An Artistic Dialogue at Seashore Point Gallery
Anne Flash and John Koch met in a class at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill around 10 years ago. The class, taught by Flash, was about “opening up people and resupplying their toolboxes,” says Koch. Flash brought a variety of materials for participants to reconfigure and playfully create with. Since then, they have kept in touch. “I was a big supporter of him during that week,” says Flash, “and he became a big supporter of mine.”
Flash and Koch will present their work in a joint exhibition, “Facing Each Other,” through the end of July at Seashore Point Gallery (100 Alden St., Provincetown). There will be an opening reception on Saturday, July 5 at 5 p.m.
The exhibition title suggests proximity but also a conversation or encounter. “We’re looking at each other through our work,” says Koch. Both Koch’s self-portraits and Flash’s abstract pastels and small paintings on found tiles demonstrate an affinity for bold, rich color. Their respective art is divergent in many ways, but it’s united by the spirit of that first class where they met: both artists are committed to creating work through open experimentation and discovery.
“My approach to making art is to enter a realm of not knowing,” says Flash, adding that she finds resolution in the context of “creative chaos.” Her imagery mirrors that. Long, wavy strands stretch across fields of charged color in her compositions. One image was inspired by an illustration of nerve synapses in the New York Times; another, The Electric Hand of God, was inspired by Michelangelo’s painting of God and Adam extending their hands toward each other on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. But Flash’s images are not representational. Rather, through her ecstatic mark-making and passages of scraped and layered oil pastel, colors and forms vibrate with a combustible energy that feels both scientific and metaphysical.
Koch’s portraits teem with a similar dynamism. His work is united by a porous relationship between drawing and painting and a use of high-key color — but aside from that, just about anything goes. Some paintings depict the artist as a flattened silhouette in a field of geometric shapes. Other images are conversations with other artists, like Lester Johnson and Paul Cezanne. Some are exercises in realism; others are abstract.
It makes sense that both artists rely heavily on drawing, a medium associated with exploration. Koch’s Ou Est La Vie? combines charcoal and paint in a closely cropped self-portrait. His honest, self-searching gaze encapsulates much of what his paintings are about: an artist trying to find his way. It reminds me of something Flash said in her studio when describing how she creates her work: “The images are flowing through me.” She thought the sentiment sounded like a cliché, but I think it’s a perfect concept to keep in mind when looking at this show. —Abraham Storer
Singing Truth to Power in Provincetown
At Provincetown’s No Kings protest against the Trump administration last month, participants sang “This Little Light of Mine,” a gospel song that originated in the 1920s and became a popular anthem during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Expect to hear that song and others at “Funk the Power,” a new weekly live music event at Bubala’s by the Bay (185 Commercial St., Provincetown) beginning Sunday, July 6 at 9 p.m.
“This is a time for standing up and voicing concern about the way things are going,” says Ken Field, who is organizing the event and has been performing at Bubala’s for years. “Song and music are one way to engage people in that effort.” Saxophonist Field will perform with bandmates Kami Lyle on trumpet, bassist Sue Goldberg, and drummer Luke Massouh.
In addition to “This Little Light of Mine,” Field says, the rotating set list each week will include familiar songs like Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’ ” and Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” as well as lesser-known songs like “No One’s Slave, No One’s Master” by the English band Seize the Day.
True to their democratic spirit, there’s no cover for these performances; food and drink from the Bubala’s menu will be available. See kenfield.org and bubalas.com for information. —Lauren Hakimi
Galactic Brings the Rain and the Sun
The funk collective Galactic was formed in New Orleans in the mid-1990s. From then on, says bassist Robert Mercurio, “We haven’t taken any breaks — we’ve been touring the world ever since.” The seven-person band will return to the Outer Cape at Payomet Performing Arts Center (29 Old Dewline Road, North Truro) on Thursday, July 10 at 7 p.m.
“One thing that’s kept the band going so long is our collaborative aspect,” says Mercurio. The band regularly performs and records with guest artists. On their most recent album, Audience With the Queen, Galactic worked with 84-year-old singer Irma Thomas, who Mercurio calls “a New Orleans legend.” Thomas is featured in all nine songs on the record.
