First Aid Knit

To stare at the weavings by Jen Simms is to be drawn into a thicket of interpretations where color, texture, and landcape pull at each other, even as those forces work together to shape these little worlds. It’s part serene escape, part visual puzzle, part Rorschach Test. Simms says that these woven abstractions, landscapes, and portraits are “emotional reactions to the absurdity of the human species, world politics, and our changing environment. Their chaotic nature represents the inability to understand what is going on in our world, while the underlying grid of the warp and weft provides an anchor to human’s ability to hope.”

New Weavings — Recent Work by Jen Simms: Through Dec. 16. Free. Herter Art Gallery, 125A Herter Hall, UMass Amherst. (413) 545-1503, art.umass.edu.

 — Hunter Styles