Foster Gallery Exhibitions



		February 25–April 5, 2013 The Keepers: Photographs by Christine Collins “My series “The Keepers” looks at people who are keeping beehives in suburban areas. Once limited to more rural areas, the practice of beekeeping participates in our fantasies about a suburban utopia, where we attempt to achieve both a pastoral and domestic landscape. Beekeeping speaks to our desire to “hold” nature in the face of an increasingly disconnected culture. I see these people as facilitators, and I think about how the small action of placing a hive in a backyard has broad implications about our desire for an inter-connectedness with nature.” This series of gorgeous and haunting photographs by Boston artist Christine Collins speaks to the longing of humans to both interact with and control the natural world.


		October 29–December 7, 2012 Exploring The Print: Zea Mays Printmaking Lithography. Woodcut. Drypoint. Aquatint. Photopolymer Intaglio. These are just some of the possible mediums that artist use when they produce a print. In this exhibition, Foster Gallery presents an exploration of printmaking through the remarkable collective of Zea Mays Printmaking. Zea Mays is a studio, workshop, educational facility and research center that is a leader in green printmaking processes. This group exhibition will focus on 9 different types of printmaking and will allow the viewer a deeper understanding about these historical, expressive, and challenging mediums.


		September 5–October 13, 2012 A Process of De-Capsulation Foster Gallery opens the 2012-13 season with an exciting installation. Boston based artist Joe Joe Orangias has created a portable, mobile hotel based on his experiences travelling the public spaces of Boston and Japan. Mr. Orangias has created a work, The Capsule Hotel, that is interactive, provocative, and ever changing. After being shown in Boston and Provincetown, the latest iteration of The Capsule Hotel will be shown in Foster Gallery. It will be modified by Mr. Orangias and Nobles’ visual and performing art students over the run of the exhibition. The piece offers a dialogue for viewers about post-consumer waste, domesticity and public space, queer culture, and class systems.


		May 7–June 1, 2012 Student Show 2012: Works from the AP Studios Our annual student exhibition showcases the breadth and depth of creative endeavors explored by students enrolled in the AP Photography, Ceramics, and Painting/Drawing programs at Nobles.


		March 1–April 16, 2012 Joo Lee Kang What is nature? What is technology? In exquisitely rendered works on paper and playfully intricate installations of paper, artist Joo Lee Kang explores the evolution of the role of technology in our heavily manipulated world. She does not offer solutions or judgements, seemingly more drawn to those ambiguous moments where the line between nature and technology has all but disappeared.


		January 9–February 17, 2012 A Girl in Her Room: photographs by Rania Matar This exhibition features selections from an ongoing body of work by Rania Matar in which she collaborated with girls from both the United States and the Middle East to make photographs that depict the girls in their bedrooms. In her own words, “This project is about teenage girls and young women at a transitional time of their lives, alone in the privacy of their own personal space and surroundings: their bedroom, a womb within the outside world.”


		December 7–19, 2011 BRANCHING OUT: a community art making event We are planning a collaborative art-making event, with the resulting artworks to be shown for two weeks in Foster Gallery at Noble & Greenough School. Our goal is for students from Nobles to work together with students from Cook's Afterschool Program (Needham) to create individual pieces that will combine to form a larger piece. We are inspired by the idea of a tree as a symbol of outreach, community, and connections to family and friends. Make like a tree and branch out! We hope you can come and join us!


		October 14–November 18, 2011 John Gill and Doug Casebeer This exhibition features a dynamic pairing of works by Doug Casebeer and John Gill, two heavyweights in the ceramics world who are active both as educators and as artists. In addition to his busy life as a potter, traveler, and teacher, Casebeer is the Artistic Director at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, a thriving artist community in Snowmass, Colorado. Gill is a beloved faculty member in the distinguished ceramics department at Alfred University (which Casebeer attended). The two are close friends working on opposite sides of the country and this show promises an opportunity for connections, both visual and beyond.


