Artists Reflect The Pandemic Back

At first glance, Mary Lesser’s painting is playful, almost festive, the earth a bright orange, the characters frolicking on the slope a cotton-candy pink. But then it becomes clear that the house at the top of that hill is the White House, and the sky is black, and suddenly the whole painting inverts itself. Is it a frolic or a frenzy? A rampage? Once established, that sense of ominousness can’t be shaken — which is just how Lesser wants it.

The title of the painting is The Effects of Bad Government; Lesser explained that it’s a riff on Effects of Good Government on the City Life, a fresco by 14th-century Italian painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti, which appears on the walls of a government building in Siena. Her painting depicts ​“the White House surrendering,” she said — the fallout of the administration abdicating its responsibilities.

A companion piece, School Days, shows a school similarly assaulted by the virus. Made as the events that inspired them were unfolding, the paintings represent Lesser’s engagement with the world around her. They show her outrage, laced with wry wit, as she finds a potent parallel between the invasion of far-right rioters and the outbreak of the virus. Both are elements the government could have controlled, but didn’t.

Lesser’s painting is part of ​“Pop Up,” featuring the art of Lesser, Oi Fortin, and Liz Pagano and running now at City Gallery on upper State Street through Sept. 26. Organized by Barbara Harder, the show’s fleet run is characterized by the three artists’ varied responses to the disruption of the pandemic and the political upheaval in the country; as Pagano put it, Lesser is ​“confronting,” Fortin is ​“escaping,” and in her own work, she is ​“dealing.” And ​“we need them all,” Fortin said.

Lesser often works more abstractly, but said that ​“almost all my work has to do with something going on in the world. Somebody once asked me what inspired me and I said ​‘the evening news.’ I’ve always been fascinated and horrified by what people do to each other.” In the past, she has done a series of work about climate change, war, and refugees. In her style, she said, ​“I often try to make my paintings beautiful and attractive, so they get the message.” The friction between the bright, inviting colors and the darkness of the subject matter is purposeful. The jolt viewers feel may be what wakes them up.

For Fortin, making art ​“was the best escape from the pandemic,” she said. All three artists, she said, have studios in Erector Square. ​“I could go in my studio with my mask on and hide out.” While working on pieces, she said, ​“I just shut everything else down. I don’t listen to the news or anything else.” Her art was in direct response to the pandemic’s outbreak. ​“First I was shocked. Then I was angry. Then I thought, ​‘OK, I’m going to make the best of this. This is a time to keep making art.’”

Her art, full of calming, welcoming shapes, pleasant curves, calm hues, was explicitly about creating a refuge. ​“I just can’t produce if I’m troubled. I have to go completely outside of everything that’s going on in the world,” she said. Her art comes from a place of serenity, a place she must arrive it before work can begin. ​“For me, if it’s not happy, it’s not going to flow,” she said. ​“I have to think of something soothing, something peaceful. I’m completely the opposite from Mary.”

Meanwhile, at the beginning of the pandemic, Pagano said, ​“at first I wasn’t doing a lot of art. I learned how to make sourdough bread like 50 million other people did. I focused on my reiki.” The early weeks of it were a chance for her to do ​“all the stuff I didn’t have time to do.” But as the weeks stretched into months, she returned to making art. She started making her pieces for this show in July. She is primarily a printmaker but ​“was sick of printmaking at the time,” she said. Realizing she needed a little break from the medium, but not from artmaking altogether, she switched to painting. ​“I haven’t painted in a long time, so that was really nice,” she said. Some of the pieces ​“really are brand-spanking-new. I think the glue is still wet.”

For Pagano, the pieces are ​“about dealing with change. There has been a lot of change — a lot for me — and it’s about surrendering what was, and being okay. Being able to look around and appreciate where you are, right now. Even though you don’t know what will be. You have to be OK with where you are.” That intention shows up in the images, as shapes appear to morph from one form to another before the viewer’s eyes. But the transformations are as exciting as they are uncertain.

In the range of approaches, all three artists agreed that making the art helped them. Lesser pointed out that while the work itself may be confronting the chaos of the chaos, actually working on the pieces is an escape. ​“It requires thoughts about composition and color,” questions removed from the subjects she’s painting. There was, she said, a spiritual component to that.

Pagano agreed. ​“It’s my church,” she said of her practice of making art. It facilitates ​“connection with who I am, with the source.”

That resonated with Fortin was well. ​“Whenever I was stuck,” she said, ​“I asked, ​‘OK, God, what is it you want me to do today?’” Sometimes, the answer was simply ​“to think about what it is we’re here to do. For me, it’s to help one another in the world, and if it’s through art, then that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. That was my mantra, and it’s always been that way.”

“Pop Up” runs at City Gallery, 994 State St., through Sept. 26. Visit the gallery’s website for more information.