features – Page 7 – dArt International Magazine

February 22, 2022March 14, 2022

Lie-yi Shen: Art into Life

by Thalia Vrachopoulos

Lie-yi Shen, Moisture, 2009, green granite, 300 x 140 x 60 cm — Lie-yi Shen, *Moisture*, 2009, green granite, 300 x 140 x 60 cm

Lie-yi Shen works on his sculptural series for long periods of time, conceptualizing and finessing them while developing artworks in continuity. Many of his projects, as seen in Seesaw, (2012-21), Water Series (2001-21), Sky Series, (2012-19), Nest Series, (2004-21), can be discussed in terms of the Minimalist spirit in that they are repeated but gradually varied geometric artworks that use industrial materials. But Shen’s sculpture is different in the sense that he sometimes makes use of organic objects within them, starting a new work by adding various surprising components to his original piece. Because of this continued relationship and growth over time, in his work we can conclude that Shen has arrived at the mature stage of his career.

February 19, 2022March 14, 2022

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center’s Permanent Collection

by D. Dominick Lombardi

Balthus, La semaine des quatre jeudis (The Week of Four Thursdays) (1949), oil on canvas, 38 1/2 x 33 1/4 inches — Balthus, *La semaine des quatre jeudis (The Week of Four Thursdays)* (1949), oil on canvas, 38 1/2 x 33 1/4 inches

My original intent was to review one of the four new exhibitions at The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, but as museum’s often go, I am more drawn to the offerings of their permanent collection. This is not to say the four ancillary curated exhibitions are not wonderful, they are. I just need to focus my comments as there is so much here to see, and no matter when you might visit this museum, you will have a very fulfilling experience, especially if you engage one of the extremely knowledgeable guards who enjoy sharing compelling facts about the art.

December 30, 2021March 15, 2022

Encountering Exaltation: The Recent Paintings of Margaret Evangeline

by Dominique Nahas

Margaret Evangeline, A Certain Dianthus, 2021, oil on canvas, 48" x 48" — Margaret Evangeline, *A Certain Dianthus, 2021*, oil on canvas, 48″ x 48″

It’s the sense of exaltation, the sense of revealment (or un-concealment, as Heidegger would put it) in Margaret Evangeline’s work that always triggers a lot of emotions in me. This calling-forth tone indicates. It doesn’t state or designate. Evangeline’s art rests halfway, poised between a point of revealment leavened with a sense of the untold, the unresolvedness of it all. This tone has an undeniable presence to it that is in itself a manifestation that allows a polyphony of feeling tones to emerge from the work.

November 6, 2021March 15, 2022

High + Low: A 45-Year Retrospective of the Work of D. Dominick Lombardi

by Eric Nord

D. Dominick Lombardi, “Whistling Bird”, 1998, courtesy of the artist. — *Whistling Bird* 1998, acrylic, wood, papier-mâché, acrylic medium, flower hair clip, 16 1/2 x 17 x 13 1/2 inches

For nearly 250 years, since the first documented occurrence in London in 1775, the artist retrospective has evolved and grown in significance to become a rite of passage within an artist’s career. Arguably, it is now considered an essential accomplishment for any serious artist, legitimizing their inclusion within the canon of art history, and signaling their arrival to a level of public, or at least academic, acknowledgement and recognition.

October 10, 2021March 15, 2022

Fred Gutzeit: Deep Nature Unfolded

A Retrospective, 1966-2021 at theCatherine Fosnot Art Gallery and Center in New London, CT from September 23 to November 13, 2021

by John Mendelsohn

*Fred Gutzeit exhibition installation view*

To create a retrospective exhibition of an artist’s work is to tell a story. It embodies a desire to shape the raw material of work made over many years into an inevitable, convincing narrative. The challenge is to not tell a tale so intriguing that it becomes more compelling than spirit of the art itself.