Art We Love – Pulse Points

One of the great pleasures of looking at art is the moment when a spark ignites in your brain and a piece reaches out and really grabs you. Sometimes it gets you from across the room with bold color or a flamboyant gesture. But it might sneak up on you during a long, careful look and completely change what you thought you were looking at. It’s just something that makes your heart beat a little faster and tempts you to open up your wallet and make it yours.

Daphne Confar, Claire Is Curious but It Comes Across as Nosey, oil on bingo card (12” x 17”) – William Scott Gallery

Daphne Confar generally works in a small scale, but her subjects have an outsized impact. She imbues each sitter with a distinct personality and often an air of mystery. You want to know all about their lives and just what’s on their minds. Here, it’s the eyes that mesmerize. They convey such complex emotions. Is Claire happy or careworn or wistful or contented – or all of the above? You can never be sure, but you can be sure that you’d like to spend some time with Claire.

Richard Tinkler, F4A1.1, oil on canvas (40” x 30”) – GAA Gallery

The first thing that drew me to this painting was curiosity – and a slight sense of confusion. I couldn’t figure out what I was looking at from across the room. It wouldn’t let my eyes focus and gave off a kind of vibrating energy. Up close, it turned out to be a meticulously constructed grid of thick dabs of paint. Each little brushstroke is a world of color, and each relates subtly to its neighbor, creating that gauzy, pulsating effect I saw from afar. It’s a painting that rewards on many levels and will have you looking at it with fresh eyes time and again.

Jennifer Pritchard, Solfeggio 1, hand-varnished photograph on archival rag paper (20” x 16”) – On Center Gallery

Jennifer Pritchard’s current body of work is both achingly beautiful and intellectually fascinating. Beauty and brains if you will. Her florilegium (collection of flowers) harks back to the old masters yet is utterly contemporary in its conception and execution. They’re photographs with a sensual, painterly sensibility and a 21st-century twist. It’s only after you’ve had a good, deep look at this lovely bloom that you start to see it – streaks of color subtly coursing across the petals that are the product of a deliberate “glitch” created with sound frequencies. I won’t try to explain it here, but I will urge you to get to On Center Gallery and experience it for yourself.

Mark Schianca, Trampolina, acrylic on canvas (30” x 30” x 2”) – Stewart Clifford Gallery

This one had me at hello. The punchy color combination and pitch-perfect composition give the piece an instant graphic appeal. But beyond its surface charm, the artist has subtly articulated the form of the ring buoy with shading and signs of wear, adding texture and realism to what might otherwise have been a cartoon version of itself. It’s not just a fleeting crush – you might actually want to date this one for a while.

George Rogers is an artist and ceramicist. After a career in museums including the MFA in Boston and the Smithsonian, he and his husband moved to Provincetown full time four years ago.