Exhibitions

From April 14th through May 21st, BoxHeart presents
Nicole Renee Ryan: Experiments in Reality on exhibit in our main gallery and Carolyn Reed Barritt: Puppet Show on exhibit in our upstairs gallery.

Nicole Renee Ryan paints distant landscapes based on her memories of memories. Things remembered and things forgotten, emotionally charged ambiguous imagery, are represented by half realistic and half abstract shapes in vivid color - things real and things unreal. Her painted worlds are defined as much by what is missing as by what is present.Ryan blurs out details, preferring her audience fill in their own, imagining themselves in her soft, unfocused painted subjects. She wants the suggested history of her image to feel like the viewer's history. Her landscapes shift and become their own active subject. They play, move, and break away, allowing imagination to enter and complete the almost lost memory. She uses shape, line, texture, and color to strip away reality and suggest a feeling of magic and other-worldliness in ordinary places. Ryan's ethereal landscapes dance between reality and abstraction and memory and imagination.

The artwork in Carolyn Reed Barritt's exhibition, Puppet Show, began to take shape in the middle of 2020 and into early 2021. The colors, forms, and repetitions in the artwork that sprang from this extra-ordinary time reflect not only the desire for a return to the ordinary but also the longing for the extra-ordinary. Dog walking became therapy. Solace found in the vastness of a clear blue sky. Abstract and vulnerable jet-pack laden character waiting to fly. Bright orange vibrating against a field of blue. Barritt sought and captured the remarkable in the mundane. The paintings and drawings in Puppet Show are just the beginning of this continuing exploration of color, form, and narration.

BoxHeart Visitor Information

Admission: Free and open to the public. The 1st floor (main gallery) of BoxHeart Gallery may be accessed using a ramp. The 2nd floor (gallery space) is handicap accessible by stair chair.

Gallery Hours (also by Scheduled Visit/Private Viewing): Sun, 1-5 pm; Wed – Thurs, 10-6 pm; Fri, noon – 4 pm; Sat, noon – 6 pm. BoxHeart Gallery is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

For general information call 412.687.8858

BoxHeart maintains a robust program of exhibitions which are currently scheduled through 2022. We hope you'll join us for the wonderful array of solo exhibitions we have coming up all through 2021!