My visit to the Fitchburg Art Museum
Submitted on: December 20, 2013
My visit to the Fitchburg Art Museum was a wonderful experience. I visited on a Friday afternoon with my husband and my son and we had a great time. I did have a hard time selecting what artists I like and didn’t like because it seemed that the majority of the artwork on display during my visit was photography, which we were not able to write about.
I was drawn to three paintings by Justin Richel called Volatile Mixture (2012), Unleashed (2012), and Debacle (2012). What I first noticed about them was the vibrant display of colors in all three paintings. Once I looked more closely, I was intrigued to notice the quirky details that Richel included in them. For example, in Volatile Mixture, there are many different things going on. It seems that the painting is taking place just after an explosion and there are everyday things just flying through the air in response. There is a bowling ball that has blown a hole right through a dresser and a cake whose candles are still lit with a tea kettle smashed into it.
The theme in Justin Richel’s paintings seem to be everyday things that are put together to create a great painting that is also intriguing. I found a quote online at www.artistday.com that states that “Richel’s main focus is painting complex and detailed compositions that range in content from mountains of sweets, men with ridiculous wigs, presidents and birds.” That is a short and sweet description of what I was feeling and noticing while viewing the painting. I also found on that website that he is primarily a painter and his medium of choice is gouache. He has a B.F.A. from Maine College of Art and has studied at many other places around the world, which has exposed him to many different types of art and also many different mediums.
Another artist that I was drawn to was an abstract painting by Jonathan Imber. Mr. Imber is an...