Alicejean Massaro was a Thunder Bay artist whose love of the
process, of discovery and experimentation was so great that she didn’t bother
much with creating a distinct personal style, having solo shows or even trying
all that hard to sell her work. Alice was a member of the Definitely Superior
Art Gallery since its inception and a long time member of the Lakehead Visual
Arts group. Although she hasn’t had a solo show until now, posthumously, Alice
did manage to get her work into every group show that DEFSUP ever had, along
with LVA shows and a show in Grand Marais with Christine Malek.
The current show of Alice’s work at the DEFSUP gallery, as a great
introduction reflects only a sampling of her work. Alice’s great friend,
Elizabeth Cramb, who took classes with Alice for 40 years is also a great fan.
“Alice’s work is as good as Susan Ross’,” Elizabeth states with conviction.
Elizabeth and Alicejean took printmaking and life-drawing classes
together for forty years. Elizabeth reflected on how Alice had a natural talent
for drawing nudes. “You could fill a whole gallery of three floors with her
nudes. And they were all good. That was her best work.” Elizabeth raved about a
particular work where four men pushed a car in winter. “It was lovely,” she
states. That particular piece is in the DEFSUP show.
A few years ago I took a printmaking class at Lakehead University. Alice
and Elizabeth, who were referred to often as “the girls” were nearly always
together working with their paper, plates, and acid baths without the required
masks, soaking in the chemicals, apparently without worry. They made great use
of the presses during class and after hours, often producing twice as much work
as the younger students. They were a great source of information about the
printmaking process, in all manner of materials having an incredible combined
knowledge of processes. Which is why, when looking at the work in the DEFSUP
show you could swear it was a group show; such is the variety of styles and
techniques used in Alice’s work.
Born in 1932 in
Port Arthur Alicejean was married to Frank Massaro. They had four daughters and
one son. More than 40 years ago, Alice’s eldest daughter took art classes and
showed her mom some of her work. Alice was so inspired that she took courses with
her daughter. They were to graduate on the same day with a Masters degree.
Alice began painting in watercolours and oils, did some mosaic work, and
then fell in love with printmaking. A human figure featured in a print might be
taken from a photo and transferred to a plate, but most often Alicejean could
draw figures straight from her head. “The talent was always there,” states
Elizabeth, who is great experimentalist and artist in her own right.
Frank Massaro is organizing a sale
of Alicejean’s work at the Oliver Road Recreation Center on September 28th
and 29th from 10am to 5pm. Frank says much of the earning will
likely be donated to our two main galleries and local charities. On October 31st,
the Thunder Bay Art Gallery will have a more extensive display of Alice’s work,
but it’s worth checking out at the DEFSUP galleries which also have two showing
running concurrently, featuring Patrick Doyle’s amazing abstract paintings and
JR’s incredibly inventive video of large scale eyes attached to the roofs and
walls of favelas in Brazil. All worth checking out. Alicejean’s show at the
DEFSUP gallery runs till August 24.
In gallery 3, a nine-minute video featuring the work of JR is
continually looped in a projection. JR is a French artist who won the grand TED
prize ($100,000.00) who like Banksy is attempting to be anonymous, in his
thirties and working to create a mystique by being contemporary yet managing to
make subtle social and political statements about something outside the gallery
walls by creating street art, often in faraway places.
David Karasiewicz states. “He’s a visual artist who started as a
graffiti artist, and then something profound must have happened to him because
he moved to social political work on a grand scale – blowing things up super
large to a monumental scale, using photo wheat pasting which isn’t permanent. Eventually
nature takes its course and it all dissolves.”
With only a few brief
interviews in the video the residents of a favela in Brazil tell hard stories
of their living conditions. JR applies images of large faces over the stark
walls of the favelas to create dramatic scenes where eyes stare out at
onlookers. The film’s unique approach takes you on a journey through some of
the narrow roots that the villagers take to get up and down the favelas.
“Caramba, the eyes of the hills are open,” states one resident. We see a
variety of living conditions as the artist travels. The film technique adds an
animated quality that jerks along quickly, yet stops at very human moments of
breastfeeding and relaxing. The film has a very clever and worthwhile ending
resonating with a clear message that we are witness to the people here. They
are not invisible. It’s an unusual glimpse into another world, similar to a
documentary, but without commentary.
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