First Gloucester Artist Invitational
Jeffrey Marshall:
June 28 – July 26
These drawings and paintings depict found lobster traps, mauled by collisions along the boundaries of water and land.
I am attracted to these mangled, manmade structures because they are echoes of the frenetic Marshalenergy and power of the ocean waves. In Gloucester, fishing and lobstering are elements, like the sea and air. Over time these components combine into molecules specific to this place. These colorful, twisted wrecks are portraits, and each one reflects the insistent beauty of this city.
My engagement with Gloucester started in 1997, after moving to Massachusetts from New Orleans, where I had spent 7 years in the public schools as part of Teach For America. After years of swamps and rivers as landscapes, I became fascinated with various visual elements along coastline of Magnolia, and started working on site. I hope to create images that echo the joy of walking along the rocks and finding a tide pool.
The KNOTS series relates to another group of images, The New Orleans Drawing Project. Since 2005, when the levees failed in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, I have traveled there to document the city’s recovery through on-site drawings. This collision between natural forces and man-made structures as both metaphor and warning is something that has changed my creative focus in Gloucester, and links the two places in my mind and my artwork. The Gloucester landscape has stories to tell: past, present, and future.
Jeffrey is currently an associate professor of art at Mount Ida College.
7pm, Wednesday June 1 – talk at Cultural Center, 6 Wonson Street
7PM, THUR July 23 – Informal conversation at the Residency Studio, 51A Rocky Neck Ave.
