Art Beat: Exploring a breadth of styles at New Bedford Art Museum's 'In Residence'

There are ten artists, working in a wide range of disciplines and styles, featured in the current show at the New Bedford Art Museum. The initialism laden title of the show is “In Residence: NPS AIR + CAIR Alumni Exhibition.”

Presented by the staff of the museum in conjunction with the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, all the participant artists are alumni of the local arm of the National Park Service’s Artist-In-Residence or Community Artist-In-Residence programs.

The programs are described as an opportunity to give local artists space, time and resources to develop their work and are designed to create access points for them to engage with members of the greater community. And those points of access are reached in a myriad of ways.

Painter Andrew Tedesco gets there through portraiture that in some cases employs text as a way to pull the viewer deeper into the story. For the naysayers who think painting should not utilize the written word, even just as compositional elements or shape-making, take a look at his “One of Us is the Killer” and try to resist the draw of the chatter.

In a more traditional mode, Tedesco displays “Tori,” a portrait of his friend and colleague Tori Mulhern, herself an exceptional painter. He captures her in a state of elegant repose, dressed in a green and gray striped sweater. Behind her is an overly busy, multi-hued stenciled pattern that only serves to magnify her calm.

While in her residency, mixed media artist Wanda C. Medina researched women who were involved with the whaling industry and became aware of the indigenous Maori women of New Zealand who watched the sea as they farmed. When they sighted the flukes (or tailfins) of a sperm whale or humpback, they would ignite a fire to signal the men to get down to the shore and take the beast.

Her “”Flukes in the Harbor, Fire in the Field,” created with acrylic paint, tree bark and paper on canvas, is a handsomely rendered semi-abstract image, in which the fire, the field and the flukes are given their due justice.

“Between You, Me and the Lamp Post” by Dan Borelli is literally a lamp post, outfitted with LED lighting, and is mounted on a wheeled plywood platform. In a statement accompanying the work, Borelli notes that the phrase that informs its title implies that there are hidden truths that are never meant to be revealed outside of a privileged conversation.

But he goes on to say that the sculpture is the opposite of a secret, that it is “a prototype for a public display with an environmental sensor that could be programmed to alert local citizens when it detects non-organic abnormalities in the environment.”

That is certainly forward-thinking and even noble but there is something subtly beautiful about simply seeing the lights slowly shift between blue and purple and pink.

Fitzcarmel LaMarre’s “IMMA KILL’EM ALL” (capitalization is the artist’s) is an acrylic painting intended to be the cover of the long-awaited Chapter 2 of his “New Deadford“ graphic novel, which depicts what happens when the zombie apocalypse hits the Whaling City. (Spoiler alert: it’s not pretty.)

The painting depicts a man with an infant strapped to his chest, his wife and young daughter at his side, moving through an urban landscape with a sense of urgency but without panic.  As LaMarre is a stickler for detail, astute New Bedford residents might notice that the building in the immediate background is the Spring Street rear entrance to the long abandoned RMV.

In the main lobby of the museum, there are three monumental charcoal drawings by Amy Araujo. Each of three deal with big subjects, befitting their scale. One is an untitled work that depicts four young men of color, all shirtless. Three gaze back at the viewer while the last looks downward. There is a tattoo that reads “R.I.P. Papa” over his heart.

That drawing was created in response to a conference on penal abolition and speaks to racial inequality in the justice and correctional systems. It is bold and haunting and rings with truth.

Araujo’s “Inheritance” is a portrait of her daughter and mother. They stand in a field, a starry sky behind them. Alongside them is a majestic African lion, as still as a well-trained dog. The big cat symbolizes inner strength and perhaps pride, non-physical qualities often not considered when pondering inheritance.

In a provided statement, Araujo wrote, “My work is about my life and the feelings and the emotions attached to experiences in an attempt to connect with at least one other person.”

There is no doubt that her work will connect with many other people.

The show is rounded out with woven works by Sandra Santos, a small watercolor depicting a Narragansett flint by Dawn Spears, a series of works by Deanna Tavares, slightly reminiscent of the “Big Eyes” kitsch paintings by Margaret Keane with some welcome contemporary twists, and paintings by Iva Brito, including her take on a photograph by the dadaist and surrealist Man Ray, which recently sold for $12.4M.

And then there is the always enigmatic Carl Simmons. His untitled and abundant installation revels in so much local nostalgia that it demands a review unto itself. Coming soon…

“In Residence: NPS AIR + CAIR Alumni Exhibition” is on display at the New Bedford Art Museum, 608 Pleasant St., New Bedford until Nov. 13.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Art Beat explores 'In Residence' at New Bedford Art Museum