Skip to main content
You have permission to edit this article.
Edit

‘Flight’ takes off

New West Branch exhibit showcases movement and migration, freedom and flying

  • Updated
  • 0
  • 5 min to read

West Branch Gallery co-owner Tari Swenson began brainstorming last year about an exhibit exploring the beauty of flight. It started with birds, a favorite subject for painters, sculptors and photographers the world round.

But that idea soon took off into something bigger, something untethered to mere literal approximations of flight.

At “Flight: Explorations in Movement, Migration and Freedom,” which debuts April 2 and runs through June 26, there’s a lot more than just pretty birds.

Expect moving images of Syrian refugees, sensuous representations of landscapes from an eye in the sky, abstract swirls evoking motion. Expect adorable images of owls made by local kindergartners placed side by side with Middle Eastern artists who don’t have a home anymore.

“Once we started thinking about it, it was impossible for us to see it in only one possible way,” said Patricia Trafton, gallery manager and co-curator of the “Flight” exhibit.

Flight and plight

Once Swenson and Trafton began their own exploration of the metaphorical and globally significant meanings of flight, they turned to the Syrian refugee crisis, brought on by ruthless civil war in the Middle Eastern country.

It’s a political hot potato right now, with many countries — including the U.S. and Western Europe — loath to allow people fleeing a “terrorist nation” to come to their shores.

Naturally, out of crisis comes some of the most moving art. The curators just needed to find out who was making it.

“I don’t think we could have named one Syrian artist before this,” Trafton said.

Khaled Youseff proved to be the linchpin for the curators. Himself a curator of sorts, he introduced Swenson and Trafton to key Syrian artists who have been able to ply their work outside their home country, artists such as Lukman Ahmad and Rashwan Abdelbaki.

Trafton and Swenson got frissons of excitement in receiving tubes from places like Lebanon, stamped as general mail.

Lately, Youseff has been playing with big, buoyant bubbles as a medium to capture unique angles on everyday life, while simultaneously playing catch-up with the fleeting orbs. Of his series “Make Bubbles Not War,” he writes, “Bubbles get a short life, trying always to escape and flying before exploding like our ideas, our good moments, or our dreams. That’s why I create them; I follow them, trying to catch them with my camera.”

Tammam Azzam is arguably the most famous artist to come out of Syria. He’s a collage artist with a wicked satirical edge. Azzam’s pieces in “Flight” combine military weaponry with innocent pastimes: “Syrian Eid 1” depicts a child floating away clutching a bundle of missiles as if they’re balloons, and in “MiG Kite,” a child has a Russian fighter jet tied to a string, both of them offset by blue skies and puffy clouds.

Azzam drew worldwide attention when he superimposed Gustav Climt’s romantic masterpiece “The Kiss” onto the side of a bombed-out Syrian building. The resulting piece, “Freedom Graffiti,” went viral on social media.

The Guardian newspaper said, “Taking that passionate image and putting it on a wall in Syria, Azzam invokes one of the most universal works of art to try and touch international hearts that are OK with ignoring his country’s pain.”

Khaled Akil’s highly stylized photographic style is dark, spooky and loaded with political imagery. Imagine contemporary images of birds and Syrian citizens as re-imagined by Flannery O’Connor if she’d watched a lot of Nine Inch Nails videos, but with more outward angst than introspection, and you might be close to Akil’s aesthetic.

Akil, who’s from Aleppo, has been keeping relatively safe in Istanbul while war rages in his home country. A potent reminder of how many countries have wrestled with whether to allow Syrians to cross their borders, Akil has found himself unable to attend shows where his art is being showcased. The United States is no exception.

“He’s been denied every single time,” Swenson said. “He applied for a visa to come to this show’s opening, and was denied, too.”

Elevating art

As powerful as the Akil and Azzam images are, their work and others like it gave the curators in Stowe some pause.

Some of the overtly political art produced by artists forced to flee their homeland is justifiably dark, harrowing and a bit terrifying. West Branch is still a commercial art gallery in a posh resort town, and it still has an obligation to the artists it displays to try to get their works sold.

Akil and Azzam would like to have their works sold, too, but for different reasons. They intend to donate their proceeds to humanitarian organizations they respect and work with.

West Branch is donating 100 percent of its commission from the sale of Syrian art and 10 percent from the other artists. Upon hearing that, other folks started to get in on the game. Some artists are donating some, and even the bartenders and caterers and other gallery reception folks plan on giving back, too.

For a show that started as a proposal to showcase avian artwork (“everyone loves to paint birds,” notes Trafton), what has emerged instead is a rumination on the very meaning of flight, from the literal to the metaphorical, the act of soaring and the need to escape.

“While the global community is facing so many hard questions and tragedies, we’re really proud to put forth an exhibition that is about the resilience of the human spirit at its core,” Swenson said.

Added Trafton, “Visually, it’s come together even better than we thought.”

Expect plenty of art by Vermonters who are regulars at West Branch Gallery. Gabriel Tempesta and Rebecca Kinkead take up large spaces on the walls, as do Anna Dibble’s triptych of birds in flight, Craig Mooney’s soft panoramas, and Lois Eby’s stark black and red “Improvisations.” Nissa Kauppila, a Vermonter now in China (unlike Akil, she’s free to move about the world), has intricate images of feathers.

When you go to an art exhibit, it’s easy to admire all the works by all the artists, to be mesmerized by the topographical folds of papyrus in Kathryn Lipke’s “Aerial Series,” chuckle at Joseph Lupiani’s wooden “Butternut Pheasant” in a smoking jacket, marvel at Kaupilla’s attention to detail, ooh and ahh over Stowe children’s bird art.

But a lot of artistry goes into showcasing those myriad pieces. Akil and Azzam may stimulate you to anger and sorrow, but oh look, a handful of cute little ceramic owls. And over there is a watercolor cloudscape. And over there and there, birds and birds. What you have is a sort of harmonious incongruity, and that’s just what Swenson and Trafton were hoping for.

“Curators talk about art pieces ‘being in communication with each other,’” Trafton said. “You want to elevate everyone’s art.”

Little big leagues

That elevation includes bringing local K-12 students to the gallery, putting them side by side with professional artists whose work fetches five figures. You just don’t get that kind of exposure on the family refrigerator.

Jennifer Volansky, art teacher at Stowe Elementary School, said parents “are ecstatic” that some of their kids are going to be showcased in “Flight.” She thinks that inclusiveness could be a boon to the gallery, too, bringing in a whole new audience.

“I really like what they did by reaching out to the school community like this,” Volansky said. “The whole idea, the concept of flight, all the ways you can go with it, it’s really exciting.”

One Stowe High School student took the assignment in a way that links bird flight with Syrians’ plight. Nathan Davidson’s poster incorporates flapping V-shaped birds and refugees, incorporating the red, white, black and green Syrian flag and the words “Victims Not Criminals.”

In some ways, Trafton and Swenson were as enthusiastic about the kids’ art as they were receiving prints from far-flung Middle Eastern countries. Everybody loves the confidence 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds have when producing a piece of art. They haven’t reached that self-conscious age, and they are completely open and unfiltered, Trafton said.

Volanksy said the professionals might recognize some of that awkward innocence hanging on the walls next to them.

“All of these artists once started as children, and found that love of art that propelled them through to where they are now,” she said. “Their work is so honest because they’re not looking to please. Whatever is inside them is what you’re seeing.”

(0) comments

Welcome to the discussion.

Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexual language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be proactive. Use the "Report" link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.