Gabrielle Barzaghi and Susan Erony Seminal Gloucester Artists
On View at Matthew Swift Gallery
By: Swift - Sep 11, 2024
Gabrielle Barzaghi: Fear Game September 21 – October 21, 2024
Susan Erony: American Trouble September 21 – November 10, 2024
Matthew Swift Gallery is very pleased to present Fear Game, a solo exhibition of 12 new drawings by Gabrielle Barzaghi, on view September 21 through October 21 in the Gallery’s Main Room.
And the Gallery is very pleased to present American Trouble, a simultaneous solo exhibition of 7 new and selected mixed media works by Susan Erony, on view September 21 through November 10 (the Sunday after Election Day) in the Gallery’s Vault Room.
The Gallery will host an opening reception in honor of both artists Saturday, September 21, 5–7pm.
Fear Game is Barzaghi’s fifth solo exhibition, and American Trouble is Erony’s fourth solo exhibition at Matthew Swift Gallery.
Barzaghi’s work is bold, has no truck with the comforts of feeding jaded appetites. Her drawings begin with concrete objects and sometimes the germ of a story. As she develops them, she infuses them with restless narratives of personal experience, impassioned awareness of other art, and keen alertness to the sociopolitical realities of the day. The results are surprising, vital, imaginative works of art that entangle beauty and understanding by holding three elements in a rare balance: a political edge, mythic transcendence, and an insistence on their accomplished materiality.
Beautiful and strange horses, tigers, humans, and other animals populate these drawings. The title work, Fear Game, and four others are large-scale major works. All are pastel on paper, and two involve ink and monoprint as well.
One direction of Susan Erony’s mixed media paintings responds to cataclysmic historical events, ominous developments, and troubling times. Lost in America, the title work of her solo exhibition in 2018, became the first of a group of works responding specifically to American history. These are shown together for the first time along with several related works. While two are silent, most of the paintings incorporate words, a form which Erony has explored extensively in her historical works.
Both Barzaghi and Erony are among the contemporary women artists whose work is on view at the Cape Ann Museum through September 29.
Matthew Swift, Director
Matthew Swift Gallery, 189 Main St / Gloucester MA 01930
director@matthewswiftgallery.com | 978-491-7785 | https://matthewswiftgallery.com