Corey Corcoran's HYPERSLEEP

Corcoran Constructs Blooming Structure: HYPERSLEEP

BEVERLY, MA, FEBRUARY 2, 2011- Montserrat College of Art Galleries is pleased to present Boston artist Corey Corcoran’s installation HYPERSLEEP curated by Lydia Gordon. The February exhibition in Montserrat College of Art’s alternative display space Frame 301, reveals a mysterious human figure stratified with turf, peat, and moss. Corcoran’s blooming structure calls attention to the awe of nature’s uncertainty while investigating its constant regeneration.

Corcoran’s first 3D site-specific installation, HYPERSLEEP engulfs Frame 301 with heaps of biomass, growth, and decay as a terrarium through creation. The window holds a cocooning figure saturated with earth, root systems, and endless unidentifiable matter. This obscure creation spans the entire length and depth of the window, enhancing every viewer’s looking experience. Completely sculptural in nature, HYPERSLEEP refers to a science fiction term similar to hibernation when life processes are halted completely for some duration. It addresses the artist’s continuous ideas concerning the persistence of life, fluidity of time, and the simple strangeness of nature.

Corey Corcoran is a Boston-based artist currently working at The Distillery, a vibrant community of artists in South Boston.  Since acquiring his BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2007, Corcoran has shown regularly throughout the Boston area. Most recently, the artist has been included in shows at MEME Gallery (Cambridge, MA), deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (Lincoln, MA), and LaMontagne Gallery (South Boston, MA) with solo exhibitions at The Little Gallery Under The Stairs (Lynn, MA) and Fivesevendelle Project Space (Boston, MA). The artist has been awarded the 2011 Clowes Award fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center (Johnston, VT).

Where: Montserrat College of Art, Frame 301,

301 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA

Exhibit Dates: February 7, 2011 – March 11, 2011

Hours: 24/7The exhibit and related events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.

For more information about the exhibit, please contact Lydia Gordon, Frame 301 Project Manager at Lydia.Gordon01@gmail.com or visit us at www.montserrat.edu/galleries.

Events hotline: 978.921.4242 Option 3

Montserrat College of Art is an accredited, private, residential college of art and design offering the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, art education certification and year-round classes and workshops for adults through its Continuing Education program. 

Visit us at www.montserrat.edu.The vision of Montserrat College of Art is to be recognized as the nation’s premier independent, small art college.

"This program is supported in part by a grant from the Beverly Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency."

Street Reflections 301: Cleanliness Next to Godliness

Elizabeth Michelman, Street Reflections 301: Cleanliness Next to Godliness, January 2011

BEVERLY, MA January 2, 2011- Montserrat College of Art Galleries’ Frame 301 is pleased to present Elizabeth Michelman’s Street Reflections 301: Cleanliness Next to Godliness, curated by Lydia Gordon. The kick-off exhibition of 2011, takes a look at downtown Beverly by focusing on the relationship between Frame 301 and two neighbors: a laundromat and church.

Michelman’s site-responsive installation Street Reflections 301: Cleanliness Next to Godliness prompts a questioning of collective relations. By noticing how Frame 301 stands across from a church and a laundromat, the artist wonders how much these pillars of the neighborhood know of and understand each other. These three institutions offer different routes for expressing fundamental values in contemporary American culture: the art school practice, private worship, and personal hygiene. Street Reflections 301 quotes the words of a familiar proverb to capture, meditate on, and reflect these ideas back out to its viewers.

Street Reflections 301 dramatizes the window’s physical characteristics of transparency and reflection, conveying its message through illuminated language best visible at night. The words “cleanliness” and “godliness,” emanate from the window with a projection of inner light and color. By linking elements of each building through the proverb, the artist renews our curiosity with the streetscape and our relationship with the streetscape. The installation implicates Montserrat College as a cultural agent, situated to observe and comment on the disparities between our exterior environment and the inner feeling underlying the everyday needs, purposes, and values of our audience.

Elizabeth Michelman is an interdisciplinary artist exhibiting public and site-responsive installation art, video documentaries and artist’s videos. Her range of media includes sculpture, drawing, painting, poetry, video, and installation. Both as an artist and a curator, she has organized many site-responsive exhibitions and community participatory projects throughout New England. Michelman has taught and lectured on a range of subjects including exhibitions, 2D/3D design, drawing, sculpture, and interdisciplinary art and installation at Mass College of Art and around New England.

