Inherited from Bollywood

From “Artifice,’’ new paintings by Springfield, Mass., artist Priya N. Green, at the D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, through Dec. 31

She says that her “layered oil paintings explore ideas of reality and perception through the pervasive images found in the news. Green’s work forms a response to the phenomenological impact of absorbing information and seeking truth through the screen. She uses the materiality of paint to address the veracity of the photographic images that have penetrated the twenty-first century psyche. As the granddaughter of a Bollywood screenwriter, Green believes her fascination with images is an inherited trait. By extracting and manipulating these images through paint, she forms an emotional connection to these events that are otherwise intangibly experienced through a screen.’’

Multi-faceted rapping

Work from the show “Nelson Stevens: Color Rapping,’’ at the D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Mass., through Sept. 3.

The museum says:

“Nelson Stevens (American, 1938-2022), an artist and educator, is renowned for creating powerful, rhythmic compositions that celebrate Black life and reveal his technical mastery of the figure.’’

“Stevens lived in Springfield. In the early 1970s, {where} he initiated a groundbreaking public art project that resulted in the creation of over 30 murals throughout the city. Like Stevens’s colorful paintings, the murals promoted Black empowerment and brought the pride and activism associated with the Black Arts Movement to western Massachusetts. Fifty years later, his message, artwork, and influence continue to be celebrated locally and nationally.”

“I create from the rhythmic color-rappin-life-style of Black folk. I believe that art can breathe life, and life is what we are about.’’

— Nelson Stevens

In summer white

 

"A Study in White'' (oil on canvas), by CHARLES WEBSTER HAWTHORNE (1872-1930), in the show "American Impressionism: The Lure of the Artists' Colony,'' at the D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Mass, though Oct. 25.

New England, especially the coast and mountains, had lots of artist colonies from the Civil War on. It probably still does but doesn't seem to producing as many famous artists as it did in Victorian and Edwardian times. And most artists can't afford to live in the scenic coastal towns to which they used to flock, Even the Berkshires have gotten too pricey.