Essence: In Celebration of Juneteenth brings together fifteen Boston-area artists working in diverse media to commemorate the first year in which Juneteenth will be recognized as a state holiday in Massachusetts. Guest curated by Cedric “Vise1” Douglas, Essence acknowledges America’s history of racial inequality while also celebrating the bright future of the gifted artists Douglas has chosen to highlight.

We wanted to find a way to keep up with our artists during this period of social isolation, so we started making our bi-weekly Studio Visit videos. Each video features one of our artists answering the questions: why did you become an artist? and how has the pandemic affected your artistic practice?

The latest Studio Visit is with painter Boriana Kantcheva. You can see videos from more of our artists here.

For most of Catherine Graffam’s career, her primary subject has been herself. Self-portraiture was an avenue for visualizing the trauma she experienced as a queer kid in rural Maine, and a way to explore and assert her identity as a trans person. However, after making this type of work for many years, Graffam felt that her practice of intense introspection had become an exercise in picking at old wounds rather than a process of personal healing.

With Closer, Graffam presents her first body of work focused primarily on portraits of other people. With these new intimate depictions of friends and loved ones, Graffam delves into a painting practice that seeks to nourish the soul. Instead of making work that dwells on the tragedy and pain of being queer, Graffam chose to shift her energies toward paintings that reflect queer beauty, love and hope. Closer is on view at 13FOREST Gallery October 3 - November 13, 2020.

For our first new show since the pandemic began, we wanted to check in with our artists and see how they were doing during the early months of sheltering in place. How’ve you been? presented new work made from home by a group of our artists and a few artists new to 13FOREST and was on view from July 18 to September 25, 2020.

At 13FOREST Gallery it is our mission to celebrate the diversity of arts that New England has to offer. Panorama, on view at the gallery from March 21 to July 10, 2020, showcased a range of painting approaches from figurative to abstract through the work of artists Paul Beckingham, Lynette Haggard and Bonita LeFlore. The artists' points of view are apparent in their handling of color, form and light; their differing perspectives highlight the full potential of paint to deepen our appreciation of the world around us.