B. Amore: Following the Thread and Dominick Takis: Messenger/Convergence

For its November exhibition, Atlantic Works Gallery (AWG) is pleased to present work by two artists: B. Amore and Dominick Takis.

East Boston native, B. Amore, is an artist, educator and writer who has spent her life between Italy and America. Following the Thread consists of panels that were part of her exhibit, “Life Line: filo della vita” originally displayed at Ellis Island Immigration Museum in 1999-2000. The exhibit traveled in the US and Italy. The families represented in the panels lived first in the North End, then in East Boston. After the exhibit, the panels will be held by the East Boston Museum and Historical Association.

“Experimentation and work with found materials is a key to my working process in which accident and innovation are in constant interplay, explains Amore. My work has evolved from its origins in carved forms to complex installations involving text, ancestral artifacts, alternative photo processes, stone, fabric, and objets trouvés. Much of my mature work has involved looking into the theme of immigration as the quintessential odyssey. Most of us are either immigrants or progeny of immigrants. When we remember this, it puts us in touch with the realities of the labor, suffering and dreams of those who journeyed here with the hope of a new and different kind of life.”

Dominick Takis’s artwork explores the relationship between the natural environment, memory, and the human impulse to collect and transform. “My process begins during morning walks and hikes, where I gather organic materials from the landscape—lichen, rose hips, bark, branches, dried plants, and other natural fragments. These materials become an integral part of my studio practice, carrying with them traces of place, time, and personal observation.”

The materials and resulting artwork of Dominick Takis, a former construction worker, reflect his deep love of nature, the outdoors, and art. He uses everything from found organic and inorganic materials to construction materials to investigate the natural world to make what he calls “collages/paintings,” whose textural, sculptural surfaces invite the viewer’s eye to linger in their complexity. “I want people to really get into the surface of my paintings,” he said.

In Messenger/Convergence, Takis creates sculptural mixed-media paintings that move between painting, relief, and assemblage. Collected organic materials are combined with spray foam, epoxy, acrylic, oil-based clay, gesso, and resin to construct layered and dimensional surfaces. He also creates small sculptural forms, including birds and insects, which inhabit these environments and introduce moments of recognition and narrative.