The public is invited to an art reception this Saturday at Dublin School’s Putnam Gallery featuring the work of Dublin resident Kimberly Kersey-Asbury.
“I’ve always thought army soldiers were the most boring toys,” Kersey-Asbury said, but her series “Subterfuge: Mock Battle, No. 2,” features twelve large-scale photographic prints of the ubiquitous plastic toys that give them surprising depth. A second series of Kersey-Asbury’s photographs, “The White Horse Dialogue,” feature toy horses. “I’d never had the opportunity to exhibit them in the region until now,” Kersey-Asbury said.
That’s a sentiment curator Earl Schofield hopes to encourage. He said the school is interested in furthering connections between the gallery and the greater Monadnock community, including collaborations with local visual artists. Kersey-Asbury has been organizing events for the former Sharon Arts community in collaboration with the MAxT Makerspace, and said that collaborations with the Putnam Gallery are a direct response to the local artist community’s call for more places to display their art. Kersey-Asbury and Schofield invite local artists interested in exploring future opportunities with the school’s visual art facilities to attend the event. Attendees will also be able to tour workspaces in the building that may be available for adult art classes in the future.
Schofield connects students taking relevant classes to featured works at the gallery. Kersey-Asbury spoke directly to Schofield’s photography students in advance of Saturday’s reception, and Schofield said he is inviting those enrolled in a spring semester gender identity and sexuality class to the exhibit to explore the themes of masculinity and war in the artwork. It’s just as much an educational opportunity for the public, he said, a place to experience art they wouldn’t typically encounter in a more commercially-oriented gallery. “We really want to get that out,” Schofield said. Even though the public is welcome in the gallery, which advertises events in New England culture magazine Artscope, he said that community members typically only come in by accident. He said his goal for the gallery is to further Dublin School’s efforts to “be good neighbors,” in the like of the school’s open-to-the-public Nordic Center.
Kersey-Asbury’s exhibit runs through Feb. 3. A reception is scheduled for an installation by Peterborough printmaker Erin Sweeney at the gallery on Feb. 7. Peterborough artist Jane Simpson is scheduled to display her work later in the year.
The reception begins at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 25 in the Putnam Gallery in the Gillespie building on the Dublin School Campus. Visitors can access the space via a parking area on William North Road, off Dublin Road.