		September 6–October 7, 2011 CHASING IDEAS: the work of Whitney C. Robbins Robbins is the consummate artist/teacher. For this exhibition, she revisited “Art Without Boundaries,” a class she took during her sophomore year at Nobles which she found formative in the clarification of her ideas about art and teaching and ultimately helped her carve her own path in both. In this solo exhibition, Robbins plans to transform the gallery space through drawings, paintings, prints, sculpture, and installation to celebrate the ways in which art can communicate, inspire and teach. Image at left: Soup, 2010, mixed media.


		May 2–27, 2011 Student Show 2011: Work from the AP Studios This exhibition showcases the breadth and depth of creative endeavors explored by students enrolled in the AP Photography, Ceramics, and Painting/Drawings programs at Nobles. From works responding to the proliferation of social media, such as Christian Hatch's "Scott DeSantis April 25, 2010 - July 5, 2010," (at left) to large scale ceramic vessels to apocalyptic musings in charcoal, these students marry imaginative leaps with technical finesse in wide-reaching exhibit.


		March 28–April 22, 2011 Family Portraits Guest curated by Boston based artist Evelyn Rydz, this show brings together five artists working in a variety of media who all address ideas of family, relationships, and identity, both real and constructed. Participating artists include Hannah Barrett, Christine Rogers, Megan & Murray Macmillan, Tanit Sakakini, Dustin Williams, and Cobi Moules. Image at left: The Listening Array, Megan & Murray Macmillan, digital c-print, 2008.


		February 4–March 2, 2011 Prior Lives: Found Object Sculpture by Laura McCarty Walpole based sculptor Laura McCarty presents a new selection of playful yet suggestive works made from found objects. The familiarity of the objects that become her material and her media allows the viewer to begin constructing narratives of past stories or memories. Image at left: Childhood, found objects, Laura McCarty, date unknown.


		January 10–28, 2011 Work: Visual Arts Faculty Show 2011 A biennial exhibition of recent works by Nobles visual arts faculty members Nora Jean Creahan, John Dorsey,Amanda Fiedler, John Hirsch, Lisa Jacobson, David Roane, and .Betsy Van Oot.


		December 3–10, 2010 ArtAid 2010 A yearly student driven exhibition celebrating outreach and service within the Nobles community and beyond.


		October 22–November 19, 2010 Never far from the water: 36 Years, 36 Photographs by Joe Swayze Former Visual Arts faculty member Joe Swayze presents an exhibition culminating his years as artist-in-residence. This exhibition celebrates Swayze's career as a master teacher, a photographer, and a traveler and citizen of the world. Image at left: Yen Vi Stream, Vietnam, gelatin silver print, Joe Swayze, 1998.


		September 17–October 15, 2010 Private Language/Lenguaje Privado: Copperi and Villalvilla In "Private Language / Lenguaje Privado," Luis Alberto Perez COPPERI and Camilo VILLALVILLA Soto offer two individual windows on the shared experience of being Cuban artists. A series of remarkable drawings and paintings reveal a potent, provocative and deeply engrossing vision. A Ciriano amigo filoso y filósifo, oil on canvas, VILLALVILLA


		August 23–September 10, 2010 Objects of an Everyday Life: Ceramics by Nora Jean Creahan Nora Jean Creahan makes ceramics that celebrate the texture of everyday life. Each vessel, cup and platter resonate with rich patterns, but ground themselves in simple, humble forms. As a group, these pieces create a playful, joyous reflection of variety and surprise of life.


		May 3–June 5, 2010 Curtis Mann: Modifications Foster Gallery is delighted to present an exhibition of photographs by Chicago-based artist Curtis Mann. Mann's almost painterly treatment of found imagery pushes the traditional limits of photography in exciting, surreal and beautiful ways.


