Erica H. Adams and Marjorie Minkin Go Fed

Concurrent Solo Exhibits in Boston's Moakley Courthouse

By: Erica H. Adams - Feb 13, 2023

Adams Where Roses Grew ©2020, Erica H. Adams, Watercolor and Ink on Paper: 9” x 20”.

Erica H. Adams solo exhibit Spirit in the Dark Watercolors on Paper ©2020, Left to Right: Biogenesis, A Wind Called Mariah and Moorings in Lobby Gallery, Moakley Courthouse, Boston

Fugue at the Gate©2022, Erica H. Adams, Watercolor on Paper: 11” x 30”.

Stella ©2022, Erica H. Adams, Watercolor on Paper: 9” x 20”

Marjorie Minkin solo exhibit Opacity/Translucency: Lexan wall reliefs installed on curved brick wall of the Atrium Gallery of Moakley Federal Courthouse, Boston.

Fire Dancer © Marjorie Minkin, Acrylic on molded Lexan relief: 67”x 36” x 14”

Ice Melt © Marjorie Minkin, Acrylic on molded Lexan: 36” x 68” x 10”

Weaver © Marjorie Minkin, Acrylic on molded Lexan relief: 62” x 32” x 10”

Concurrent solo exhibits at  Boston's Moakley Courthouse present new abstract watercolors by Erica H. Adams and abstract Lexan wall reliefs by Marjorie Minkin that share transparency, color-light and layers that reveal content.  

Both Erica H. Adams’ Spirit in the Dark and Marjorie Minkin’s Opacity/Translucency solo exhibitions are on view January 5 through March 30, 2023, Monday through Friday from 9 to 5 pm, at the Moakley Federal Courthouse, 1 Courthouse Way, in Southport area of Boston. The reception is March 23, 2023 Thursday from 3 to 5 pm.

Adams and Minkin met as students at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Both won SMFA Traveling Fellowships in 1979: Adams for watercolors critic David Bonetti called postmodern and Minkin for large-scale abstract paintings.

Erica H. Adams’ solo exhibit Spirit in the Dark presents her watercolors (2020-22) chronologically installed in the Lobby and Harbor Park galleries of Moakley Courthouse in Boston. A postmodern artist invested in narratives, Adams revisited the Modernist language of abstraction in response to the pandemic, quarantine and social upheaval. Akin to visual music were conceived of as thought-forms, Adam’s watercolors were done in a single sitting. The panoramic shape of the paper engages the peripheral vision and provokes continuous movement with changing focuses that frees the imagination. Critic B. Amore said “These paintings were executed during the pandemic, and are arranged in chronological order. There is a real evolution in the pieces, from very full and “packed” in the early ones to much more open and fluid as they evolve into lighter, more lyrical and open forms – as if a more meditative state had evolved”.

Marjorie Minkin’s solo exhibit Opacity/Translucency presents her Lexan wall reliefs (2015 -2022) installed on the Atrium gallery’s curved brick wall that faces Boston Harbor in dialogue with her undulating Lexan forms inspired by waves. The light and rhythm of waves, for Minkin symbolizes a world both always changing and seemingly ever present and eternal. Minkin’s Lexan reliefs grew out of her early “wave” paintings of abstract layered veils of color. She wanted to express a world where one could see beyond or through the surface. Lexan is a transparent polycarbonate plastic sheet that Minkin forms by heat then assembles in layers and paints. By leaving unpainted areas or ‘transparent windows’ Minkin reveals what is underneath the surface. Critic Karen Wilkin noted “Minkin’s transparent, rippling shapes detach stroke and gesture from the flat surface and launch them into space, as if she were deconstructing painting by making its components both more tangible and less substantial.”