Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
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ART FULL LEFT: James Verbicky's studio holds a vast collection of materials for his collages. BELOW: A close-up of Citta Samtana. "You have no idea what it takes to make these collages. It's not something you can crank out."—JAMES VERBICKY he begins by pulling out pages that catch his eye, then cutting the paper into strips. After carefully editing the pieces, he glues them onto birch wood panels using penciled-in horizontal lines as a guide. "You have no idea what it takes to make these collages. It's not something you can crank out," Verbicky explains. "When I'm getting ready for a show, I'll look around the studio, and there are thousands and thousands of little scraps of paper." FRAGMENTS OF MAGAZINES AND POSTERS FIND Once the work is assembled, Verbicky finishes it with resin, NEW FORM IN JAMES VERBICKY'S COLLAGES, ON which makes the surface shiny. It also makes the paper DISPLAY AT DTR MODERN GALLERIES. BY JUDY DEYOUNG transparent and causes the images on the backside to bleed through, creating more depth. "I'm careful to see what's behind t first glance, one of James Verbicky's artworks could be construed each piece I pull—there may be something cool, like text coming through, as nothing more than a brightly colored piece of patchwork. But a or a bicycle image, which makes the collage more interesting and creates a closer look reveals a clever collage of vintage magazine cuttings, certain mood," he says. His work is also sculptural in nature, a look he fragments of foreign advertisements, and recognizable brand names achieves by pulling up the bottom edges of the strips before they are sealed. arranged in a neatly ordered grid. This is the work of a perfectionist, who "The end result brings to mind the physical act of reading, as if to turn the puts bits of torn paper together in a manner that is highly stylized and alto- next page," says Lauren Nasella, the Boston-based chief operating officer of DTR Modern Galleries, where Verbicky's work is on display in January gether engaging. From his early teens Verbicky, who grew up in a small town outside and February. Verbicky's work was selected for a juried exhibition at the Louvre in of Edmonton, in Canada, was drawn to the powerful print images and advertisements he saw in magazines. He began collecting old issues of Paris, and also has sold at Sotheby's and Christie's in New York City. His Life magazine, and a visit to Paris in 2008 inspired him to make media latest pieces are intended to remind us that we are continuously influenced paintings using vintage French posters, prints, and foreign publications, by past and present iconic brands—and that we are constantly bombarded by too much information. Hence his busy Blitz pieces, he says, "are kind of which he bought from vendors along the Seine. Verbicky, now 40, moved to the Los Angeles area 10 years ago to escape like anything goes… every single color, lots of text, lots of graphics… a mass the dreary Canadian climate. His studio is full of large tables covered with explosion of things in your face." January 3 to February 21, 2014, DTR magazine spreads from his vast collection. When he creates a new piece, Modern Galleries, 167 Newbury St., 617-424-9700, dtrmodern.com. BC In Pieces 80 PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF JAMES VERBICKY A BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM 080_BC_SC_Artfull_James_Holiday_13.indd 80 11/4/13 10:33 AM