At City Gallery, Artists Revel In The Fun Of Figuring It Out

The sculpture in the window of City Gallery is fashioned almost like it could be a bouquet of summery flowers, or a piece of interesting coral — the kind of art made from natural objects that you see a lot. But the pleasing shapes are actually representations of caterpillars that look like they could crawl out of their ceramic homes at any second. Some may find it a little creepy, but it’s also about the abundance of nature, the way it moves and grows, especially in the summer. 

That’s in keeping with the way the sculptor, Sheila Kaczmarek, makes her art. Kaczmarek’s ​“interest lies in both the process of layering and in stripping away surfaces,” she writes in an accompanying statement. ​“Her clay surfaces sometimes incorporate paint, metal, and encaustic wax. Most recently, she has been intrigued by the complexity and unexpected nature when assembling multiple organic forms like fungi.”

Kaczmarek’s willingness to let the art take her where it may as she makes it is an affinity she shares with Lenny Moskowitz and Roberta Friedman, the other two artists in ​“Incarnations” — the latest show at City Gallery on Upper State Street, running now through July 31.

Kaczmarek’s investigations of nature may play with scale — the caterpillars in her sculpture would be startlingly large if they were real — but in the end she hews close to natural forms. Lenny Moskowitz’s depictions of real places, meanwhile, lead him inexorably away from simply representing them. ​“I give myself lots of room to explore the subjects that inspire,” Moskowitz writes. ​“The paintings in this show are abstractions of landscapes that I have returned to often. There is a lot of experimentation and trial and error. I approach a painting without a preconceived idea of what the final work should look like. I am always looking for interesting things and events to occur with the paint as I am working. I thrive on surprise, and I rely more on process rather than technique to create my art.”

Those experiments lead not just to a fuzzing of details, but to introductions of blasts of color more vivid than what’s usually found around here. The color conveys not only a sense of what it’s like to be in those places on sun-drenched days, but also the thrill of finding out, one happy accident at a time, what the canvas holds.

Roberta Friedman then dispenses with subjects altogether; in her pieces, the subject is the medium, and the processes she uses to manipulate them. ​“My quest to learn more about creating art with hot and cold wax, oil pigments and oil paints continues,” Friedman writes. ​“There are always new discoveries as light and textures play off the rich pigments that can be both transparent or opaque depending on their properties and application.… Exposing or obliterating aspects of design and pigments are a challenge that complement and enhance the vision. What fun!”

The last sentence in Friedman’s statement most accurately sums up both the overall mood of the artists about their work and the general feel of going to see it. ​“Incarnations” is the manifestation of artists seriously enjoying what they do, resulting in the kind of show that would bring sun even on a cloudy day.

“Incarnations” runs at City Gallery, 994 State St., through July 31. For hours and more information, visit the gallery’s website.