Fascinating . . . And Fun, A Crowd Pleaser

Mary Close is a talented, meticulous artist. In her new show, “The Fabric of Our Town” at The White Gallery in Lakeville, she has abandoned her figurative and still life painting for a new medium, photomosaic. Using a computer program — Andrea Mosaic — and hundreds of photographs, she has combined technology and art to fashion a small but varied collection of prints that focuses on what she calls “the fabric of our town, Salisbury,” but also includes explorations of flowers, people, nature and even food. Close spent the past year photographing more than 500 local residents (all gave her permission to use their likenesses,) buildings, landmarks, businesses and scenes. She also rummaged through hundreds of photographs at the Salisbury Historical Society. Once digitized, these photos were ready for Close to incorporate into larger single images: an American flag, a quilt, a sampler. (The works were brilliantly printed by photographer Avery Danziger at his Fine Art Services in Sharon.) Her flag, which was used in publicity for the exhibition, is both fascinating and problematic. It immediately brings to mind the work of the world’s most famous painter of the American flag, Sharon resident Jasper Johns. His flags, of course, are paintings about painting; the flag image is received as already known and depersonalized, so that his manipulations of it register as sensual, cerebral, and, above all, ironic. Close’s flag and sampler and quilt are also received, known. But the interest is neither sensual nor emotional; it is in the recognition of people and places and objects we know from our everyday life in this place at this time. There is no irony nor commentary. More interesting, I think, are “Woodland Whispers,” which places ghostly images of Native Americans, African- Americans and early European settlers in a typical autumn foliage landscape, and “Salisbury 1899,” an historical map of the town on which faint historical portraits are superimposed. “Play Ball,” a much simpler composition, arranges local 20th-century baseball teams around a playing diamond under which we can read lines from “Casey at the Bat.” And on the far left of one team photo is a single African-American. That, I think, makes a comment on the values here, at a time when no African- Americans could play on any professional or semi-professional team. Close’s photomosaic flowers, “Hydrangea,” “Pink Hibiscus,” “Gloriosa Daisy, are as bold as her painted ones. There is a clever, perhaps somewhat cute nod to Lime Rock’s racing history in “Mustang,” the grille of the car made up of many individual automobile marquees and emblems. But only “Cheese Burger,” a luscious depiction of the eponymous burger surrounded by fries against a red, white and blue (with white stars) background makes an ironic statement about America. (I confess it is my favorite for that reason.) The one portrait here, “Howard’s World,” is a sweet picture of an aging man surrounded by the tiny images of his life, his family, his connections. Yet one misses the singularity and emotionalism of a portrait by Chuck Close (no relation) made from a grid of hundreds of tiny pixel-like boxes, each filled in by hand with a unique shape or squiggle of color. Mary Close is a very fine artist. What I miss in these works are the subtleties of mind and hand working together that are found in her figurative and nature work. (Her recent paintings of elderly arms and hands are deeply moving, as are her pictures of the tenderness of love and communication between couples.) While this exhibition is fascinating and fun and will, I think, be a great crowd pleaser, I hope she does not abandon her brushes. “Mary Close: The Fabric of Our Town,” will be at The White Gallery, 342 Main St. in Lakeville, through Oct. 2. The gallery is open Thursday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.For information, call 860-435-1029 or go to www.thewhitegallery@sbcglobal.net.