Misstropolis | Boston's Contemporary Arts & Culture Blog

Addressing the Moon at Gallery NAGA

Jun 11 2024 | Robin Hauck

It may seem like we live in a time when more divides than unites us. But regardless of our beliefs, we all look up at night and see the same moon. Luminous, mysterious, fickle and constant, the moon reminds us that we can still feel awe. We can still feel peace when under the spell of a force greater than any issue or conflict, greater than all of us combined.

According to Hadley Powell, Founder of Powell Fine Art Advisory, she was with Tess Atkinson in Florida when the idea for “Address the Moon” was taking shape. Looking for the abstract in the outdoors, the Boston-based photographer uses a painterly approach to capture the fragility of nature. Atkinson said she would work on adding the moon to her ongoing study of banyan trees. The result, “Moonrise Studies 1-4” are as dreamy and moving as moon poetry at its best. Mysterious and unreachable, the moon in her images reminds us of our insignificance and mortality as it peeks through the shadowy branches. Mother Nature, Atkinson reminds us, is the most successful artist of all. She gives us the moon, the sky in which it shines, the leaves through which it reveals itself. Abstraction belongs, in a sense, to her universal compositions. I love the distance of the moon in “Moonlight 2,” and the absence in “1”and “3.” I love the sense of respect the artist has for nature’s gifts. There is beauty in the world, if we are lucky enough to find it, if we look hard enough, if we hold on to wonder and allow a melted ego, a human sense of awe.

Read the compete article HERE