Animal Dreams: Souls of Wildlife in Stone, Wood, and Paper by Holland Hoagland
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, 300 Westgate Center Dr., Hadley
There are probably one hundred pieces and photos of Pelham artist Holland Hoagland’s artwork on display at the Fish and Wildlife office in Hadley — and that’s about 75 pieces too many.
Hoagland demonstrates a real talent in her paper sculptures and various works that were born of her recent trip to Inuit territory. But the stunning ability she has for making acrylic and paper combine to form pristine replicas of animals in action are obscured by the exhibit’s many photos of her past works and a team of mostly placid wood sculptures.
That’s really more of a curation critique than anything else. There are some very fine pieces in Hoagland’s show worth making the trip to the federal office building to see.
As I mentioned, Hoagland’s work with paper and acrylic is something special. In her piece “Hummingbird on Hibiscus,” Hoagland creates a tall flower, that is both fragile and strong, being visited by a carefully detailed hummingbird. Hoagland’s attention to the ruffle of each feather and the neat fold of each leaf is what makes her paper work an intense view.
My favorite sculptures in Animal Dreams were the ones that depicted conflict, the ones where you can feel the heat coming off the art. The “Zebra and Lion Struggle,” a wood carving of a lion gnawing on a screaming zebra face, is wild and passionate, like a nightmare from which you can’t wake. And in “Inuit Hunter Chasing a Narwhal,” in gray/black Canadian soapstone, each chisel, every line in the ocean, every grain on the whale’s forehead, every cut of the fisherman’s hair shakes with the fatal excitement of the chase.
Animal Dreams alternates between stunning, masterful artwork and pieces that expresses the artist’s continuing evolution but can serve to create visual clutter. While more selective curation of the show would have pushed Hoagland’s most interesting work to the forefront, viewers will have to find these gems among the display for themselves.
Hoagland’s work will be on display through June 30, Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
— Kristin Palpini, editor@valleyadvocate.com
