The balm of blue

“I Have Loved Many Colors” (encaustic monoprint), by Brookline, Mass.-based Lola Baltzell, in her show ‘Dabbling in Blue Magic,’’ at Galatea Fine Art, Boston, Nov. 4-27.

She tells the gallery:

"One of my favorite authors is {the late novelist}Vladimir Nabokov, and the title of this show is a nod to his imagery. One remarkable thing about his writing is that English is his second language. He refers to color frequently, my true love language.

Blue. Why Blue Magic?

All the work in this show is encaustic, also known as hot wax, and includes collage, painting and monoprints. I don't typically work in blue, yet all the pieces in this show are blue. I've spent a lot of the pandemic in the water - metaphorically and literally. Feeling adrift, lost at sea, looking for terra firma, yet I sought solace on the water, spending as much time paddleboarding as possible. Working in blue has felt like a balm, soothing, healing. My own blue period."

Views of Brookline

Photo collage by Ddogas

'Three aspects of time'

“Under the Juniper Tree’’ (encaustic) by Boston-based painter Lola Baltzell, in the “Brilliance and Celebration” show at Galatea Fine Art, Boston, through Oct. 31. She is a member of New England Wax (newenglandwax.com).

She says:

"This piece represents the past, the present and the future. Three panels, three aspects of time. Mostly I try to stay in the present. I feel like a refugee who has fled the homeland. I now live in a world that feels so foreign. The past — does it exist? It feels like ‘the old world’: The future? I'm trying to hold a sense of possibility."

The gallery says: “Lola Baltzell's works are uninhibited, yet carefully structured. It is not imposed, but appears as a reflection of natural order. Microbes, cells, direction of energy all serve to inform the surface of her works.’’

See:

galateafineart.com

'Text as object'

Painting by Lola Baltzell, in the show “Writing in the Margins: Lola Baltzell, Carol Blackwell, Amy Solomon and Valerie Spain,’’ at Maud Morgan Arts Chandler Gallery, Cambridge, Mass., through May 17. The gallery says: “We all share a passion for books and text, and the idea of text as object. We are all readers and book lovers, but also relish in altering books, searching for meaning in random words, foreign languages we don't understand. The title evokes many associations for us, as artists, but also for viewers as well. ‘‘