By Euletha Dukes

Music, like so many of the arts, evokes feelings we often are hard-pressed to put into words. It moves us to feel a range of emotions, and there are few genres more expressive of pain and triumph than jazz. Those who are able to rise above adversity certainly merit celebration, and in her series, “Women of Jazz,” painter Kate Shaffer pays tribute to some of the voices that soared high above it: Dinah Washington, Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee, Shirley Horn, Betty Carter, Nancy Wilson, and Sarah Vaughn.  All trailblazers who left us a tapestry of music so rich that it has influenced multiple genres and generations.

Each portrait in Shaffer’s series is a display of rich texture, color and movement. Shaffer blends a color palette that expresses each woman’s personal contribution to jazz, from their distinct styles to their singular, inimitable voices. She explains that she wanted to bring them to life on canvas by capturing their brilliance in a particular way. Shaffer says, “Instead of focusing on accurate skin tones, I wanted to show that the colors are the jazz. It’s a way to show that they are the music and the music is them.” This is most notably seen in the way their faces are highlighted in bright hues of lavender, green, blue and yellow, beaming against dark backdrops of shadow. Profound emotion is right there on the canvas, where the weight of the world around them is palpable, yet their voices ring bright. Each singer is featured singing in mid-song because, despite personal trials, this is how they let their voices be heard. 

One of jazz’s most influential voices was that of the iconic Billie Holiday, also known as “Lady Day.” A backdrop of velvety, darkened shades of crimson and blue represent the weight of her tempestuous life. This is a woman singing from the depths of her soul. She faced battles against racism, sexism, and in later years a severe drug addiction that ultimately took her life. Yet that singular gift of her voice rose above it all. She is posed in her trademark tilted head and closed eyes. The bright yellow and green hues on her face radiate the freedom and joy of singing.

The powerful, bluesy sound of Etta James is another voice that seems to plead right off of the canvas. Her personal life was a series of hurdles from childhood, including a string of abusive foster homes and an abusive vocal teacher. In her adult years a struggle with drug abuse, domestic violence, and prison time threatened to obscure her career. Yet she went on to become an award-winning musician who was inducted into three music Halls of Fame. Her trademark platinum coiffure is painted in lavender and yellow hues, and there is anguish in her brow line as she sings. This is music from the gut, a voice that comes from a deeper place. 

The standout piece of Nina Simone is the only portrait of a singer shown from the waist up, instead of in a close-up of her face. Shaffer explains that “you don’t see the piano, but you envision it because it is so deeply ingrained with even just the mention of her name.” Simone was not only a gifted singer but was self-taught on the piano from the age of three. She had aspirations to be a classical pianist. Her life took a different turn, though, as she became known as a prolific songwriter whose passionate music served as a herald of empowerment, social commentary and change. Simone’s style was unarguably her own, a fusion of jazz, blues, gospel, folk and classical. In the timbre of her contralto voice there is melancholy, pleading, and a vivacious energy that stirs emotion in a way few other artists can.

If you stand long enough in front of these portraits, you are almost moved to sing along with them. Each of these women’s contributions is invaluable to the world of music at large, and one could even say that music would not be what it is today without them. This collection is an ode, not only to their individual successes, but also to their timelessness. Kate Shaffer’s work will be on view at ZAVO Restaurant & Lounge at 1011 Third Avenue through May 1.

The post Portraitist Kate Shaffer Interprets Immortal “Women of Jazz” at ZAVO appeared first on Gallery Sitka®.

August 4, 2017

Contact: Tamar Russell Brown, Gallery Sitka — 978.425.6290

A Roller-coaster Ride of Images and Wordplay:

Solo Show of Imaginative Painter at Gallery Sitka Opens Aug. 12

David L. Smith likes to make people laugh. And he’s good at it.

Not a lot of visual artists are interested in words and wordplay. Many scrupulously avoid the verbal realm altogether and seem to operate in the murky, mysterious world of pure imagery at all times. Not Mr. Smith. He takes titles of novels, famous lines from movies, and common figures of speech and twists them to fit an image that is just as familiar. This one-two punch of the right picture with the right words is meant to raise a chuckle or a belly-laugh, and constitutes the bulk of the artwork in David’s solo show set to open on Saturday, Aug. 12 at Gallery Sitka West in Fitchburg.

Even the title of the artist’s show—“One-Liners: The Art of Irony”—contains a play on words. The “Art” refers to the Mr. Smith’s long-cultivated skills as a painter and digital artist, but it’s also about the art of deftly delivering a punch line as a comedian or a storyteller does.

Imagine, for example, a striking, immediately recognizable portrait of Margaret Thatcher imbedded in a slice of brown bread. The title, of course: “Thatcher in the Rye.” Or think of one of Hollywood’s best-known faces, that of Jack Nicholson. Superimpose that portrait on a smooth, white surface in the shape of a tooth. The title of the piece takes the famous line from the early ’90s drama “A Few Good Men” and alters it slightly. The result is a painting called “You Can’t Handle the Tooth.”

Woodworker, sculptor, painter, digital artist—it’s hard to classify David L. Smith because he works in many diverse media, including glass etching in recent years. David takes art lovers on a roller-coaster ride of images, employing a bewildering array of media and techniques.

Painter Paul Gauguin, always ruthlessly blunt, once remarked: “Art is either plagiarism or revolution.” Mr. Smith does not apologize for what some might say is plagiarism in his most recent paintings. “My work has evolved a lot in the last four or five years,” he says. He is having a lot of fun doing take-offs and put-ons of popular images, and for the time being he has left revolution to other artists.

Mr. Smith created the pieces for this show by way of a fairly complicated four-step process. He begins with a photograph purloined (or, umm…plagiarized) from an online source, usually a headshot of a well-known pop-culture personality. But right there the plagiarism ends. David then takes that image, which is more likely than not composed of pixels, and converts it into a vector image, teasing a line drawing out of the original photo using Adobe Illustrator. Then the artist melts this drawing down to its essence in the form of a stencil, which he then finally uses as the outline into which he pours color. Various distortions or modifications take place at each step, and the final piece is nothing like “cut-and-paste” collage or decoupage. It’s a painting that has a lot more in common with the surrealist and pop art traditions of such figures as Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol than with collage.

Beginning his career by earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Boston University’s Program in Artisanry in 1987, Mr. Smith has managed a furniture restoration business for the past 23 years. He and his wife of 28 years, ceramics artist Collette Shumate Smith, relocated to Fitchburg in 1991, where David earned a teaching certificate in Technology Education at Fitchburg State College. He has been exhibiting his furniture and wood sculptures regionally and nationally for three decades. His early work emphasized functionality but in recent years has become much more decorative and conceptual. He concedes, in his refreshing way, that sometimes he is “just trying to get a laugh” by way of his artwork.

The opening will take place at Gallery Sitka West, 454 Main St., in Fitchburg, Mass., 2 – 4 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 12. While Mr. Smith’s work will grace the Solo Wall, the engaging work of portrait photographer Jonathan Route will be featured on the south wall. Mr. Route, with studios in both Leominster and Clinton, specializes in bringing out the personalities of his subjects in a natural, relaxed atmosphere. He is also known for creating explosively colorful and playful images. Photography fans will want to check out jroutephoto.com in advance of the show.

The post PR : August 12 David L. Smith — Fitchburg Artist at Gallery Sitka West in Fitchburg with MA Photographer Jonathan Route appeared first on Gallery Sitka®.