Moss World is a reminder to always be in awe of this universe and all it offers, even when it becomes unsettling or scary. Lately, it's been an internal landscape that I've found myself playing in, and one that I've also come to recognize as existing within the works of my peers. I welcome you to this tiny snapshot of what Moss World has to offer, which includes several new paintings by myself, stunning prints and photographs by Lindsay Blevins, and otherwordly ambient music by Chris Lee-Rodriguez.

Tiffany Mallery is an artist and a librarian. She invites viewer into her weird and bright world - to get lost in the details and wonder what else could be beyond the frame. 

IG @notiffanyno

Lindsay Blevins is an illustrator, photographer, storyteller, and naturalist. She has been creating whimsical stories and drawings since she was a young child, and continues to move through the world with a playful curiosity, finding magical little worlds wherever she goes. Lindsay draws her inspiration from the natural world, creating artwork using mixed media including watercolor, acrylic paint, and found paper/ephemera. She hopes to capture the sense of wonder she feels when observing tiny critters, imagining the lives they might lead when we are not looking.

IG @lindsayblevins

MASSART BURNOUTS is an eclectic group of portrait painters who collectively studied at Massachusetts College of Art for a total of 21 years. They do not officially represent MassArt, but they did serve their time there. The MassArt Burnouts are proud to hold their group exhibition of painted portraits at the Washington Street Gallery in Somerville.

Charles Saccoach is a multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker with roots in Boston. He earned his BFA in Film Production from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2008. While working day jobs to stay afloat, Charles immersed himself in the city’s underground music scene—playing in experimental rock and noise bands, and later exploring DJing and electronic music. His first love is drawing. Deeply inspired by graffiti, comics, anime, and surreal and fantasy art, Charles’ visual work blends dreamlike imagery with spontaneous technique. He often experiments with automatic drawing, channeling his narcolepsy and hypnagogic hallucinations into vivid, subconscious expressions. Over the years, his work has appeared in both solo and group exhibitions, revealing a restless, exploratory spirit committed to pushing boundaries across mediums.

Originally from Ireland, Shay Culligan studied fine art at the National College of Art & Design in Dublin. He emigrated to Massachusetts in the 1990s where he completed his education at MassArt in Boston, graduating with his BFA in 1998. Specializing in oil on canvas, Shay has exhibited his art all over the USA, plus Canada, Ireland, the UK, and the Netherlands. He is an outspoken critic of the lucrative visual art establishment, with controversial views which he suspects may have held him back. Shay favors representational art over pure abstraction, though he does allow some distortion in his painting. He long ago stopped chasing commercial success in the visual art world, because Shay believes that it is not a merit-based culture. Now he only paints for himself settling for the therapeutic satisfaction that comes from the creative process, exhibiting whenever possible, and gladly accepting the occasional commission or sale.

Joshua Ferrao is a local artist, photographer, and musician, based in the Boston area. Born in India and based in Jamaica Plain, he began honing his natural talent to draw through the use of comic books, sci fi and fantasy art. During college he split majors in painting, art education, photography—building a dark room in the home of his parent’s basement—and then finally getting into music production and playing. Still drawing and illustrating, Josh also uses digital mediums like Procreate. Answering the call back into the painting world for this show with his old friends from Mass Art, Joshua chose acrylic to showcase his fascination and admiration of women surviving through to the future celebrating their natural beauty, strength, and resilience. Major painting influences include Frank Frazetta, Jan Saudek, Caravaggio, and Richard Kern, among others.

Washington Street Presents: “In Fertility,” An Exhibition of Mixed Media work by Valerie Imparato at Washington Street gallery on view February 1st through March 14

OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, February 1, 2025, 7-9 p.m. 

ON VIEW: February 1st through March 14, 2025, Saturdays 12- 4 and by appointment.

Valerie Imparato’s mixed media work chronicles her journey with infertility and in vitro fertilization (IVF). This series explores themes of isolation, repetition, and the inception of life. Using a variety of materials from embroidery to resin, to hospital gowns, Imparato highlights the lengths to which women will go to have children, often to the detriment of their own physical and mental health. In this exhibition, Imparato leads with vulnerability, candidly displaying the lows of her own journey, while honoring the holiness of motherhood and our attempts at it. 

For high-resolution photos and/or interviews, the press should contact Valerie Imparato at Valeriepimparato@gmail.com 

Shay Culligan’s FIGURAVOLUTION tracks the evolution of his portrait paintings from figurative realism towards modernist abstraction. It also represents a personal revolution for him as he no longer feels confined within the structures of representational realism.

“I have often been torn by the diverging pulls of classical realism and modernist abstraction, straddling polarized genres in a fusion that continues to evolve,” says the Irish-born Culligan, who came to America in the 1990s to study painting at Massachusetts College of Art (MassArt). 

Disillusioned by the focus on minimalism and pure abstraction that persisted in the MassArt painting department, Shay—by then an already technically trained figurative painter—decided to switch his major to graphic design but continued to paint in his spare time.

Shay used to paint traditional portraits and landscapes, but in 2002 he transitioned over to serigraphy, silkscreen printing his photos and collages onto various media, exhibiting such work in Ireland, London, the Netherlands, Canada, and throughout America. After 12 years in the serigraph medium he transitioned back to painting in oil, with his Russian wife Marina featuring prominently in his portraiture as his model and muse. Lately Shay has been flirting with abstraction in various degrees, without totally abandoning proportionality or figurativism. FIGURAVOLUTION is the culmination of several years of experimentation in styles, chronologically transitioning from realism to abstraction.  

“Modern life is unpredictable and chaotic, the gatekeepers of cultural and moral acceptability have been obliterated by modern technologies such as the internet, social media, and artificial intelligence,” he maintains. “Nobody knows what the future holds for our globalized society and civilization as a whole, so my expectation is to evolve to a point where my paintings become a puzzlement not just to the viewing public, but also to myself as an artist, whist I continue to develop my ability to capture physical beauty on canvas.”

 Shay Culligan at shaymultimedia at yahoo.com, and at www.seamas.com.