Hidden gems

Heywood artists look at what's not there

by Leon Nigrosh

Having survived another attempt by local authorities to shut it down, the Heywood Gallery is again providing a venue for artists to present original and often provocative works. Gallery director Donald Howard astutely chose the four artists included in the current exhibition primarily because they each deal with things hidden -- meanings, metaphors, or actual objects.

In her series of seven small photographs, "Martha's House," Michelle Sarkisian has exposed the hidden interior of an abandoned house. To achieve a greater air of mystery within her pictures, she chose the most basic of cameras, a Holga. With its fixed focus, fixed exposure, and fixed lens, the camera allows you only to click and to hope for the best. In Bedroom Drape, Martha's, Sarkisian has recorded with remarkable depth and clarity the corner of a room with a curtain carelessly draped across the radiator that sits beneath a window with its shade half-drawn. This photo, like the others in the series, is filled with emptiness.

Sarkisian also presents us with three mixed-media works from her "Tea" series. These glassed-in boxes, reminiscent of Joseph Cornell's (1903-1972), are each filled with pottery shards, loose tea, used tea bags, and other found items, along with a small photo of hands holding something, such as the spoon in Tea w/spoon. We are left to make our own associations between these items and to discover their hidden meanings. But the most poignant and enigmatic of Sarkisian's works is her American Fabrication, a mixed-media offering set off with a red satin frame. Two found photos of five unidentified young women from the 1940s are reproduced on the cover and interior of an old metal sales-book holder. Also inside is a portion of an anonymously written poem, part of which reads, "Keep young and beautiful, if you want to be loved."

A half-dozen of Maxine L. McDonald's black-and-white photographs were physically hidden for a time. These are the pictures that were taken off the wall during a recent show at Atlantic Union College. This time, without being censored, viewers can decide if these pictures are objectionable. In fact, for most visitors, they are hardly titillating, instead rather benign images of outdoor scenes that just happen to include the backsides of a nude man and woman. Her color multiple images hold more interest and greater possibilities. For these pictures McDonald, like Sarkisian, used a Holga, but in this case she exploits a camera flaw that can lead to double-exposures. The most successful image is Origins, in which a nude female appears to be growing out of her own, larger head.

Nina Fletcher exposes the hidden stuff of old-time piano rolls by using them as stencils, rubbing charcoal through the little punched lines and holes to create an arrangement of vertical marks along the page. She then augments these predetermined patterns with stenciled words such as, "Give me a thrill, o-o-o Baby," which could be the actual words to the particular song -- or maybe not.

Sculptor George Kott is the most adventurous of the quartet represented here. He manages to find hidden meanings in the most banal objects. He plays with the intricacies of language and assigns his unique connotations to specific things, whether or not they are necessarily inherent. How else can you explain why an old, white-painted bedspring would be titled The Boy Airship Pirates and the Secret of the Whistling Sphinx? Even more engaging -- and perplexing -- is another rusting bedspring Kott has endowed with any one of four titles, depending upon which way the piece is hung on the wall. (I think in its current position it's Atom Spies Die in Chair.)

Taking after the tongue-in-cheek Dadaist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), Kott discovered a well-used shovel and, because of the particular wear pattern on its blade, hung it on the wall and titled it Miraculous Apparition. It's also been dubbed "The Spade of Turin."

Not content with re-naming existing objects, Kott also assembles, constructs, and fashions other works such as his homage to Emily Dickinson, Clad in Her Virginity/She Embarks Upon Eternity. This large, handsomely finished, black wooden box on poles mounted on a metal framework could be seen as a portable reliquary, a palanquin, or a big paper shredder. Imbuing multiple choices like these, Kott makes them into bold physical and linguistic metaphors that challenge the viewer's intellect.

The gallery is open Thursday and Friday from 5 to 9 p.m. and on Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Call (508) 755-7931.