A small sculpture hangs from the ceiling of City Gallery on Upper State Street and floats, as if it’s alive and capable of hovering in midair, or perhaps is a bit of plant life floating in the ocean. All around it, the walls are decorated with pieces that read like fungal growth, or the traces of growth, or perhaps the tracks left by some land or sea creature. They and the rest of the pieces in the gallery are so thoroughly integrated that it would be possible to believe that they were made by a single artist. But it’s really the work of two artists — Meg Bloom and Cyra Levenson — working in conversation with one another. And as the title of the show — “Regenerations,” running through April 30 — suggests, that conversation has been nothing but fruitful.
“The artwork in this show is a conversation about the ways we see and take in the world around us,” the artists write in a joint statement. “This project emerged from our own experiences of the (natural) environments in which we find ourselves — whether physical, emotional, or familial. It is an exploration of a common language we speak through image making and an appreciation of each other’s unique voices.”
As in previous shows, Bloom’s work draws inspiration from the natural world, and strength of having social and environmental issues in mind. “As we each experience our surroundings and their visual-emotional-sensual effects, there is an external and an internal dialogue that takes place,” Bloom says in an accompanying statement. “There is a conscious process — a physical taking in of an experience, acknowledging it, witnessing the change, the deterioration, and then the regeneration, the re-creation, in the form of art.”
Levenson’s pieces in “Regenerations” are pulled from the more specific experience of spending a week in Raufarhöfn, the northernmost town in Iceland, on the Arctic Circle. “These images were made from a place I didn’t know I was looking for and didn’t want to leave. Losing yourself feels good sometimes. Especially if it’s in a tangle of vines, or the ghost of a winter garden, or the warm crater of a very old volcano,” Levenson says in an accompanying statement. “Meg and I look at things that other people might see as decay and find beauty.”
The experience of being in the gallery with Bloom’s and Levenson’s pieces doesn’t convey decay, however; quite the opposite. The feeling is of growth, fecund growth, and transformation. Several of the pieces are placed as if they’re coming out of the walls, the floor, the ceiling. There’s a sense of nature reclaiming the space, which for some people can be a source of sadness, even horror, but for others (this reporter included) it can be a source of comfort and beauty as well. This comfort, in the case of “Regenerations,” is brought about by the way in which the two artists’ voices commingle. In one section of the show, Bloom’s sculptures and Levenson’s paintings partake of similar, natural color palettes, and show a similar sense of working with the materials. Rather than overtly forcing each piece into a certain shape, the artists let their media have a certain say in the form and structure the pieces take.
In another part of the show, when the two artists’ works are placed literally side by side (the large pieces on the left are Levenson’s; on the right, Bloom’s), one can see certain distinctions. Levenson uses lines where Bloom uses fields of color. Levenson creates more ragged textures to Bloom’s built-up, almost spongey creations. But they still feel of a piece, too. The conversation between the two artists — and between the artists and their materials — is clear.
“Regenerations” thus has lessons to impart, about adaptability and openness, and creating something together. It suggests not only that collaboration, the exchange of ideas and experiences, can be fun, but that if such work is done well, things can grow from it. And those things can take on a life of their own.
“Regenerations” runs at City Gallery, 994 State St., through April 30. Visit the gallery’s website for hours and more information.