Diane Bronstein: underdressed

December 11, 2010- January 5, 2011

Montserrat College of Art Gallery is pleased to present Diane Bronstein’s installation, underdressed, curated by Lydia Gordon. The closing exhibition of 2010 in Montserrat College of Art’s alternative display space Frame 301, Bronstein’s arrangement of handmade underwear, bras, and slips suggest a narrative to each article of clothing, hinting at the vulnerability yet desirability of its wearers.

 

The artist’s creation of intimate apparel derives from her interest in privacy and how we identify ourselves by covering the body. The detailed sketching, clothing design and delicate craftsmanship of each piece allows the artist to explore the closest layer of clothing to our bodies and its protective connotation. By exposing what is usually covered, the artist brings intrigue to each piece, its owner, and their relationship.

 

A visual and conceptual pastiche, underdressed transforms the storefront gallery into a scene of laundry lines. underdressed is constructed from hand-sewn paper clothing, sketches of figure drawings, and sky-blue paint, drawing connections to the everyday surroundings on Cabot Street. By incorporating elements of the laundromat, art school practice, and skyline, underdressed rearranges physical characteristics of our community. By utilizing the unique perspective Frame 301 offers viewers, Bronstein hangs her pieces in a zig-zag fashion, ultimately proposing a three-dimensional, unconventional looking experience. While the artist’s process involved the layering of pencil, charcoal, and paper, underdressed ultimately strips down to the idea of physical identity, modesty, and desirability. 

 

Diane Bronstein is a Boston-based artist focused on the creation of paper clothing, inspired by her attendance to life-drawing sessions at the Arlington Center for the Arts . Bronstein received her B.F.A in Graphic Design and Illustration at Carnegie-Mellon University and currently works as an exhibition designer for traveling, temporary and permanent exhibitions at the Museum of Science in Boston. 

For more information: http://montserrat.edu/galleries/frame%20301/

Yassie Goldie & GJYD's "i want to soX yuO"

October 5 – November 5

Originally a storefront window, Frame 301 was the perfect space for GJYD to launch their most recent campaign, which includes commercials for yuO soX memorabilia that glow from within gold television sets and yuO soX merchandise available for purchase.

With an interest in shedding light on social injustice and promoting change rather than promoting themselves, it was clear that GJYD needed a figurehead. In 2008, this responsibility was given to Mr. Yassy Goldie. The group utilizes Goldie’s public persona for promotion and representation so the individual identities of the collaborative members may remain anonymous. I want to soX you, a campaign inspired by Boston’s beloved baseball team, is Goldie’s attempt at introducing himself to and connecting with the city of Boston.

By way of the internet, social media, guerilla performances and public installations, GJYD have exhibited their “death metal glam ghettotech” aesthetics throughout the regional and digital art communities. The group’s egalitarian street art style and process symbolize their dedication to targeting closed-mindedness, prejudice and hatred through truth, irony, humor and satire in the most public spheres.

Raul Gonzalez: The Gangs all Here, Minus a few featuring El Frijol, El Negrito and the Angel

September 2 – October 4

A Founding member of Somerville art collective Miracle 5, Gonzalez work references histories through the aesthetic of antiquated cartooning. In his most recent work, stereotypical cartoon character archetypes are used to encourage a socio-historical critique.

“The Gangs all here, Minus a Few featuring El Frijol, El Negrito and the Angel” refers to the nicknames used as terms of “endearment” to those with darker or lighter skin tones in the Mexican culture. The characters are fictional and drawn using the same shapes but the colors with which they are painted changes their interpretation. The clouds and the colors distract you from seeing the shape in it's true form.

"Cartoon characters are like water in that they can take any form that we imagine for them as well as survive any treatment. They have been dehumanized and can therefore be tortured and humiliated without any lasting degree of guilt or consequence before disappearing from our memories altogether." - Raul Gonzalez

Karen Moss: The Commuter

August 4th - 30th

The Commuter, an installation by Boston-based artist Karen Moss exhibits her recognizable hybrid characters cavorting through imaginary landscapes. In this site-specific work, Moss' imagery sets up a comparison of the urban and the bucolic. Both scenes merge retro aesthetics with the characteristics of contemporary street art to depict the experience of popular culture in both metropolitan and rural environments.

Meltdown

June 1st - July 5th

As Part of 2010 annual Encaustic Conference, wax scraps were collected from attendees and installed in Frame 301.