The year 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the time when Armenian American artist Arshile Gorky lived in Watertown. Gorky endured personal tragedies from fleeing his village during the Armenian genocide and later losing his mother at a young age. After arriving in America in 1920 he was able to pursue his passion for art and create work that reflected his traumatic past. Gorky’s biomorphic abstractions hold an important place in 20th century art.
As Watertown celebrates the art and life of the artist, town-wide with 100 Years of Gorky, the Mosesian Center for the Arts will be a part of the events honoring the life and work of Arshile Gorky - including this exhibition, opening reception, and a documentary film screening of Finding Gorky in the Charles Mosesian Theater.
We've invited artists to submit artwork that recognizes the importance of drawing as a vital artistic practice - work that uses drawing as a vehicle of self-expression, drawing as a way of recording thoughts and experiences, and drawing as a form of visual thinking. Artists have submitted work that is drawing based, stretches the definition of drawing and is conceptual in nature, narrative, and process oriented.
Mosesian Arts is excited to welcome the well-known Boston artist and educator Bill Flynn as a co-curator for this exhibition.
William Flynn is an artist teacher and author of Armed Chair, a collection of more than 220 drawings of a stripped down antique chair that became a metaphor for the war in Iraq. Flynn served as a drawing instructor at the School of the Museum Fine Arts, Boston for 45 years. His additional teaching experiences have been at the Rhode Island School of Design Summer Program in Pont-Aven, France and he has served as a faculty advisor for the Tufts University MFA program.
In addition to awards for his teaching excellence, Flynn has received the James William Paige Traveling Fellowship award from the Museum of Fine Arts for study in Japan, a Mellon Foundation grant to study in Spain, and a Ford Foundation grant for the production of the award-winning film about drawing called Paper Targets. Flynn has exhibited extensively in the Boston area and New York His solo exhibition at Philips Academy in Andover evolved into The visual book Armed Chair. He has had several solo exhibitions, and his work is in many private collections including The Boston Public Library and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts .He has shown with Victoria Monroe Fine Art, Boston and he is currently represented by the Hallspace Gallery in Dorchester.
Regarding Gorky, Bill writes: “I have had a 45-year relationship with Gorky as a great teacher and an ongoing challenge to understand his unique work”.
Opening Reception:
Thursday, March 13, 5:30–7:30 PM
Finding Gorky Film Screening:
Friday, March 28, 7:30-9:30 PM
RSVP
Featured image:
Gerri Rachins, First Flying Machines to Take Off, V1
