Impressions at an exhibition

To paraphrase the first sentence of Leo Tolstoy’s novel, Anna Karenina, each family experienced the isolation caused by COVID-19 between March 2020 and June 2021 in its own way. In an exhibition at the Johnson Heritage Post Art Gallery entitled Two Artists – Two Stories: Juxtaposition During a Covid Conversation, Hazel Belvo’s still lifes and Marcia Cushmore’s abstract expressionist responses to the still lifes encourage many of us to reflect on how we and our families experienced the months of isolation.

Still lifes, which have ancient origins, are the depiction primarily of inanimate subject matter. Belvo, chose as her subject matter art glass vases that Belvo and Cushmore had collected over the years and filled them with short-lived cut flowers. Belvo’s juxtaposition of long familiar vessels and cut flowers, which engaged her senses as she painted, sets the parameters of Belvo’s and Cushmore’s “Covid conversation.” Those parameters are reinforced by Cushmore’s abstract expressionist reinterpretation of the classical still life genre. The artists are encouraging all of us to find ways to have our personal histories enhance the experience of an ephemeral moment.

The memoirist theme of the exhibition is bolstered by the fact that Belvo relied on her early training in art school to depict each vase filled with flowers on a 20” X 16” canvas using classical painting techniques. We are encouraged to reimagine the past and the present and also isolation and connection by Cushmore’s responses to Belvo’s carefully wrought representations. Cushmore, using the same palettes found in the still lifes, enhances our appreciation of each still life by using 12” x 12” canvases. The square spurs an observer to perceive color, shape, and design in a world unbound by gravity or a singular focal point. Her use of thick paint (impasto technique) also highlights the immediacy of Cushmore’s response to Belvo’s depictions because it allows for her paintings to be experienced differently depending on how the light responds to the color and thickness of the paint at different places on the canvas.

Also on view are over twenty striking acrylic and oil paintings that Cushmore painted between 2019 and 2021. Additionally, the exhibition includes three impressive acrylic paintings by Belvo: Croftville Road – April, Croftville Road – August, and Croftville Road – October.

Belvo’s and Cushmore’s creative imaginations and practices can be seen at the Johnson Heritage Post Art Gallery through August 15th.