Maybe it has something to do with the big box of crayons and Magic Markers we’re given as kids, but for some reason artists often stick to the language of childhood. Everyone from Picasso and Miro to Keith Haring and Mark Ryden uses visual imagery that could illustrate the stories kids tell themselves in dreams. In that tradition, Cumberland Gallery has assembled one of the most interesting gallery shows we’ve seen all year.
Fabled Fixations includes work by recent Country Life featured artist Mark Hosford, whose work is technically precise but still totally weird, and Chris Scarborough, who recently relocated from Nashville to Boston, which is too bad because he was one of the city’s best artists. Also showing are Jesse Shaw, Fred Stonehouse, Tom Huck and Kurt Kemp, whose “Man of the House” is reminiscent of a darker version of the film
Yellow Submarine, with a vaguely comics-style paneled layout.
— Laura Hutson