MCC’s Academic Arts Center to Host Invitational Art Exhibit

Art is meant to be seen – and Middlesex Community College is proud to bring it to you. MCC will host the first invitational art exhibit held at the Richard & Nancy Donahue Family Academic Arts Center – “Light on the Ordinary.” The exhibit opens on January 28 and runs until February 27. An opening reception will be held at 6 p.m. on Friday, January 31 at the Academic Arts Center, 240 Central Street.

Featured artwork includes paintings by Lowell artists Michele Boll and Priscilla Levesque. The paintings focus on how light reveals beauty in various buildings and settings throughout Lowell. The artwork is comprised of small gems, ranging from five to 16 inches in size.

“This exhibit invites viewers to see art in everyday life and to find meaning in the expressive qualities of art,” said Margaret Rack, MCC’s Art Department Chair. “The impulse to make art is fundamental to our nature as human beings, but we need not be artists to get satisfaction and insight by looking.”

Boll is an artist and educator who runs a studio in Lowell. She is interested in highlighting “a hint of the human condition” throughout her work.

“My work is about those moments when light reveals what is beautiful about ordinary places and things,” Boll said. “I am generally attracted to run-down buildings, simple objects, alleys glimpsed in passing, or the way light caresses moldings on an old house. My goal is to capture the feeling of a place and moment in time and communicate that through my work. My final composition is never a rendering of an exact scene but rather a reflection of my connection to it.”

Levesque follows the pointillist technique developed by French painter Georges Seurat, which blends color by creating tiny dots to merge into a final product.

“I am intrigued by the relationship between buildings and their surroundings, and how light changes the appearance of brick, wood, stone or glass,” Levesque said. “Since moving to Lowell almost six years ago, I have spent a lot of time walking around the city looking for subjects to paint. Rather than working on location, I take photos and then paint in my studio. This works well for me because I can consider the entire composition rather than dwelling on small details.”

Hours for the art exhibit are 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. Parking is available at the Edward J. Early, Jr. Parking Facility, 135 Middlesex Street.

Contact Angela Ales at alesa@middlesex.mass.edu for more information.

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