Diane Pearl: Inspired by my father who was a photo realist painter, this series is an exploration of dynamic cross-hatching to create 3-dimensional mythic worlds and imaginary places. Using a variety of mediums including colored pencils, pen and ink, and watercolors we invite the viewer to enter new worlds of imagination that are both surreal and real.

Catherine Lipsetz Dauer: In my ongoing exploration of time’s marks, pace and passage I began painting works on paper in 2015 of rocks on our property in rural Western Massachusetts, finding them to not be inscrutable and static as typically perceived but unexpectedly ephemeral. Painted plein air, the long observation and singular focus required of this work grounds me in the present, in contrast to the demands of our multi-tasking world and offers perspective on the relationships between the arc of time, human experience and the natural world. Creating these process-oriented works is experiential and iterative, embracing the happenstance of working in the elements with chance weather, and natural detritus. I first map out the shape with a light wash then build up from there, negotiating the paint not only with brushwork but by cradling, tilting and moving the paper. Layers of observed light, translucency and color are collected into pure forms in a balance of meticulous rendering and intuitive mark-making. The airy negative space of the pieces accentuates the lines I walk between non-representational and representational, awkward form and beauty, and acknowledges the subject’s displacement from its surroundings. Questioning assumptions and observing without preconceptions are constant self-imposed challenges, so that each time I am looking with fresh eyes. This contemplative enquiry that began with the Western Massachusetts “geologic” works shared here has generated multiple bodies of work, including “surface” where geologic surface and repeated forms take over the page and defy scale, “portals” where geology represents a window into time, and analog photography that compliments that whole trajectory.

Elizabeth diGiacomantonio: My work focuses on memory in abstraction and how memory is experienced in the body and expressed through gesture. I am interested in themes of synchronicity and the collective unconscious and drawn to the power of the collective. My work explores the ways in which our past experience shapes our current reality. My aim is to create pieces that are visually engaging and emotionally resonant, inviting the viewer to reflect on their own experiences and the role that memory plays in their lives.

Gregory St John: The group of paintings I have chosen to submit with this application are all from 2025. They represent a sampling of last years painting. The new painting I am currently working on our following in a similar path. They are also based on my afternoon walks and my observations of the world surround me.

Wren Bernstein: Ceramic art is a relatively new love of mine, after dabbling in various mediums from childhood onward and diving deeply into metalsmithing and jewelry design more than five decades ago. I have been delighted to discover how that this history of working with metal strongly informs my relationship with clay, as many of the principles of creating forms are the same for both materials. But unlike metal, which requires tools between the hand and the medium, clay is responsive to the direct touch of the hands and therefore offers its own primal satisfactions. Though I can throw a pot on the wheel if I have to, I am most intrigued with the endless possibilities available in hand building. Coil pots offer the opportunity to have a “conversation” with the clay about what kind of form wants to emerge, and slab work is extra receptive to the use of stamps, natural and homemade, for a richness of texture. In all of my work I am conscious not just of the form and surface but also the edge and how it interacts with the empty space around it, and I continually seek to experiment with and refine that relationship. Artmaking is always a response to something—perhaps to culture, to science and technology, to humans and other creatures. For many, and for me, it seems mostly about the designs found in nature and how those want to be felt, appreciated, and interpreted. I experience this less as a conscious choice than as a friendly compulsion requesting tangible, and hopefully unique, expression. I like to describe my pieces as sculptural vessels. They are not necessarily “pottery,” per se, as that denotes a commitment primarily to practical use. But they do reference—or sometimes even function as—practical objects, which roots them in pottery’s ancient origins as utensils to facilitate the needs of daily life. Though I always ask myself what kind of substance or object any given piece might hold, sometimes the answer is intangible and mysterious.

Diane Pearl

Catherine Lipsetz Dauer

Elizabeth diGiacomantonio

Gregory St John

Wren Bernstein

Form, Fact, and Fragment

Becket Arts Center