Five artists based in the Northeast have been experimenting with how they use lines in their artwork. There’s oil pastel and watercolor collages with bright and bold lines set against colorfully expressive backgrounds in a new exhibit titled “The Sublime Line,” which is on display at Readywipe Gallery in Holyoke through Dec. 20.
The gallery, located on the third floor of the Baustein Building at 523 Main St. (a home to 20 different art studios), has been closed for most of the year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It shut down in February, but didn’t reopen until September with limited in person visits as well as face mask requirements and social distancing practices.
“Art is important, but people’s health is much more important,” said Susannah Auferoth, founding director and curator of Readywipe Gallery. “We’re very cautiously tip-toeing into the future with what we present.”
For Auferoth, the opportunity to bring art back to the gallery after its extended hiatus has been a welcome one. Prior to the recent art show, the gallery hosted an exhibit that featured artwork in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Auferoth, who owns the Baustein Building along with her husband, founded the nonprofit gallery in 2017. The space has hosted 15 visual arts shows during the three-year time span.
The Sublime Line includes the work of Brooklyn-based artists Audrey Stone and Jennifer Sirey, Connecticut-based artist Elizabeth Gourlay as well as local artists Brantner DeAtley and Auferoth.
“I live in western Massachusetts mostly, but I also live partially in Brooklyn,” Auferoth said. “Through that, I decided to draw a line from Brooklyn to Holyoke and include artists in both of my worlds whose work directly used lines to define a structure.”
On the gallery’s website, Auferorth wrote that the exhibit “delves into how artists use lines to speak directly to viewers; to soothe, to excite and to allow for re-creation itself while simultaneously pivoting to the architecture of color, space, form and composition. Cycles, relationships and systems are explored in the exhibit, with lines acting as the exo- and endo-scaffolding — to support or wobble, harmonize or clarify and hopefully, to elevate.”
Chris Goudreau can be reached at cgoudreau@gazettenet.com.