Peter Abate and Gary LaPierre

Now on display:
 
"Timeworn: The Art of Architecture in Decline" – a collection of art and photography by Peter Abate and Gary LaPierre.

During the months of March and April 2017, the Goldberg Gallery will host the fourth exhibit in a series of shows displayed through 2017, featuring the art and photography of Peter Abate and Gary LaPierre. Abate and LaPierre are excited to work together once more, following their first exhibit together in July of 1995 in Lynn, Massachusetts. The exhibit "Timeworn: The Art of Architecture in Decline" will be shown in several New England locations through November 2017. 

LaPierre lives with his family in Beverly, Massachusetts. He has always loved walking through old industrial sites in cities and towns to observe the transformative effects of weather and time on buildings and objects. In 1982, LaPierre received a "point and shoot" camera as a gift and has collected photographic images of unintentional beauty ever since. LaPierre says that his attraction to worn out and broken down structures is a bit hard for some people to understand. He often feels--concerning his subject matter -- that he is against the wrecking ball! Barry Kaplan, the owner of The Finer Image in Danvers, Massachusetts, commented, "Gary's eye for texture and color makes an interesting and unique collection, capable of evoking a nostalgia created by age and time."

Peter Abate is originally from Massachusetts and now resides in Maine. Abate’s interest in architectural subjects and salvage dates to his childhood and continues to contribute to the art he creates, working with watercolor, mixed media assemblage, collage, and photography. Abate has been actively involved with the art community in and around Wakefield N.H. for over 16 years. He is a member of the Mount Washington Valley Arts Association and is currently a member of the Curatorial Committee of the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts in N.H. 

"While recently pouring over the writings and letters of influential artists, I came across a quote by John Marin written in 1913 that resonated with me," recalls Peter Abate. "I believe it expresses key inspirational elements of the message we are seeking to convey through this show. Marin wrote, ‘Shall we consider the life of a great city as confined simply to the people and animals on its streets and in its buildings, are the buildings themselves dead? You cannot create a work of art unless the things you behold respond to something within you....thus the whole city is alive.’"

In the exhibit, each work of art invites the viewer to ponder the mystery and the intimate story of an old building's aging structure and related parts and its struggle to survive the scourge of time, human use, and neglect during the march of progress. Further, each humble subject becomes its own material canvas-- so to speak-- from which the eye draws its secrets and delights in its unique beauty by skillfully capturing the subject’s intrinsic qualities of form and function, placement, detail, color, line, and texture. 

Abate and LaPierre hope their exhibit will encourage a far greater understanding and appreciation of the life and the significance of design and appeal of old buildings and their related structures. They hope to instill the importance of lovingly observing and preserving old buildings as part of our priceless history and architectural heritage.

The Goldberg Gallery is open to the public and the hours are Sundays - 12:00-4:00 p.m. & 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Monday-Thursday-7:00-5:00 pm & 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Fridays 7-5 p.m.; closed Saturda
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