A Selection of PAST Exhibitions
FACETS
Ceramic Artists Jeremy Ayers, Kate Butt and Dan Siegel exhibit their lessor known side of their work in clay
Aug 7 - Sep 14 2024
Jeremy Ayers, Kate Butt and Dan Siegel are Vermont potters that have worked hard for decades to claim space within your crowded cupboards. It is because of this hard work and their unique creativity of craft that it is likely that you will recognize their signature pieces upon entry of the gallery.
But oftentimes we know of just one of the many Facets of an artist’s work. This group exhibition highlights the little known side of the ceramicist you have grown to love and have already invited into your home. It might be a mug, bowl, or platter you recognize but step into Axel’s Gallery to discover another Facet of your beloved potter. You will find the familiar pieces as a backdrop and visual link to the stunning and rich pieces of fine art made from the same clay that has nourished your soul at the dining room table or in the quiet morning hours.
Chasing a Feeling
Recent work by Rob Hitzig
June 26 - August 03, 2024
Rob Hitzig (b. 1964, New York, New York) is a self-taught artist whose work evolved out of a furniture making practice he developed while working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC. Though starting with his love of the natural beauty of wood, his work has evolved to including paintings and painted sculpture, both indoor and public, where he explores color and movement through linear patterns.
"The show's title, Chasing A Feeling, refers to the motivation behind my obsessive process of polishing paintings with shellac. It is a time consuming and challenging endeavor that I can't justify logically. But, hopefully, when I'm done, it can generate the feeling I've been chasing. Come to the artists talk and maybe I'll be able to explain it. Or, even better, if you see them in person, and feel it, you'll understand without words." -Rob Hitzig
A preview of the artwork can be found here.
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Explorations:
A group show of artwork and objects by Axel’s staff members (Kristen Santucci, Kate Montross, Steve Simoes)
May 15 - June 22, 2024
It is the nature of the job at Axel’s to be around creative people and art every single day. This exposure helps fuel creative exploration. So does seeing and processing, thinking and organizing, feeling and sensing, growing and expanding. We are constantly exploring our environment and our surroundings. The artwork and objects of “Explorations” have been created by Kristen Santucci, Kate Montross and Steve Simoes.
Chasing a Feeling
Recent work by Rob Hitzig
June 26 - August 03, 2024
Rob Hitzig (b. 1964, New York, New York) is a self-taught artist whose work evolved out of a furniture making practice he developed while working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC. Though starting with his love of the natural beauty of wood, his work has evolved to including paintings and painted sculpture, both indoor and public, where he explores color and movement through linear patterns.
"The show's title, Chasing A Feeling, refers to the motivation behind my obsessive process of polishing paintings with shellac. It is a time consuming and challenging endeavor that I can't justify logically. But, hopefully, when I'm done, it can generate the feeling I've been chasing. Come to the artists talk and maybe I'll be able to explain it. Or, even better, if you see them in person, and feel it, you'll understand without words." -Rob Hitzig
Come view a fresh body of work that sprang from his recent residency at the Vermont Studio Center.
A Casual Reception is planned
Meet the artist Saturday, June 29th at 6pm. A Q&A session and short discussion will leave you inspired!
This event is free and open to the public. Snacks and refreshments will be served.
A preview of the artwork can be found here.
VOICES RISING: The Figurative Ceramic Artwork by Susan Wilson
Mar 13 - Apr 27, 2024
In the space where solitude and community meet, Putney artist Susan Wilson finds the dynamic tension that energizes her work. From the wisdom of ancestors and the past presences in her life to the urgent NOW of so many voices, she weaves into her figurative sculpture stories about being alone and together, about yearnings and unanswered questions, about reaching out and retreating into solitude, about fear, pain, and hope.
Rather than specific portraits, Susan makes archetypal figures over simplified three-dimensional molds. As she rolls, pinches, pulls, and scratches into the clay, the person emerges while she works the detail of an eye, lips, and a nose. This person who emerges reminds her of the people she has known and whose stories she wishes to tell. In the increasing urgency of our time, by telling these stories she is trying to find her place in this world.
STILL LIFE by Denis Versweyveld
May 30 - September 30 2023
Denis Versweyveld is an award-winning sculptor, painter and draftsman who has resided in Vermont for over 50 years and whose art has been exhibited throughout the country. His work is characterized by iconic everyday household objects that are skillfully crafted. Each form, executed in plaster, lath, and cast concrete, is pared down to its essence. Signs of this process, like fine etching lines, remain in the exquisite surfaces.
Recent Work by Sam Colt
Oct 26 - Nov 19, 2022
“I make work in a bid to amplify and make visible to myself the knocking from within.”
– Sam Colt
In the studio Colt uses trowels, knives and brushes to apply multiple coats of Italian marble plasters ~ “grassello” ~ on Masonite panels. With knives, she zips around through the grassello surface while it’s still wet to reveal under-stories, sometimes burnishing ashes from a fire or a cremation into the matrix. The resulting complex grounds serve as backdrops for quick sketches of a fairly unhinged inner cartography peopled by ships, key-stoned bridges, architectural ruins and phantom hermitages. Oils, gold leaf, gouache, charcoal, shellac & varnishes are used to punctuate and/or disguise.
