“William Bailey,” Alpha Gallery, Boston, MA. Through Nov. 7.
“Robert Ferrandini: New Paintings on Paper”, Gallery NAGA, Boston, MA. Through Nov. 3.
In the Boston Globe, Cate McQuaid reports: “Six years ago, artist Robert Ferrandini had a stroke that paralyzed his right painting hand. When he recovered sufficiently to return to his art, Ferrandini taught himself to paint with his left hand. The touch isn’t as delicate, the majesty is diminished, and the darkness can never be as deep and aching if he continues in watercolor. Yet Ferrandini’s fervent visual intelligence makes these works intriguing in their own right. The density of his marks, which have a nervous, buzzing energy, pushes his landscapes to the edge of dissolution – and that’s something that hasn’t changed….William Bailey, the iconic American painter of still lifes , stuck to his serenely formal subject while waves such as Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Minimalism rolled past him. The paintings are purely modernist in their formalism, despite their old-fashioned subjects. This artist has no narrative agenda, no underlying moral to take away, like the 17th-century Dutch still-life painters. He’s more like a Zen gardener, raking the same patch of sand every day, finding beauty anew in it.” Read more.
