Mourning Becomes Acrylic

The Brattleboro Museum and Art Center opens five new exhibits on Friday. All look interesting, but one is a beautiful heartbreaker: From Luminous Shade gives three artists room to mourn the untimely passing of their sons — painter Margaret Kannenstine, poet Giuseppe Ungaretti, and poet and translator Ann McGarrell. Some works capture the numbness and despair of their dark months, both literal and figurative; others take us, after a year of change and growth, into scenes of sunlight and renewal.

“To grieve publicly is a courageous act,” says artist and exhibit curator Linda Rubinstein. “These artists have peeled away a protective layer to share their very private wells of despair, [and] they reach out to the world and its vast pool of empathy. Who has not felt loss?  As we are drawn in to share their experience, so too are our burdens lightened.”

From Luminous Shade: Through Feb. 6, 2017. $4-$8. Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, 10 Vernon St., Brattleboro. (802) 257-0124, brattleboromuseum.org.

— Hunter Styles