fuses traditional painting techniques and digital image-building to create compelling surrealist works. Her solo shows and small group exhibitions include venues in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Ireland, and Germany. Seller’s work is held in over a dozen collections, including the Ballinglen Museum of Contemporary Art in Ireland, Fidelity Investments in Boston, Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, and the Women Artists Collection at Simmons College in Boston. Her paintings are featured in three issues of New American Paintings and six editions of Studio Visit.
As a founder of the Claflin School Studios in Newtonville, MA, Seller was part of a group of artists who purchased and redeveloped an abandoned elementary school to create live/work studio space. She and her husband live there today, and Seller has two work areas devoted to her art.
Seller taught Design and Spatial Dynamics at the Rhode Island School of Design from 1990 to 2013, and now focuses full time on her professional art practice.
We encourage you to discover Nearby Gallery, just a few minutes off the Pike. Nearby Gallery is actively trying to build more opportunities and programming for local and emerging artists and curators. As they are quickly becoming an important space for local and regional artists of all mediums to exhibit their work and engage the community.
Gallery Hours: Wed & Thurs: 1pm - 6pm, Fri & Saturday: 1pm - 8pm and Sun: 11am - 4pm