The opening song on the album is a cover of Nancy Wilson’s 1964 “(You Don’t Know) How Glad I Am.” Where Wilson’s vocals are sweet and precise over sparse instrumentation, Thomas sings over a luxurious arrangement, her voice deep and authoritative. “Where I Belong,” is thrillingly funky, with bright horn lines and a fast-paced drumbeat under Thomas’s undeniably happy vocals.
Thomas won’t be present at Galactic’s Payomet performance, but the band will still play songs from the album titled in her honor. “That’s the beautiful thing about Galactic vocalist Anjelika ‘Jelly’ Joseph,” says Mercurio. “She’s really good at covering material sung by other singers.” Soulful and stirring, the band’s sound is a New Orleans-inflected mix of funk and R&B. But Mercurio says the band occasionally performs a more mellow ballad as well. After all, he says, “You have to have the rain with the sun.”
Tickets are $44 to $58 at tickets.payomet.org. —Eve Samaha
Phyllis Ewen’s Movable Landscapes
For more than a decade, Phyllis Ewen has been making art about global warming. This month, her three-dimensional reliefs — or what she calls “sculptural drawings” — are on view in the Long Pond Gallery at Wellfleet Adult Community Center (715 Old King’s Highway), with an opening reception on Sunday, July 6 at 4 p.m.
In the past, Ewen has made work about particular places. But in recent exhibitions, including this one and a show in May at Boston’s Kingston Gallery, Ewen conveys a more general sense of place and a crisis that is universal in scope.
Ewen’s works spans a variety of media. In Polar Melt, a vertical relief in cool colors, Ewen began with maps and nautical charts she found in an old textbook. In other pieces, she started with images she found online or her own photographs. Once she has her source imagery, she fortifies them with thick paper, arranges their shapes, and paints the surface. The results are collage-like forms that read abstractly but contain the swirling energy of water and weather. The repeated circular forms in Polar Melt recall the cyclical rhythms of nature, and the lines, derived from the maps and charts, suggest systems of order — and perhaps a yearning for control in the face of a climate crisis.
The similarly sized The Sea Is Boiling is more foreboding. Here, the palette is nearly all black, and the swirls are more turbulent. Ewen covers its surface with calligraphic marks ranging from delicate lines to blotchy stains. There’s beauty and terror here, similar to what one might experience in a storm.
Puzzles act as both material and metaphor in Ewen’s work. Puzzle pieces are consistent elements in her compositions, echoing and reinforcing the way that all the visual elements she incorporates fit together like pieces of a puzzle, however unstable. The result is work that appears in a constant state of flux. As Ewen notes, “The landscape is movable.” —Abraham Storer
Sasha Velour Reveals Herself
In her show at Provincetown Town Hall this weekend — appropriately titled “The Big Reveal” — Sasha Velour will feature no less than 10 costume changes. Velour wrote, directed, and produced the show and says she’s especially proud of the writing and music selections: “Deep Purple to Dionne Warwick. I don’t know anyone else who has put both of those in the same show!”
In many ways, “The Big Reveal” is the culmination of a decades-long journey. “I had no idea what a drag queen I was as a child,” says Velour, who is best known as the winner of season nine of RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2017. The show incorporates video clips of Velour as a child wearing costumes and playing dress-up with her grandmother. Velour says her parents were tolerant but worried about her future.
“I think that story resonates with the political moment, with the question of whether drag is appropriate for kids,” Velour says. “Hopefully, what my work continues to show is that queer and trans people are completely normal and natural, that drag is totally appropriate for kids and actually makes sense to young people who are so interested in questions like: what are the rules of beauty and gender and identity, and how far can we stretch them and have fun with them? That’s what drag is all about.”
Velour’s new show is a companion to her 2023 illustrated history of drag, also called The Big Reveal. It was Velour’s fifth publication. After attending Vassar College, she earned an M.F.A. from the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vt. and has published comics on themes including the 1969 Stonewall uprising. She has also worked as a graphic designer and illustrator and studied art in Russian society as a Fulbright Scholar in Moscow in 2010.
