Krakow Witkin Gallery | In Space | Boston | April 23 – June 1
Abelardo Morell Tent-Camera Image on Ground: Walden Pond, 2016 Color photograph Edition of 6 Framed: 60 x 76 inches (154 x 195 cm) (the work is also available as an edition of 10 that is 28 x 34 inches and an edition of 8 that is 38 x 48 inches) 
Barbara Broughel Broken Sky (cerulean clouds), 2007-2008 Six poplar panels (11 x 11 inches each) with oil paint, three pine shelves Overall size: 37 x 26 x 3.25 inches (94 x 66 x 8.25 cm) 
Kate Shepherd Rain Bow 2013 Oil and enamel on dibond panel Signed and dated on reverse 14 x 10 inches (35.6 x 25.4 cm)
April 23 – June 1, 2022
Barbara Broughel, Abelardo Morell, Kate Shepherd | In Space
Krakow Witkin Gallery
In-Person Viewing:
10 Newbury Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116, USA
Virtual Viewing:
https://www.krakowwitkingallery.com/exhibitions/in-space/
Abstraction pushed the use of the perspectival grid beyond its primary function (to allow the rendering of objects in perspective without distortion) and inadvertently made “compositions” from the individual squares within the grid.
Barbara Broughel
Broughel’s “Broken Sky (cerulean clouds)” examines the history of abstraction in one of its possible birthplaces (circa 1700 Northern Europe) through the depiction, not only of a period-related subject – clouds and the sky – but of the process and materials of rendering (Broughel used pigments and wood that would have been used at that time). What is unconventional, or even radical for the period is the composition and the way it fractures the realism of the image through leaving the grid visible (thus it references the tool which allows for that realism). The display mechanism of the shelves furthers the focus not just on the imagery but on the object-ness of the broken grid.
Since 1991, Abelardo Morell has converted rooms into Camera Obscuras in order to photograph the strange and delightful meeting of the outside world with the room’s interior. In setting up a room to make this kind of photograph, he covers all windows with black plastic in order to achieve total darkness. Then, he cuts a small hole in the material he uses to cover the windows. This opening allows an inverted image of the view outside to flood onto the back walls of the room. Typically, he then uses a large-format camera capture to this scenario as a photograph.