"The First Figure" by Sam Colt
Duo Exhibition: Kate Smith & Elizabeth Nelson
Sept 07 - Oct 08, 2022
A conversation from the sidelines of the soccer fields blossomed into a collaborative exhibition of complimentary work at Axel’s Gallery in Waterbury, VT.
One artist moved by emotion. The other moved by the minutiae. Both are creating art from memories of the special places where they are drawn to.
"Trailblazer" by Kate Smith
"Glacier Lagoon" by Elizabeth Nelson
Duo Exhibition:
Matt Larson & Ashley Roark
Aug 10 - Sept 03, 2022
Working towards similar ends through a variety of media and processes, Larson and Roark each present unique bodies of work within their own respective practices. Each finds inspiration in mark making, color blocking, graphic elements, and producing work in experimental series. While Larson employs vibrant colors to capture connections between ourselves and the local landscape through memories, Roark’s approach seeks to capture a metaphorical snapshot of a fragmented moment using a palette more reminiscent of low light film. This show presents these two individual approaches towards setting the scene.
ROCK - PAPER - SCISSORS
Neha Shukla & Nora McDonough
July 20 - Aug 06, 2022
Rock - Paper - Scissors is a literal description of the subject, material, and processes of the work by two emerging Vermont artists: Neha Shukla and Nora McDonough.
Visual cues are gathered from the artists’ natural surroundings and transcribed onto paper using layers either within the composition or quite literally with collage.
"Transitions"
Work by 17 Vermont Surface Design Association members
April 06 - April 30, 2022
Transitions surround us, create us, define us. There are transitions we see and feel as we move from winter to spring, from land to water, from illness to health, from isolation to community, from youth to old age. Others reflect emotional and intellectual states as we move from beginner to expert, from naiveté to wisdom, from ignorance to knowledge. The artists in this exhibition use transitions of color, shape, and material to reflect on conceptions of transition.
The Surface Design Association is an international organization focused on inspiring creativity, encouraging innovation, and advocating for artistic excellence as the global leader in textile-inspired art and design.
Ellen Langtree: A Retrospective
A unique mix of past and present work by Ellen Langtree on display at Axel’s Gallery from March 9 until April 2, 2022
The last time Ellen Langtree’s paintings were publicly shown was in the 1990’s.
And it makes sense.
While Langtree was providing for her new family and navigating life’s changes, she took a hiatus from making art. That is, she stopped making art for herself. This hiatus turned out to be 18 years long during which she not only raised her children but taught hundreds of others as well. As an arts educator, her focus was on others. It wasn’t until recently, pre-pandemic, that Langtree returned to the studio. And this time her medium is clay.
Musings from the Nurses Room
Current Work by Heather Guptill
Jan 05 - Feb 05, 2022
Artist Reception: Thursday, Jan 27, 2022 6-8pm
Working from a small studio, once the Nurses Room, in a converted school in Kittery, Maine, Heather Guptill lets her instincts guide her artwork. The results are raw, deeply visceral, abstract, mostly non-representational, and full of emotion and color.
Theese are large-scale original acrylic works on ram board - a material choice that supports the artists intention of exploration and spontaneity without the restriction or seriousness of the typical and expected.
Compositions in Wood by Philip Herbison
Sept 29 - Nov 06, 2021
"The reason I make art is to explore the mysterious realm of new aesthetic possibilities with materials at hand. I’ve rarely made art as a means of self expression, but rather more like an inventor of shapes and substance - associations that, when put together in a certain way, becomes an object that is new, yet somehow familiar to the psyche of the viewer. Working with piles of re-cycled wood scraps as a medium brings with it a lot intuitive play. Recognizing happy accidents when they happen leads to discovery of new aesthetic statements."
-Philip Herbison
TX by Philip Herbison
The Way Light Answers
Cold Wax and Oil work by Jan Sandman
July 07 - August 14 2021
The paintings in this show, cold wax and oil, have primarily been created during the time of the pandemic. Many of them have been created with the discipline of a limited palette. As we have been held in certain ways during this past year, Jan utilized that restraint by limiting her choice of colors to both deepen her relationship with them, and with what is possible within a boundary. In relationship to deep questions, Jan consults and meditates with the vibration of Light itself. The theme of the whole body of work is “The Way Light Answers.”
Breathing Light by Jan Sandman
Blue by Kate Fetherston
Rarest color in flora and fauna, once in a blue moon is an occasion of omen or of celebration. Blue skies, blue waters foster feelings of hope, freedom, possibility. Happiness is symbolized as a bluebird. Then again, a blue mood might be sad, lonely, wistful or pensive. Blue’s the color of shadows, of twilight, of changing light. This show is an homage to blue’s power to evoke a range of expression perhaps unequaled in the rainbow.
