IN THE ANNEX: APRIL 2023

April 6–30, 2023
Tala AbuNuwar + Bayda Asbridge + Nadya Volicer

SoWa First Friday Art Walk: Friday, April 7, 2023 | 5:00–8:00PM

April opens our Annex exhibition series with three artists whose work is characterized by their expression of the intangible and the use of texture in their presentations. Tala AbuNuwar uses mixed media to express her fascination with the mystic world of Sufism. Bayda Asbridge showcases her fascination with nature in her sculptures and paintings. Nadya Volicer uses fabric and family photographs to explore the uncertainty of memory.

PRICE LIST (PDF) ➢

Tala AbuNuwar

Cosmic Love Surrounds You

mixed media on canvas, fabric, decorative paper, ink, paint

18x24”

Rumi Love

Mixed media on wood panels, maple wood box credit to woodworker Carolyn Reckman

9.75” x 15.5” x 1.75”

Sisterhood

Mixed Media on canvas, decorative fabric, ink, paint, Arabic calligraphy

18x24”

God, The Eternally Living One

Mixed media on paper, ink, calligraphy, acrylic

9x12”

Tala Abunuwar is a Jordanian, Massachusetts-based mixed media contemporary artist who captures her spiritual journey through her artwork. She is known for following her intuition and mixing Arabic calligraphy, poetry, yoga and the Sufi world of “Rumi” to represent strong themes of spiritual awareness, divine presence and oneness in her art. She paints to guide herself and others to close the eye of the self and awaken the eye of the soul!

In “Sisterhood,” AbuNuwar communicates the message that women play an important role in each other’s lives, and that we should uplift one another to accomplish our individual and collective goals. We are here to heal and strive together as sisters, mothers, daughters, and friends. She works with the knowledge that we must strive to make sure that it’s a positive one.

After a spiritual awakening AbuNuwar left her corporate job to follow her dream of becoming the artist she feels she was meant to be. In July 2020, AbuNuwar and her family left their lives in Jordan and moved to the United States. During COVID lockdown, she found solace in her art and started creating on paper and fabric using Arabic calligraphy and contemporary mixed media. AbuNuwar has participated in many exhibitions in the USA, Jordan, Italy and Spain. Thanks to these gallery shows and her social media presence her artwork has found homes in many cities around the world. It has an especially strong presence in USA, UK, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. AbuNuwar lives and works in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Bayda Asbridge

It’s a New Day

saori weaving, wood, origami

72”x39”x3.5”

Wise Jellyfish

calligraphy, wooden balls, metal bells

10x50”

Fairuz-Ba’adana

wood, mixed media

24”x47”

I wish I Were a Bamboo

wood, paint, sumi-e ink, gold leaf

18”x28”x10”

Bayda Asbridge is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work is inspired by nature and its elements. She uses natural elements such as paper, seeds, wood bark, driftwood, shells, and pods in her weavings and sculptures. The simplicity, minimalism and appreciation of nature in Asian art play a very important role in Asbridge’s work. Whether she weaves, paints or sculpts, she brings that Asian aesthetic into her work. As a human rights activist some of her work is political. She believes she has an obligation to bring awareness to social, political and humanitarian issues.

Asbridge has been trained in brush painting, drawing, printmaking, Japanese weaving (Saori), sculpture, calligraphy and basketry. Her work has been recognized in several local galleries, including Worcester Art Museum, Fitchburg Art Museum, Attleboro Art Museum, Cambridge Art Association, Davis Art Gallery & Whistler House Museum of Art and Schweinfurth Art Center. In 2011 Asbridge was awarded the Frances Kinnicutt Travel & Study Award from the Worcester Art Museum for travel to England to study mixed media with British artist Lydia Bauman. In 2021, she was awarded Mass Cultural Traditional Arts Award in Arabic Calligraphy and trained in Diwani font with master Hajj Wafa’a. This provided an excellent opportunity for her to merge both traditional arts and the Near and Far East arts in her work. Asbridge is a Syrian/ American artist residing in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.

Nadya Volicer

New Year’s Eve

Found fabric and embroidery floss

11”x11”x2”

12 Handkerchiefs

Grandma’s handkerchiefs, fabric and thread

37.5”x49.5”x2”

Snake in the Grass

Scrap fabric and embroidery floss

15”x9”x4”

Table Scraps

Table cloth fragments, fabric and thread

36”x48”x2”

Nadya Volicer is drawn to re-purposing and assembling pieces. Whether found, fabricated or leftover from something more deliberate, scraps attract her with their repetition and variety, perceived uselessness and accidental potential. Sometimes, she gathers and shapes individual parts towards a specific image or form. At other times, the layering of fragments is driven by a curiosity of process and produces unanticipated results. She’s interested in this back and forth between design and surprise. Volicer’s work, which ranges from objects to installations, often involves shadows, suspended motion and superimposition. She wants to express the feeling of memory and the way experience accumulates over time. Her current work uses family photographs and artifacts to explore those themes through appliqué and embroidery on textiles.

Nadya Volicer received a BFA in Sculpture from the Massachusetts College of Art and a Master of Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has created site-specific works for many spaces, including the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA and Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT, and permanent installations at Sheridan College in Sheridan, WY and the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, MD. She has been awarded several residencies including the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE and the McColl Center in Charlotte, NC, and received a Pollack-Krasner Foundation award. She currently lives and works in Boston, MA.