Brief Review: Illuminations: Scott Prior at the Cahoon Museum

Each time I bring my cocker spaniel to the vet’s office I am mesmerized by an MFA poster that shows a young woman wearing a plaid flannel bathrobe sitting with an Irish setter at her feet that hangs in the waiting room. It, I discovered, is the work of Scott Prior whose combined technical ability and homespun subject matter I find uniquely appealing. Unfortunately, I’ve learned how infrequently the Northampton, Massachusetts-based Prior’s work is shown beyond local galleries. So, when I heard that Cape Cod’s Cahoon Museum of American Art had scheduled a Prior 5-decade retrospective for early spring 2021, I knew I had to make the trip.

The Cahoon Museum was once the home of Cape Cod folk artists, Martha and Ralph Cahoon. It is easy to imagine that the well-maintained rooms once served as a living space, a fact that both enhanced and restricted appreciation of the 35 Prior paintings on display. Prior’s depiction of domestic scenes, often focusing on such mundane objects as bear-shaped honey dispensers, baking powder containers and a seemingly ever-present Mr. Peanut figurine have a natural affinity for the wood-plank floored and low-ceilinged rooms of the Cahoon cottage. This fact was underscored by a display case that held many of Prior’s actual studio props. However, although I realize I’ve probably been spoiled by larger museums’ exhibits, I feel that the luminescence Prior achieves in his painting is best appreciated in his large-scale works and that these deserve to be seen in a setting where they are not competing for the viewer’s attention with paintings that are hung less than a foot away.

Comments

Fiona Pardington: Still Life with Nasturtiums in a Crystal Vase and an Unknown Organic Object (2013)

A descendent of three Maori tribes, Fiona Pardington was born in Devonport, New Zealand. She attended Orewa College and the Elam School of Fine Arts where she ultimately earned a DocFA. She specializes in ‘pure’ photographic darkroom techniques including hand printing and toning. In the late 1980s she began challenging the social documentary photography eventually embracing the still-life format to raise awareness of the importance of conservation. She has had solo shows throughout New Zealand. Her work is included in public and private collections worldwide. In an interview for the Auckland Art Gallery in conjunction with her exhibit, A Beautiful Hesitation, Pardington provided insight into her approach: “I think it is best to understand my still-life photographs as small alters or Tu Ahu . A tabletop is a place for concentration, and you could call it ritual, but it’s also just the thing we do when we are...

Richard Bell: ME (2004)

Richard Bell was born into the Kamilaroi tribe in Charleville, Queensland, Australia. As a young man in the 1970s he became an activist for aboriginal self-determination. He willingly admits that his art background is rooted in ‘tourist art’. He only decided to step over the line into ‘fine art’ when a friend observed that his political messages could reach a wider audience through art than by participating in protest marches. He has been exhibiting nationally and internationally for more than 25 years and his work, which includes paintings, video art, installations, text and performance art is held in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Australia, and the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. ME , Bell’s self-portrait, chosen for the current exhibit for its bold colors, seems, in style, to be an amalgam of Van Gogh, Warhol and Lichtenstein. It was painted specifically as a 2015 Archibald Prize entry. As Bell tells it, he chose himself for th...

At the Art of the Matter

Search This Blog