VISUAL ARTS

The latest show Progress at the Loading Dock Gallery is a new group of works by Lowell artist Christopher Pendergast. The show is a body of work in progress, and centers around the artist’s interpretation of how society handles responsibility. Pendergast explores the disjunction between American ideals over recent decades and the reality of our governance.

Growing up with exposure to the arts and with extensive travel, Pendergast’s desire to communicate his experiences and observations informed his choice to pursue the arts. He states that he “spent some time finding different means of doing that before settling on painting.” He graduated with a BFA from the School of Art Institute of Chicago.

Historically, Pendergast’s art has been primarily oil painting. With this show, he offers a variety of mediums, including works on paper, paintings, and a mixed media vein that “involves burning imagery onto wood panels and then working over that in ink, resin, and paint.” Pendergast shows some pieces unframed, some in-process work, as well as completed pieces.

His artistry comes from the need to make things and his desire to communicate observations about human conditions. In Progress, he uses relics of the American dream to convey the disparity between reality and what is or was pretty. His inspiration comes from within, often driven by deep and abiding dissatisfactions. Pendergast writes “the work reflects and challenges the idea of progress in multiple forms.”

Progress shows in the Loading Dock Gallery at Western Avenue Studios, 122 Western Avenue, second floor of the A-Mill, from August 29 to September 23, 2012. There will be a reception for the artist on Saturday, September 1, from 5 to 7 pm right after the artist open studios. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 11 am to 4:30 pm. For further information about the exhibit or the gallery, visit theloadingdockgallery.com or call 978-710-8605.