Salem Arts Association - Artoberfest Exhibit 2022

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We invited our our local artist to explore Salem’s history with witchcraft, religion, and Halloween. The resulting exhibit represents their diverse interpretations of the theme and how, by bringing them together, we create a collective understanding of it.

SEPTEMBER 3 THROUGH NOVEMBER 12, 2022

Opening Reception: Friday September 9, 6-8pm

Featuring a music performance by Ryan Kelleher

Please Support Our Sponsor

The exhibition is sponsored by Pamplemousse who will be providing refreshments for the reception.

Pamplemousse is a European inspired gourmet market with lots of New England charm. They strive to bring their customers the best products around including fine wines, craft beer, top shelf-liquors, gourmet food, kitchen gadgets and decor. Pamplemousse has locations at 185 Essex Street in Salem, MA, and 26 Haven Street in Everett, MA.

www.pmousse.com

Our Guest Jurors: Christian Marcus & Erica Diehl-Marcus

Christian Marcus and Erika Diehl-Marcus are the proprietors of the beautiful Diehl Marcus & Company. Their shop, located in the Historic Bulfinch Buildingt, is both a unique retail experience specializing in finely curated antiques, home decor, fine teas, hand-poured candles, and accessories from around the world, and a venue that hosts a variety of fantastic events full of arts and intrigue.

Before moving to historic Salem, the couple lived in Los Angeles where they owned a shop similar to Diehl Marcus & Company and worked in film and television. Christian, a native Salemite, has been in this business, or various incarnations thereof, for over twenty-five years. Erika has been dabbling in it part-time and for leisure for about fifteen years, immersing herself in it within the last five years, just before opening their L.A. store.

Deihl Marcus & Company

11 Central Street

Salem, MA 01970

https://diehlmarcus.com/

Hours are 11am-6pm Daily, except for Tuesdays when we are Closed.

"Ritual" by Jonathan Pinto

Monotype

This piece immediately suggests an autumn ritual, both ancient in it's dance around the fire, and rejoicing in a bountiful harvest. The casual, abstracted figures form a oneness with the suggested forest in which the faceless participants seem to revel in a coven, celebrating Mother Earth's bounty, while appearing demonically possessed to the outsider. The fine use of light, shadow, positive and negative space within this skillful, and ancient technique is masterful, symbolic, and simply evocative in well balanced harmony.

-- Christian Marcus and Erika Diehl-Marcus, Jurors

"Quickly" by CJ Karch

Photograph

Within the beckoning depths of this dynamic piece, a simple message is conveyed. Each focal plane draws the viewer deeper into it's urgent call. From the paper theatre-like frame, through to the summoning assemblage of skillfully crafted and natural objects, the viewer is pulled forcibly to the vague enticements that lie just beyond our focus, and perhaps comprehension. Extensive mediums and techniques are combined skillfully in this piece, to form an immediate and definitive impression, autumn brings the wonders of an alluring carnival just close enough to lure us in, but just as quickly gone, a blurry memory of unattainable mysteries. The nostalgic elements, and suspended animation of the environment lend a surreal sense of kinetic energy to this almost cinematic piece.

-- Christian Marcus and Erika Diehl-Marcus, Jurors

"Vintage Halloween: Good Witch, Bad Witch" by Charles Lang

Acrylic Painting

Halloween is not only present and celebrated here, but also fading and temporal. Beyond it's brash and bold colors, we see a worn, over-used motif, represented as the bright, cheerful icons of a holiday that has been reduced, commercialized, and removed from it's roots. The plastic pumpkin, so skillfully rendered, seems to leer mockingly at us, while the lithographed tin rattle, whose artwork is as faithful represented on canvas as it's dents and scratched-off paint are, begs the viewer to ask, is this a masterful likeness of festive found objects, or is there perhaps a more sinister story being suggested in the pathos so clearly portrayed in these crumbling relics.

-- Christian Marcus and Erika Diehl-Marcus, Jurors