RAIN/WATER: Three artists’ explorations of water & rain

WORKS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE BY EACH ARTIST - scroll to bottom

Rachel Brask
Shawndavid Berry
& Laura White Carpenter

combine forces in their own unique artforms exploring rain and water forms. Shawndavid Berry’s water-esque paintings and organic wood sculptures, Laura White Carpenter’s diverse ceramic sculptures of rain drops, and Rachel Brask’s oil paintings viewing rainy windows of abstracted landscape. Join this artist friend trio for a SoWa First Friday reception on June 7, 5-9pm, in Studio 410 at 450 Harrison Ave, Boston MA.

CLOSING RECEPTION: FRIDAY, JULY 5, 2024, 5-9PM

Gallery/studio hours: SoWa Sundays 11-4, & by appointment --call/text 401-400-0418 or email info@rachelbraskstudio.com

Studio 410, 450 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA

For more information on getting there and visiting the studio, click here

Plan a night out of seeing a bunch of artists studios and open galleries, get dinner and make it an event!

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

& THE ARTISTS

RAIN/WATER is an exhibition of three artists from Rhode Island whose work complements one another in their relation to rain, water, and the environment, through the various mediums of wood, ceramics, and paint. All three artists also have a great affinity for one another, and has talked about doing an exhibit together for a long time. Lo, and behold! This is that exhibition!

RAIN/WATER: exhibit statement
What is rain? But a combination of water droplets that have formed out of clouds, that have fallen to the earth, and have reconvened in puddles, lakes and oceans. Rainwater provides necessary hydration for the trees, bushes, and flowers of spring, and sustenance for animals and humans. This exploration of rain/water in the exhibit is a combination of artists who have dropped into one another’s art exhibits and lives over time, connected and convened, and are now combining their work in conversation in the rain puddles and oceans of this show.
This is our interpretations of rain/water. The work flows together out of our materials, but also the joy and color also flows from our friendship and enthusiasm for supporting one another’s artistry. There is flow of some form in each artists’ work, and we strove to curate & install the flow in the exhibit’s layout.
Rainwater runs and transforms, from above to below, it ebbs alongs and flows. What started as a tiny raindrop transforms into the strength of a mighty ocean wave. Any of these artworks individually represents a step in their journey — but in conversation and combination with the other artworks, becomes its own body of rain/water.
Rain/water becomes a surface off of which color can reflect, or through which we can stare through into the depths. Each artist’s work invites you to get closer, look at, look through it, and find the smaller details in and through each piece. Take some time to move from noticing the raindrop ripples just above the surface, to all the rain joining to form new connections between interior and exterior, earth and human, and form and material.

Shawndavid Berry is a sculptor and woodworker and painter who is adept at connecting organic spaces and forms together, manipulating organic forms, causing the viewer to see smaller scenes within scenes, to look for hidden elements within the ‘scape. His use of positive and negative space, and technical explorations with materials is always evolving, as one can see a definite connection between his skillfully crafted woodworks and paintings. Berry works with windfallen wood that he’s harvested, and utilizes bacteria in a process called “spelting” to prepare the wood for carving. The bacteria follow the veining of the wood, as Berry also includes these lining details throughout his paintings in a nod to the connection with the wood.
Instagram: @shawndavidwoodworks

Laura White Carpenter is a ceramicist, painter and mixed media artist. She works in hand-built porcelain sculpture and mixed media of found materials (metal, wood, & “junk”). For the past few years, she has been creating hand-built spherical raindrop forms with a goal of making a series of 52 individual forms. She uses decorative marks to indicate an object’s or place’s significance, and she’s increasingly utilized techniques and supplies that have a lower impact upon the Earth. Her coil-building process uses minimal water and has become a core part of her process and reason for sustainable art practice. Her understated works require closer examination to appreciate more deeply the intimately nuanced surface marks, textures, and deeper meanings of each piece. In particular her ceramic sculptures of raindrop shapes are a mix of beauty, fragility, and determined strength in the face of harsh conditions.

Instagram: @theartistinresidence

Rachel Brask is an oil painter who has exclusively painted abstracted landscapes alluding to rainy days for the better part of the last decade. In her oil paintings, she transports the viewer to a cozy space imagining the sensory sounds and sights of looking through the glass of a window during intense rainstorms. Her works of color and rain-dripping texture evoke a sense of movement and flow, while also providing insight into spaces beyond, layers of near and far. These windows out to the world also evoke a sense of calm and cocooning that can be necessary and cozy on rainy days, in providing calm and contemplation in the calamity and chaos of an unbridled world.

Instagram: @rbraskstudio