Battle of the Sexes at Cotuit Center for the Arts

By: iO Staff, September 5, 2012

ELISE HUGUS - Richard Neal and Jackie Reeves share a studio at the Old Schoolhouse overlooking the First Parish Cemetery in Barnstable.

It's battle-of-the-sexes month at Cotuit Center for the Arts.

With the September 8 opening of Artist, Gender and Subtext: An Exhibition of Selected Works by Jackie Reeves and Richard Neal, the Center will host artistic interpretations on the same theme throughout September.

The role of gender in art will also come into the spotlight in two theatrical productions: Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, running September 13 to 30, and Twelve Angry Men, running October 4 to 21.

Artist, Gender, and Subtext offers no definitive statement on the many ways in which gender may affect creativity, art, and perceptions of art, but the theme has generated many long discussions between the show’s curator, Britt Beedenbender, and the artists over the past five months.

“Maybe we will discover something about gender, and maybe we won’t, but the ongoing discussion has been illuminating,” says Beedenbender.

While their techniques and style are quite different, Neal and Reeves share studio space at the Old Schoolhouse in Barnstable.

Reeves’ work was initially concentrated on the figure, especially the female figure. With many strong female role models in her life, she explored transitions from one stage of womanhood to another, taking simple moments and giving them an ethereal beauty.

Over the past few months, she has begun to explore different directions, focusing on an abstract representation of shapes, color, foreground, and background, rather than on the actual figure engaging in a specific activity.

Neal is known for his large, dark, deeply textured mixed-media portraits, full of unexpected objects, such as nails, wires, construction implements, a child’s train track or doll, torn tar paper, computer parts, and even an old shoe.

In conjunction with the Reeves/Neal exhibit, the Cotuit Center for the Arts will host “Gender in Art,” a concurrent exhibit of recent works by local artists juried by Beedenbender, Reeves, and Neal.