		April 12–30, 2010 Student Show 2010: Work from the AP Studios Foster Gallery presents the fourth annual Student Exhibition, featuring photography, ceramics, painting, and drawing from students in the AP Studio classes. Image at left by Alexa Zilberfarb '10, silver gelatin print, 2010.>


		February 17–March 12, 2010 Two New England Potters: Mary Barringer and Sam Taylor This exhibition is a dialog between Mary Barringer and Sam Taylor, two regional potters intensely interested in exploring the rich and fertile territory of ceramic surface. Together, their works span the vast variety of creation and firing processes available to the studio potter, from hand-built and electric fired to wheel thrown and wood fired.


		January 6–February 5, 2010 Lightscapes: Lighting Design by Tony Kudner “There is much that can be learned by releasing one’s thinking from the all too corporeal demands of modern lighting design” Lighting designer Tony Kudner recreates a series of three installations from his thesis in Theatrical Lighting Design from Boston University. In each of these installations, light is the subject of the work, and is not in the service of any other media. Using only a minimum of tangible materials (scrim, haze, water, etc...), Tony creates environments that capture his own feeling for the beauty and power of light.


		October 27–December 10, 2009 Local Knowledge: Photographs by Margot Kelly Margot Kelly's photographs cover two recent projects: Local Treasures: Geocaching Across America and A Field Guide to Other People's Trees. Her work is tied by its innate beauty and by Kelly's tremendous and far-ranging curiosity. Local Knowledge is a testimony to the things that bind us together and the treasures that one finds by just looking.


		September 9–October 16, 2009 Walking-a-Long In her exhibition Walking-a-Long, artist Daniela Rivera—trained as a painter, but very much inspired by conceptual and minimalist art of the late 20th century—challenges us to think very carefully about many preconceived notions: what is the nature of a painting? what is the nature of landscape? which is more “real”: the illusion of grass placed in its expected location, or actual grass disassociated from its norm? Rivera’s installation is inspired in part by her admiration for the artist Richard Long, who “draws” lines in the landscape by walking and whose documents of these performances become his “art." Rivera sees her paintings as a narrative in the same way Long's interactions with the landscape are a narrative, and in this installation she invites us all to become part of an ongoing story.


		May 4–June 12, 2009 Continuum: Photography, Painting and Sculpture by Kate Blacklock 2009 Providence-based artist Kate Blacklock presents a mid-career retrospective, with a range of work combining media in a variety of ways. Continuum offers viewers an opportunity to contemplate the ways in which the forms and subjects that inspire an artist both morph over time and yet remain a constant.


		April 13–May 1, 2009 Student Show 2009: Works from the AP Studios


		February 23–April 3, 2009 Animalia - Photographs by Henry Horenstein 2009 Texas Map Turtle – Graptemys versa Foster Gallery is delighted to welcome well-known photographer Henry Horenstein’s exhibition "Animalia," a collection of the best of Horenstein’s images of sea and land creatures. Described variously as evocative, mysterious, romantic, surprising, and weird, Horenstein's abstract images will make the viewer see otherwise familiar animals in a new and different light.


		January 12–February 18, 2009 works and process: visual arts faculty show 2009 Seven members of the Nobles' visual arts department faculty share their current work with the community. The exhibit includes photographs from John Hirsch, sculpture from Amanda Fiedler, ceramics from John Dorsey, Lisa Jacobson and Meredith Turner, and paintings from David Roane and Betsy VanOot. The seven artists will discuss their respective working process and the context for their work on Wednesday, January 14th. Image: The Twelfth Hour, David Roane, oil on canvas.


		December 5–19, 2008 The What and the Why:Service Learning at Nobles The Service Learning Program at Nobles extends far beyond the limits of the afternoon program and far beyond the limits of the Nobles' campus. This exhibit offers an overview of the many arms of community service, including interactive iPod presentations profiling four service learning trips and a visual schematic of the program itself. Launched in conjunction with the annual AIDS Art Sale, the show brings context to the fundraising effort with a companion exhibit on AIDS Activism at Nobles.


