The Goetemann Artist Residency Program (GAR)
Bringing artists from around the world. the Goetemann Artist Residency Program has long been a staple of the Rocky Neck Art Colony. In 2023 our programs include Robin Colodzin as the Gloucester Invitational Artist in May and Julia Shepley as the Environmental Installation Artist in September. Read details below.
Environmental/Installation Artist, September 2023:
Julia Shepley
Sunday, September 10, 4pm – Opening Talk at The Cultural Center at Rocky Neck
Sunday, October 1, 2-5 PM – Open Studio hours with Julia Shepley. Come see what Julia has been up to during her Environmental/Installation
residency at Ocean Alliance (32 Horton Street, Gloucester). Enter through the first door you come to as you approach the first building from the laneway, then go straight upstairs to the 2nd floor studio.
Thursday, October 5, 7 PM – Closing Presentation with Goetemann Environmental/Installation Artist Julia Shepley. Shepley will discuss the site-specific installation she has been working on during her residency. 7:00 PM, Ocean Alliance (32 Horton Street, Gloucester)
We are pleased to welcome Julia Shepley as the 2023 Environmental/Installation Artist for the Goetemann Artist Residency in collaboration with the Ocean Alliance.
My work references the changing effects of light and shadow on natural and built environments. I piece together multiple observational viewpoints, as well as the warped elongated shapes of shadows and reflections, to evoke shifts of human attachment and natural forces. Combining materials and methods that draw from my carpentry, basketry, fiber, and graphic expertise, I achieve works that exude both fragility and strength and appear to be in a state of transition. These experimental working methods allow me to discover new directions within each work that carry personal and contextual resonance. Changing circumstances and physical environments in childhood, in addition to travel as an adult, influenced an interest in making works of art that imply a physical journey through the layers of story, structure and space.
The focused time, and research component of the Goetemann Residency will be valuable for developing and exploring new possibilities in a recent direction in my work which integrate light and reflective components. I anticipate finding inspiration in the shapes and patterns of ocean and marine life, of light and shadow on the water, and in the built structures at the ocean’s edge. I’ve been an ocean swimmer for most of my life; attuned to its currents and the play of light both on the surface and through the shallows. I am deeply conscious of the fragile ecological balance of the ocean due to human impact, as well its role as a source of human resiliency and sustenance.
Biography
Shepley has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work is held in public and private collections including The Rose Art Museum, DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Fidelity Investments, Simmons University and Boston Public Library. She has been widely reviewed in publications such as The Boston Globe, Sculpture Magazine, ArtScope, and Art New England.
Shepley studied at Boston University, and is a member of the Boston Printmakers and the Textile Study Group in New York City. She is an active and founding member of the Boston Sculptors Gallery and works out of her studio in the Brickbottom Artist Building in Somerville, MA. Grants include: The New England Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, and the Somerville Arts Council. Residencies include: Zea Mays Printmaking, Florence, MA; Scuola Internazionale di Grafica di Venezia and Venice Italy and Penland School of Craft, NC.
To view Press Release visit: https://rockyneckartcolony.org/press-release-en…th-julia-shepley/
Gloucester Invitational Artist:
Robin Colodzin, May 2023
OPENING ARTIST TALK: See video of opening talk here.
INFORMAL CLOSING TALK: Friday, June 2, 2 PM, Downtown Gloucester (register here for exact location)
Representational elements within abstract compositions feature in Robin Colodzin’s densely layered paintings mixing acrylic, collage and drawing. Her work is inspired by poetry, philosophy and feminist musings on our experience of our bodies in the face of social norms.
She has shown extensively, highlights including invitational group shows in New York City, an exhibition by the National Collage Society in Atlanta, Georgia; a two-part exhibit titled ‘Women Artists Coast to Coast’, at Prince Street Gallery in New York City and in Seattle, Washington; group shows at SOWA in Boston; and a solo exhibition at the Rockport Art Association and Museum.
Her work has won awards including the Virginia Hammond Memorial Award and the Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation Memorial Award. She was a contributor to the book “Journeys to Abstraction” by Sue St. John.
Her next solo show will be in September 2023 at the Copley Society of Art in Boston.
Robin resides and works on Cape Ann, with a studio in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
From Robin Colodzin’s Artist Statement:
My kindergarten report card said, “Robin prefers to observe rather than join in”. I remain by nature an introvert who savors the openness of quiet, who wants time to look, ponder and explore.
In a world of speedy conclusions and conflicting certainties, art makes space for the unresolved, for uncertainty and not-knowing. From that space, a tenderness and vulnerability can emerge, room for a full gamut of emotions, as well as playfulness and a delight in the experience of making.
I engage with my work without preconceived ideas of where it will take me. Instead, it is a playground of open curiosity, where the process is unpredictable and engaging. I add color, marks and imagery drawn from current preoccupations, like ancient sculptures of large-bodied women crafted in clay by hands millennia ago; ink drawings of my own eyes; scraps of photographs, ads from magazines from a century ago; and always words. Sometimes the words are printed scraps of old books in varied languages; sometimes it is my own words handwritten. I am interested in the look of words, in their power and their limits in communication.
I work in layers, with some elements right on the surface and others receding back. Newer marks inscribe themselves over the older ones, creating history. Strata, like layers of time, like space. A world.
Robin’s website: www.colodzin.com
CANCELED:
Distinguished Artist/Teacher, August 2023:
Dannielle Tegeder
We are sorry to announce that we have had to cancel the Distinguished Artist/Teacher program this year due to unforeseen circumstances.
Dannielle’s website: www.dannielletegeder.com