“I was thinking then about how art could reach the widest variety of people and make a political impact without sacrificing the imagination and artistry and fun,” she says. “And the thing I ended up feeling most connected to was watching RuPaul’s Drag Race illegally on the internet and talking about it with Russians and other immigrants living in Russia.
“There’ve been so many moments where my skills and interests pointed toward drag and it did not click,” she continues. “It’s good that I didn’t know what it was leading to, because it led me to explore a lot of forms — cartooning, academia, acting — that I now use every day as a drag queen.”
Velour will perform “The Big Reveal” at Provincetown Town Hall (260 Commercial St.) on Sunday, July 6 at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $50-$150 at brownpapertickets.com. —Katy Abel
Comedy That Follows a Constantly Moving Target
The New York City-based comedy group Unitard created a new show this year to perform at New York’s Joe’s Pub. But in today’s political news cycle, some of what was then current topical humor was already irrelevant for their upcoming show in Provincetown.
“We want to make it funny, but everything changes so fast,” says Nora Burns, a member of the trio with Mike Albo and David Ilku. “It’s so bad you can’t even go there anymore with certain things. So, it’s crazy trying to get the zeitgeist. It’s about finding the nuance.”
Burns estimates that “about 40 percent” of the show’s sketches and monologues are political. The rest is “silly fun” aimed at Provincetown summertime audiences, including “kooky gay stuff” on topics like same-sex weddings and sex parties. “It will be our signature combo of everything, and nothing lasts longer than three minutes,” says Burns. “So, if you don’t like it, there’s something else, and you know we’ve got more wigs and costumes coming out.”
The current show, Above the Fruited Plain, invites audiences to “come watch us harpoon the hypocrites, slut-shame the stupid, and parody the perps,” according to its publicity material.
Including political material in the show — with topics that are likely to involve current stories about the Kennedy Center and National Public Radio — is important, says Burns, who starts her days by catching up on the previous night’s late night talk shows. “If a performer isn’t going to comment on what’s going on now, I’m not really interested. I want to know that they get it, and we’re all on the same side.”
Ultimately, Unitard’s goal is to bring people closer, says Burns. “I think people really feel the need to come out, come together, and laugh.”
Above the Fruited Plain plays on Tuesday, July 8, 8:30 p.m. and Wednesday, July 9, 10 p.m. at Red Room (258 Commercial St., Provincetown). Tickets are $40.50 and $50.50 at redroom.club. —Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll
Zehra Khan’s Irreverent Creatures
Zehra Khan saw a picture on the internet last year of a pigeon sitting on its butt with its legs stretched out in front of it — what she describes as “one of those glitch pictures that takes an animal out of its normal behavior.” That picture inspired a new series of sculptures currently on view at Farm Projects (355 Main St., Wellfleet) in an exhibition titled “Standing Cat.”
Khan says she has “a fascination with the irreverent.” The works in the show are decidedly so: glittering pigeons — adorned with pins and screws and candy wrappers — pose awkwardly; friendly-looking vinyl-tape dogs glint in the light; and true to the show’s title, cats stand up (and sit down), the absurdity of their positions balanced by their blank, composed expressions.
The series has an autobiographical component, too. Khan was born in Indonesia and grew up in Paris, Switzerland, and Lexington. She shared her childhood with a cat, Shere Khan, who she says was “like my big brother.” When she was small, she and Shere were just about the same size. “You become almost equals,” she says. Much of her work, she says, reflects that sense of childhood wonder. The titular piece in the show, Standing Cat, isn’t meant to appear like a normal cat, says Khan. Instead, “It’s a god-cat.”
As a child, Zehra says, she drew cat faces on everything, and she describes her early doodling as things that “weren’t serious, weren’t formalized, weren’t correct.” The work in her current show is a grown-up reflection of that freedom. While “Standing Cat” is definitely about humor, it’s also strange and startling in the way that childhood imaginings can often be. “I want people to double-take,” she says.
There will be an opening reception on Saturday, July 5 at 6 p.m., and Khan will discuss her work with artist Megan Hinton on Friday, July 11 at 5 p.m. The show is on view until July 14. See farmprojectspace.org for information. —Dorothea Samaha
