CORE ARTIST FEATURE: Miller Opie + Lior Neiger + Melissa Shaak
November 30, 2023 - January 14, 2024
“Impermanence III” by Miller Opie
Above stills from “Impermanence III"
About the Art:
“I started making art to explore a very personal physical experience that started over ten years ago. After several years of surgeries to rebuild my jawbone that was being destroyed by benign tumors, I create art to intimately explore beauty, mortality, and rejuvenation. As my practice has progressed, I have found that there is great beauty in aging, evolving and even in decay. These themes have led me to explore the idea of “Impermanence” while at an artist residency in France last year. This film shows the continuation of the “Impermanence” concept in which I created a sculpture of seagrasses and jute at another recent artist residency. I wove the seagrasses with jute into small basket forms that float in the ocean water, seeming to rejuvenate and come back to life. The result is a meditation on nature, life, and its impermanence.”
About the Artist:
Miller Opie is a sculptor whose work explores her life-altering experience that began when she learned she had several tumors that were destroying her jawbone. Enduring over three years of procedures inspires her to intimately explore beauty, mortality, and rejuvenation. Opie graduated with a BFA in Jewelry and Light Metals from the Rhode Island School of Design. Before becoming a full-time artist, Opie was a design director in the Home Fashions Industry. Her studio is in the forest of Shutesbury, MA. She is a Core Member of the Sculptor’s Guild in New York City and Fountain Street Gallery in Boston, MA and exhibits internationally.
“Song for Miriam” by Lior Neiger
Above stills from “Song for Miriam”
About the Artwork:
“Song for Miriam is a musical and visual work based on a poem by Miriam Neiger-Fleischmann. Each medium adds a dimension that enriches the impact and creates new, and surprising connotations. The text moves between the poet's contemporary world and the biblical and symbolic world. The composition was done by the musician and composer Daniel Akiva who plays guitar, sings, and combines different voices in the recording. The artist Lior Neiger has created the video work that unites the layers and adds his own interpretation that derives directly from the poem and flows with his private world of images.”
“At the Gate” and “Intercoastal” by Melissa Shaak
Above still from “At the Gate”
Above still from “Intercoastal”
About the art and the artist:
“Intercoastal was filmed at Rafe’s Chasm in Gloucester, MA. and At the Gate was filmed at MFA Boston’s Japanese Zen Garden. I work at the intersection of experimental video and performance art, as well as in acrylics and mixed media on paper. In my videos, I personify a “seeker” who responds to puzzling situations in the landscape with improvisational movement. My exertions reveal a deep desire to connect interior and exterior worlds. In this way I offer a paradigm of the artistic process as well as a reminder that we are all seekers in this world.”