“Untitled (Black)” by Laurel Sucsy is playful with bulbous, archetypal shapes reminiscent of those painted by Miró. Colorful fields float in a sea of green. The ink varies in opacity to enable depth within the composition despite the use of block color. The overall impression feels like an incomplete thought. Sucsy seems to hedge on technical decisions, overlaying background color to resize the foreground shapes. The piece, however, feels whole as a unified composition such that the aberrant details may be a monologue on the artist’s choices.
Kathryn Sodaitis effortlessly celebrates the printmaking process with “System 13.” A 17x23 grid of red dots set on a taupe background is shadowed by an oily discoloration that mimics the residual optical images that occur when your eyes move away from the red dots. The grid has a natural feel as the circles differ in size and shape by letting the ink bleed. Smaller dots peppering the background dance with the other patterns, developing an active participation as the viewer navigates a complexity derived from a very simple origin.
Related:
Expanded within, Good behavior, Eye cartography, More
- Expanded within
On the inside, though, it feels like a much larger museum has been magically folded into the fine old neo-classical structure.
- Good behavior
Restrained playfulness and a certain decorative sensibility are the outstanding attributes of this year’s DeCordova Annual Exhibition, an event that began life 16 years ago to showcase the work of New England artists at various stages of their careers.
- Eye cartography
Anna Hepler, proprietor of the Map Room at 58 Fore Street, teaches printmaking at Bowdoin College but continues to live and create in Portland.
- They’re crafty
While each of the artists exhibiting at ICON this month is stylistically distinct and refined, the relationships between the work of Joe Kievitt, Meghan Brady, and Andrea Sulzer provide a welcome cohesion, and a unique peek into the practice of three individual artists who have a dialogue outside the gallery.
- Heartfelt Thanks
I just finished reading the piece Ken Greenleaf wrote about my dear friend of blessed memory, Bob Solotaire.
- Whodunit?
Myles Connor: Mayflower descendant, Mensa member, master of disguise, black belt in karate, self-styled "President of Rock 'n' Roll." And probably the most notorious art thief in the history of the United States.
- Selective strife
Portland Museum of Art’s “In Our Time: The World as Seen By Magnum Photographers,” is quite literally a catalogue of the most virtuosic photojournalistic photographs in the last half-century.
- Widow speaks out
At a fund-raiser for the family of New York State Trooper Joseph Longobardo, killed in August while attempting to capture a man who had escaped from a New York jail, members of Maine’s law-enforcement community gathered around the widow of the man murdered by Manning in a 1981 highway shootout. Censored artwork hits the road: Supporters take prisoner’s paintings for a walk. By Rick Wormwood
- Family affair
“New Work,” a collaboration at Whitney Art Works between mother Judith Allen and daughter Eirene Efstathiou, is a joy to unpack.
- New kids on the block
24-year-old Julie Kuceris decided her Rhode Island School of Design education was more useful elsewhere. .
- Land and water
As New Englanders know, sights and impressions are endless wherever land and water meet.
- Less

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