A piece featured in the exhibit by Stephanie Contino called "Coming to Rest." Photo submitted by Mike Oliver
The Reflections Exhibit is being held in the lobby of Commerce Place in Malden during March. The exhibit is sponsored by the “Coffee Shop Artists”, a committee of artists from Malden, Melrose, and Medford. The theme of the exhibit is reflections, which visually explores meanings of the word from a mirror image to contemplation. Each piece challenges the viewer to pause and consider how integral light, both actual and metaphorical, is in the process of reflecting.
Mike Oliver, one of the organizers of this exhibit, had chosen the theme Reflections with his planning committee as it “resonated with everyone” since it allows many interpretations of what reflection means to each individual artist. As this is Oliver’s fourth exhibit done at the Gallery, he explained that “it was a fairly smooth process” as the building staff were wonderful people to work with.
Oliver believes the two biggest challenges that he had faced while setting up this exhibit was “getting artists to participate and getting people to come to the reception”. He mentioned how “the marketing has to cover a broad spectrum” as him and his team used “social media, flyers, press releases, word of mouth, and personal invitations”.
Oliver really enjoyed “the appreciation of the artists for getting an opportunity to show their work” and “the work itself and the people’s reaction to it”. He also mentioned how the planning committee was “a terrific group [as] everyone pitched in with energy and enthusiasm.”
Some of the artists that were featured in this exhibit were Beth Copp, Carianne Roche, Maria Kennedy, Kara Kennedy, Jim Smith, Sally Gordon, Liz Thompkins, Lidia Russell, Alison Birch, Carol Schena, Jennifer Motini, and Jeanne Stafford.
Gordon believes that the committee “was very supportive, [as they] truly allowed freedom of interpretation of what ‘Reflections’ means to each artist”. She mentioned that she enjoys being a part of a local group and was “pleased by the number of artists that participated”. Gordon frequently faces the challenge of finding the “time to create new works” as her process with “homemade paper collages is to come up with an image and then find the right papers to create that image.”
The Reflections Exhibit will remain on display until March 30th.
Correction: a previous version of this article stated that the “Coffee Shop Artists” were a committee of artists from Malden.
Correction: a previous version of this article stated that the Reflections Exhibit is held in the café of Commerce Place.
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