		October 14–November 21, 2008 Art From Intuition: The Works of Dean Nimmer 2008 During this exhibition, the gallery will be transformed and literally covered by Dean Nimmer’s installation of over 300 drawings from his on-going 1000 Drawings series, originally shown at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. Nimmer’s artistic production is a full exploration of the art-making process. About his painting Nimmer writes, “I prefer the phrase "intuition painting" because it is tied directly to the creative process itself. For me, intuition is the wellspring and inner voice that guides me though all the aesthetic decisions that go into my paintings.”


		September 2–October 3, 2008 Silent Dutch Shelters: The Designs of Nora Visser Foster Gallery is delighted to exhibit the designs of Nora Visser, a Dutch interior architect whose scale models and constructions invite both quiet contemplation and playful wonder. Image: Where the Lions Live, photo: Jan-Ranier van der Vliet


		May 1–June 5, 2008 From the Decisive Moment to the Deliberately Staged: Photographs from the Press Collection The Press collection features photographs from a wide range of prominent 20th century and contemporary artists such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gregory Crewdson, Jan Groover, Cindy Sherman and Joel Sternfeld. The images span the spectrum of photographic creativity: they range from photographs created according to the ideal of the “decisive moment” to images made in elaborately staged sets and studio settings. The exhibition emphasizes the collection’s strength of American photographs made from 1960 to the present. The collectors, Richard and Jeanne Press, built the collection through personal relationships with many of the artists and in conjunction with several major American museums and galleries.


		April 7–25, 2008 Student Show 2008: Work from the AP Studio The 2nd Annual Student Show, featuring 12 artists and the work they created in their AP studio courses. Abram Dawson '08, AP Ceramics Ceramic vessel with wood and straw


		March 31–April 25, 2008 Works from the AP Studios


		February 11–March 28, 2008 Form of Rhythm: Sculptures of John Hughes The Opening Reception for John Hughes has been postponed due to inclement weather. Please revisit the Foster Gallery website for a rescheduled reception date and time in the near future. Hughes’ sculpture is an exploration of forms, often evocative of musical instruments, but equally compelling as an interpretation of the relationship between lyrical line and precisely weighted mass. Creating surface textures that vary from stretched mulberry paper to polished wood to tensile steel, Hughes infuses his work with both inherent organic energy and neoclassical rigor of design. Meticulous craftsmanship defines this work, which has been shown at galleries throughout the United States as well as London, England. image: John Hughes © 1997 49 x 25 x 20 inches Steel, copper, Mulberry Paper


		January 7–February 8, 2008 Three Potters: Shapiro, Swyler and Branfman 2008 Mark Shapiro, Steven Branfman and Karen Swyler join together to exhibit their work.


		November 26, 2007–January 2, 2008 Handmade/Heartfelt: The Work of William Schaff “ [Schaff] manages to be political, but never didactic, soulful without slipping into shallow, and all with such a keen eye for the meaningful detail.” AJ Rathburn, Litrag Magazine Compelling, provocative and sometimes disturbing, Schaff’s work examines the human condition in all its potential brutality, abiding despair and constant hope for redemption. Versatile in a variety of media, from traditional paper cutouts to collage to line drawing, Schaff lends his observations a remarkable degree of detail and sensitivity that tempers his often difficult message. A large group of pen and ink drawings entitled “The Boat Series” depicts isolated individuals struggling in a metaphorical sea of savagery. “September 11th,” a 5-ft. collage, documents the destruction of the World Trade Center with a stream of skeletons erupting from monochromatic architectural forms, all against a stunning blue ground. Whether overtly ironic or intensely personal, Schaff’s work is marked by uncanny perceptiveness and an innate honesty.


		October 22–November 21, 2007 Sacred Sites: The Power of the Void The Work of Maddy Bragar Maddy Bragar paintings explore a sense of place and more specifically, a particular notion of how object and void interact to create a feeling of place. Bragar's paintings are visceral and evocative.


