Beth Balliro will be one of the three artists in Love’s Labors,
a show exploring maternal love at the Trustman Gallery at Simmons College March 26-April 26. A reception will be held Thursday, March 29, from 5—7 pm, with a Q&A with the artists at 5:30 p.m.
The subject of love has been a driver of humankind’s cultural production across the centuries. Among the many types of love is the strong attachment between a mother and her children. The three artists in Love’s Labors—Beth Balliro, Monica Bock, and Cynthia Newsome—are all mothers whose love, duty, and joy fuels the engine of their creativity. Their maternal experiences are the subject for work that explores the mystery of pregnancy, the connections of love, the repetition of daily tasks, and the icky messes that little bodies generate.
In her work “Agent Aria,” Beth Balliro reaches across generations. Using her recently deceased father’s service blanket from Vietnam, she fashions a new purpose for this symbol of a dangerous time. She felts new yarn into the blanket, infusing the softness of his relationship with his first two grandchildren, arriving at a new, more ductile fabric. Her gorgeously vibrant, abstract gouache and ink works are celebrations of her changing body as a mother.
Monica Bock’s amazing collection of lunch bags fashioned from soft lead sheets march around the gallery and up the walls, a testament to the work and love of packing daily lunches for two children. Each of the bags in “Don’t Forget the Lunches” is stamped with the day’s menu and child’s name. The Trustman Gallery installation includes almost one hundred of the original 418 lead lunch bags.
Cynthia Newsome presents both photos and video. Her large-scale grid installation of 4×4-inch cropped views of the efflux from bruises, colds and candy consumption are repulsive, yet texturally enticing. She also, with humor, shows more beguiling activities in her large-scale diptychs. Her videos vibrate in tune to the early feminist video artist, Martha Rosler.
One asks, how does a single person manage all of these tasks? Love’s Labors is about the unstinting love, yet real work of motherhood, which isn’t always pretty. For these three artists, maternal chores and feelings are a wellspring of artistic production.
Trustman Gallery hours are 10 am- 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday. Closed: April 16.
The gallery is free, open to the public and wheelchair accessible. It is located on the fourth floor in the Main College Building, 300 The Fenway. For more information, contact Marcia Lomedico at 617-521-2268, or visit the Trustman Art Gallery website at www.simmons.edu/trustman.