"Summer Looks Like This," an exhibit of paintings by artist Erica Bodwell, will be on display in February and March 2024.
Erica Bodwell is visual artist, poet and attorney living in Concord and Tamworth, New Hampshire. She made these oil and watercolor paintings in the summer and fall of 2023 of plants and people within reach—sitting in meadows and fields, literally at eye level with the buzzing summer life found there. She arranged found aquatic plants from Lake Chocorua, backyard zinnias and nasturtiums, and downed branches of white pine into living collages on the studio floor, painting them as they decomposed. The portraits were sparked by childhood photos or looking at herself in a mirror. She layered portraits over patterned backgrounds, or used the surprising properties of watercolor to find the intense gaze and searing interiority hidden in decades-old family photos.
This show asks the viewer to remember summer in the heart of winter—did we pay attention? Are we paying attention now?
