Group Show – Matthew Swift Gallery

One Life / Summer 2024

Matthew Swift — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 04:00:00 +0000

A continuation and evolution of the exhibition One Life, introducing new and selected works further illuminating the theme.

One Life

Matthew Swift — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 04:00:00 +0000

O! the one Life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere
…
And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all?

from “The Eolian Harp” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published 1796

Matthew Swift Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition curated with the inspirations of dance, plant life, and Coleridge’s poem “The Eolian Harp,” responding to the collaboration between Boston Dance Theater and visual artist Kim Radochia which led to the premiere of a new performance piece entitled “Unfurling” at a special performance and reception on March 16th.

The Gallery will host a public reception in celebration of the artists participating in the exhibition on Saturday, April 6, 5–7pm.

One Life features new works by Kim Radochia and Peter Lyons, works by Debra Olin and Patton Blackwell not previously shown at Matthew Swift Gallery, and works by Winston Boyer, Gabrielle Barzaghi, and Aron Leaman. The Gallery is also very pleased to introduce two works of batik on silk by Mary Edna Fraser [The Gallery’s artist page for her will be created soon; meanwhile visit her home page directly.]

A selection of works in the exhibition are shown below.

MMA 67

Matthew Swift — Sat, 09 Sep 2023 04:00:00 +0000

We’re still hoping to see Zuckerberg and Musk battle in the octagon. Meanwhile, Matthew Swift Gallery is pleased to present MMA 67, featuring your favorite mixed media artists squaring off in an aggregate of rectangles.

This 67th exhibition by Matthew Swift Gallery features new, recent, and vintage mixed media work by Susan Erony, Kim Radochia, Timothy Harney, Diane Ayott, Ken Riaf, Aron Leaman, and Michelle Samour. The gallery is very pleased also to include work by Dawn Southworth for the first time.

This is a comparatively short exhibition, during which the Gallery will be open for extended hours.

The slides below show selected works from the exhibition.

More Houses

Matthew Swift — Sat, 12 Aug 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Whether you’ve seen them all but want to see more, or the housing shortage in Gloucester has got you down, we are pleased to offer the solution: More Houses.

Up to Eleven

Matthew Swift — Fri, 05 May 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Matthew Swift Gallery is pleased to present Up to Eleven, a group exhibition celebrating the commencement of the Gallery’s 11th year and the formal reopening of its Main Street location after a pause of several months.

Reports of the Director’s demise in a bizarre gardening accident have been exaggerated. The hiatus at the Gallery’s Main Street location since mid-January was due to a major construction project in the building, trips to art fairs in Miami and West Palm Beach, and the work of moving back in, all of which inevitably required more effort and time than foreseen.

We have a great show for you, and we welcome you back to our classy Main Street gallery space, our home now for more than ten years.

Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary 2023

Matthew Swift — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 21:00:00 +0000

Matthew Swift Gallery is delighted to be exhibiting at the Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary 2023 art fair, which opens in West Palm Beach, Florida, with a private preview on Thursday, March 23, 2023, and continues with public hours Friday – Sunday, March 24–26. For passes, please contact the gallery.

Art Wynwood 2023

Matthew Swift — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 23:00:00 +0000

Matthew Swift Gallery is delighted to be exhibiting at the Art Wynwood 2023 art fair, which opens in Miami with a private preview on Thursday, February 16, 2023, and continues with public hours Friday – Sunday, February 17–19. For passes, please contact the gallery.

We will be in Booth A1, which is in the corner to your left immediately as you enter the fair.

Please return to this page soon for further information about the fair and what we will be showing in our booth.

Growth

Matthew Swift — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 05:00:00 +0000

This exhibition is evolving from the previous Right Here on Paper. We are bringing in some art showing trees and flowers and other works which suggest growth.

Right Here Not on Paper

Matthew Swift — Sat, 13 Aug 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Right Here Not on Paper is a companion exhibition to Right Here on Paper on view in the Vault Room. Works not on paper depicting Gloucester MA and environs by Peter Lyons, Patti Sullivan, Zygmund Jankowski, Eileen Mueller, Ken Riaf and Roger Martin will be on view.

The Gallery will host an reception in celebration of the artists participating in both exhibitions on Saturday, August 13, 4–6:30pm.

Selected works in the exhibition are shown below.

Right Here on Paper: Gloucester MA and environs

Matthew Swift — Sat, 06 Aug 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Matthew Swift Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of works on paper depicting Gloucester, Massachusetts, and environs.

While our focus at Matthew Swift Gallery is not explicitly regional, the physical place of Gloucester MA and its remarkable legacy in the arts has in one way or another influenced the work of most of the gallery’s artists. Many have lived in or adjacent to Gloucester, and others have a significant connection to the place — a friend, a family member, a father’s place of work.

Gloucester’s influence does not always lead an artist to represent the place, but often it does, and with this exhibition, Matthew Swift Gallery is taking time to acknowledge and celebrate the city and region of Gloucester MA and its heritage, past and present, in all the arts — visual, literary, and more. As you would expect if you follow Matthew Swift Gallery, we have curated this exhibition like our others, requiring more than excellence of craft, valuing the revelations of perspectives one step or several away from the most beaten paths, choosing voices uniquely individual even as they describe a communal landscape and continue the communal conversation that is the living history of art, and seeking works of art which shows us something new and something deeper than the superficial beauty of our shared world that we can see for ourselves, unaided.

— an expression of joy without sentimentality, an insight into the meaning, not just the beauty, of our shared world. and These are high standards expressed in words that may be highfalutin; but art which extends into these dimensions at all, even in a modest or subtle way, is a league apart from art which doesn’t, or never aimed to.

past generations: in works in this exhibition and its companion exhibition, Zygmund Jankowski tips his hat to Edward Hopper, several gallery artists at some point in their careers have reprsented Gloucester and its environs while engaged with and practicing Gloucester’s specific stylistic traditions in the visual arts as well as its

the cultural legacies of the region, the United STates, and the within shared on the landscape and its people,with the landscape and its people and with the history of with some clearly within the Modernist traditions of the region, others with voices outside these traditions, but the strongest lines of historical influence in the region.

and sometimes with self-conscious awareness of other artists who have worked in Gloucester recently or long ago.

the influences are primarily the Modernist thread of the regional heritage, which I distinguish from the Continental / Impressionist : Edward Hopper, Marsden Hartley, Mark Rothko, Nell Blaine. Gloucester’s literary heritage T. S. Eliot, Charles Olson — is more unequivocally Modernist.

the perspectives of outsiders, valuing the insights of artists who are perpetual outsiders even in their own back yards,

Right Here on Paper features work by Zygmund Jankowski, Erma Wheeler, Albert Alcalay, Winston Boyer, Gabrielle Barzaghi, Charlie Carroll, and Jeffrey Marshall. The Gallery is also very pleased to introduce watercolors by Howard Kline, an artist who resided in Rockport for many years and now resides in Arizona.

Opening one week later on August 13, a companion exhibition Vault Room titled Right Here Not on Paper will include works not on paper depicting Gloucester, Massachusetts, and environs.

The Gallery will host an reception in celebration of the artists participating in both exhibitions on Saturday, August 13, 4–6:30pm.

Selected works in the exhibition are shown below.