Diane novetsky: beginner’s mind

Exhibition Dates: JANUARY 2 - JANUARY 27, 2024

Reception: thursday, January 4, 5PM - 8pm

Virtual Artist's Talk With Diane Novetsky, Tracy Burtz, Kellie Lehr - Moderated by Lisa Petker Mintz: Friday, January 26 at 3 pm (Information Below)

closing Reception: saturday, January 27, 4PM - 6pm

The Painting Center is pleased to present the solo exhibition Beginner’s Mind by Diane Novetsky in the Main Gallery. The exhibition features acrylic paintings on canvas exploring saturated color, crisply defined contours, and organic shapes that bend, twist, and leap in space. Biomorphic shapes and curvilinear forms emerge as the basic elements of her pictures. Within her art, circles function as celestial bodies, dark holes, mechanical fragments, and constellations.

Novetsky’s somatic vocabulary of forms is evocative of the female body. Serpentine shapes suggest the female form and an organic sensuality. The shapes become increasingly visceral as internal organs and joints such as the heart and pelvis are referenced.

Color is the essence of Novetsky’s work and she displays a taste for sensuous, optically rich, matte and gloss surfaces influenced by Matisse cut-outs as well as the vibrating hues of sixties art and design. Using soft, wide brushes that encourage a lush surface, her work is animated by surprise: the jostling of forms in space, unpredictable color, and a sense of whimsy and joy. Beginner’s Mind asks the viewer to drop preconceptions of what painting has been and explore the options that appear with a sense of play and possibilities.

Diane Novetsky’s work has been widely shown throughout New England including the Art Complex Museum in Duxbury, Danforth Museum of Art, Tufts University Aidekman Gallery, and the Boston Convention Center. In 2022, she had a solo show at the Kingston Gallery, Boston, where she is now a member. She was also included that year in group exhibits at the Painting Center, and Mark Borghi Fine Arts, Sag Harbor, NY.

Her work has been published in Artscope, Art New England, the Boston Globe and Boston Voyager. Diane Novetsky resides in Somerville MA and is a founding member of the Brickbottom Artists Community, one of the largest artist live and work spaces in the US, as well as a longtime member of the artists’ studio building, Vernon Street Artists.

For more information about the artist, visit https://www.dianenovetsky.com/.

View Catalogue: Novetsky.pdf

Recording of Virtual Artist's Talk With Diane Novetsky, Tracy Burtz, Kellie Lehr - Moderated by Lisa Petker Mintz