		September 7–October 10, 2007 Changing Contours: Silhouettes from Class III Students 2007 Foster Gallery is delighted to collaborate for the second year in a row with the students and faculty of a Nobles' class retreat. This year's installation includes 125 silhouettes designed, executed and installed by the members of Class III as they explored the meaning of identity over a two-day period. Students marked the walls of the Gallery with text and images, creating a biographical band over which was installed the paper silhouettes.


		May 17–June 5, 2007 From the AP Studios: 2007 Student Show


		March 26–May 15, 2007 Mags Harries and Lajos Héder: Waterways Artists Mags Harries and Lajos Héder create installations and objects in public spaces that address aspects of community, environment, history and memory. The artists work in a wide variety of locations including parks, zoos, museums, libraries, streets, plazas and public buildings. Harries is a trained sculptor and a Professor of Sculpture at the Museum School of Fine Arts in Boston. Lajos Héder is an architect and urban planner in Cambridge. The two have collaborated on public installations since 1990. The accompanying image is from an installation entitled Lucid Moment the duo displayed at Regis College in Weston, MA. The artists will create a sight-specific project at the Foster Gallery.


		February 5–March 9, 2007 Justin Kimball: Where We Find Ourselves Justin Kimball, Visiting Assistant Professor of Photography at Amherst College, will display photographs from his monograph, Where We Find Ourselves. Kimball’s photographs depict people at lakes, rivers, and watering holes throughout the country, describing American families on vacation. Kimball writes, "The moments I chose are a confluence of time and space, object and gesture, situations taken from their context to make something new...they should be something like a poem, one that is American, its searching inhabitants sharing a daunting and sometimes marred landscape. Their subjects are on the precipice, psychologically disconnected from one another, and physically isolated in the space. Yet they seem, at least to me, strangely beautiful and full of hope."


		January 29–February 2, 2007 Suk Jun Yun: Korean Ceramics and the Art of the Tea Ceremony The Foster Gallery is delighted to host an exhibit of the works of Suk Jung Yun during her brief visit to the Noble and Greenough School. Well-known in her native Korea for her masterful treatment of traditional vessels and her evocative sculptural forms, Yun is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. Suk Jung Yun is also an authority on Korean Tea Culture and lectures widely on the practice.


		January 8–26, 2007 Visual Arts Faculty Group Show 2007 Current faculty from Noble and Greenough School’s visual arts department come together for a group exhibition of work and work in progress. While at different stages in their careers, all are practicing artists whose work outside the classroom/studio informs and invigorates the discussions that happen within it. The exhibit will encompass a variety of media, including black and white and digital photography, ceramics, painting and sculpture. Faculty include John Dorsey, Betsy VanOot, Roger Boulay, John Hirsch, David Roane, and Lisa Jacobson.


		November 27, 2006–January 5, 2007 Illustration: Strange Turns of the Mind’s Road Regardless of media—pen and ink, paint, graphite, sculpture—illustration speaks to an intensely personal vision of the world and a sense of image as narrative. Seven very different illustrators with seven very different voices and worldviews exhibit their work, performing magical and engaging transformation on our collective imaginations. Artists include childrens’ book authors Jarrett Krosoczka, Grace Lin and Peter Reynolds and Kelly Murphy; painters Fred Lynch and Paul Olson and sculptor Ann Smith.


		October 24–November 21, 2006 Robert Freeman: New Landscapes Robert Freeman's new show of landscapes records the beautiful vistas on Noble and Greenough School campus in Dedham, Massachusetts in painterly images that combine vivid color, lively brushstrokes, and impressions of a moment in time.


		September 7–October 10, 2006 Fiction/No Fiction 2006 Fiction/No Fiction was an evolving installation that transformed two spaces: the Foster Gallery and the Putnam library. In the beginning weeks of the school year, all the school’s works of fiction was transported from the library to the Gallery. This created a library completely bereft of fiction and a gallery space composed entirely of fiction.