artscope magazine: May/June 2009 Welcome Statement: Brian Goslow, managing editor Letters to the Editor ARTSWorcester's BIENNIAL 2009 GRIDWORK: Further explorations into the urban landscape featuring new work by Robert Maloney and Sean Thomas BEN ARONSON - LIGHT AND GEOMETRY: The Urban Signature RADKA DONNELL: THE WORK OF TOUCH DOROTHY SIMPSON KRAUSE: LOSING GROUND NATURAL WORLD: A BRICKBOTTOM ARTISTS' ASSOCIATION MEMBERS' EXHIBITION JOE FIG: IN THE PAINTER'S STUDIO POINT OF VIEW: OUTDOOR SCULPTURE GALLERY-BY-THE-FALLS THE SIXTH SENSE: CONTEMPORARY JEWELRY FROM KOREA Featured Artist: Dominique Boutaud FéLIX DE LA CONCHA: PRIVATE PORTRAITS/PUBLIC CONVERSATIONS 2009 PORTLAND MUSEUM OF ART BIENNIAL SCULPTURES IN LOVE WITH ARCHITECTURE JESSICA GONACHA at YES Gallery and Studio THE BRIGHT & SHINING LIGHT OF IRREVERENCE: RICHARD SAJA AND THE HISTORICALLY INACCURATE SCHOOL WHERE HISTORY AND CONTEMPORARY MEET BRATTLEBORO-WEST ARTS PREMIER GROUP EXHIBITION SCOTT PRIOR (ongoing) and LARRY PRESTON / GREG GILLESPIE and LEONEL GóNGORA ANDIAMO! Art on the Hill Destination: Federal Hill, Providence’s Little Italy THIRD ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF ENCAUSTIC PAINTING AXIOM CENTER FOR NEW AND EXPERIMENTAL MEDIA CAPSULE PREVIEWS

BEN ARONSON - LIGHT AND GEOMETRY: The Urban Signature James Foritano Alpha Gallery 38 Newbury Street Boston May 9 through June 3 ON FIRST GLANCE BEN ARONSON’S CITYSCAPES ARE OF VERY PARTICuLAR PLACES SUCH AS “STREET IN OLD NICE” OR EVEN MORE PARTICULARLY, “HILL STREET, SAN FRANCISCO.” AND THAT’S NICE, VERY NICE. AS A SPECIES AND AS INDIVIDUALS WE CHERISH SECURE, HABITABLE SPACES WITH, IF POSSIBLE, A TOUCH OF COLOR AND UNIQUE LOCALITy ABOUT THEM. As a traveling species we are forever sending postcards to family and friends in order to catch them up with a new and noteworthy reality. Our architects strive to create places which will encourage refreshing, even transforming folkways. But, let’s face it, capturing the face of things is a challenging proposition, or rather, “capturing” the lay of the land is much easier than transferring the experience of that new landscape. For Aronson, the lead-in to this precarious feat is the drawing hand. And how could it not be? His father, David Aronson, established Boston University’s Department of Visual Arts in 1955 on the firm basis of figurative drawing, a tradition going back as far as the early “limners,” who sought faithfully to transfer the God-given features of our colonial landscape and people to canvas. More recently, this long tradition of figurative drawing was rebaptized at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts — from which the senior Aronson graduated — by an infusion of German expressionists who saw in the convulsed Europe of the Second World War “objective” reality warp in ways they could never forget. And they made this vision the passionate center of their teaching and practice. Ben Aronson absorbed these influences and traditions through his father’s senior and graduate courses at Boston University. Fortunately, this gift of the well-tutored hand can be, even must be, shared with the heart and mind, so that what the viewer sees in Aronson’s paintings is not simply the weight but also the lightness of tradition. In “Hill Street, San Francisco,” the houses and buildings lining the street are, from basement to roof, trued and fair enough to Read the entire article in our magazine pages...