By Yasmeen Alam, Contributing Writer |

When I first walked through Gallery NAGA’s shared entrance with Church of the Covenant, my initial reaction to “Lorie Hamermesh: Into The Fire” was that it looked a bit sparse. Seventeen watercolor paintings, ink prints, and mixed-media works sat equidistantly spaced around the small traditional “white-box” gallery. However, the stark layout amplifies the heavy, complex themes of vulnerability and transformation underlying each work. It is this balance that makes this exhibition of the Boston-based artist’s recent work strikingly powerful and among the most compelling displays of contemporary art I have seen this spring. 

Originally from Colorado, Hamermesh moved to Boston in the 1980s and studied part-time at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Her work, as Sreeja Gosh ’28 beautifully put it,  “is playful, but also deep and thought-provokingly captures the fleeting nature of life.” 

While the works composing “Into The Fire” represent a thematic departure from Hamermesh’s past body of work, which dealt with topics of identity, childhood trauma, objectification, and societal gender roles, they continue to explore the experience of being a woman in contemporary society.  The displayed works focus on the process of aging and the passage of time.

In the exhibition, “The End of the Innocence 2,” a torn chine-collé print, the central figure’s erosion asks viewers to contemplate the societal erasure that comes with aging as a woman. Her torso is ripped off, while her appendages are enveloped in steely tones evocative of an underpainting. Alternatively, hanging on the other side of the gallery, “Time Waits for No One,” depicts a nude woman self-protectively contorted next to a duplicate shadow form. The work considers the second self, or the spiritual, emotional, and mental experiences of life.      

The exhibition draws its name from the motif of a layered cake with seemingly infinite, vibrantly burning candles. Occurring repeatedly throughout the collection of works in a variety of colors with various adornments, these cakes are just as thought-provoking as they are visually striking. Hamermesh explains that the candles are, in many ways, a metaphor for her life: “the fire does not fade with time but intensifies to reveal passion and contradiction.” 

Another aspect of these works is that each is named after a well-known song (e.g. “Time Waits for No One” by the Rolling Stones). Charlotte Fitzpatrick ’27 had a chance to visit the exhibition and shared “[the titling] is a very interesting creative choice…the artist very successfully deepens the viewer’s connection to the art by inviting them to attach their own past relationship with the music to the new visual piece.”

“Lorie Hamermesh: Into The Fire” is on view through June 5 at Gallery NAGA, located at 67 Newbury Street Boston, MA 02116.