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The medium of encaustic is both old and new. Some of the earliest paintings of Western civilization are encaustic funereal portraits from Hellenistic Egypt. But the technique — involving beeswax, resin and pigment — was so demanding and cumbersome that it eventually became a “lost art.” In the 20th century, however, thanks to improved technologies and commercially available mixtures, encaustic underwent a revival. Now, its popularity seems to grow each year.... Read more

The walls of the headquarters of the South End Arts and Business Association (SEABA) double as a modest gallery space. Since SEABA puts on the annual South End Art Hop, offering its office for art shows year round makes perfect sense. The April/May show, “Fragmented Figure,” is a group of airy, predominantly figurative monoprints by St. Albans Artists’ Guild member Chepe Cuadra. Cuadra’s work exhibits great spontaneity as he cobbles together multi-sheet prints into large-scale images.... Read more

Gallerist Gaal Shepherd doesn’t usually give herself a solo show at her own venue — the Cooler Gallery in White River Junction — but it’s fortunate that she did this spring. “La Muraille: an exhibition on the theme of a wall” is a powerful, multiple-media show exploring the weathered exterior wall of an ancient barn in the Pyrenees. Shepherd first discovered the beautifully designed wall, made from fieldstones and set in thick mortar, on a trip to France in 1991.... Read more

In his Naturalis Historia, Roman writer Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79) retold an ancient Greek story about a competition between two still-life painters: Zeuxis and Parrhasius. Zeuxis’ still life was so realistic that birds swooped down to try to eat his succulent grapes. When it was Parrhasius’ turn to unveil his painting, he gave Zeuxis the honor of removing the cloth that covered it. The amazed Zeuxis exclaimed on touching the painting: “I have deceived the birds, but Parrhasius has deceived Zeuxis.” Parrhasius’ draped “cloth” was his perfectly rendered illusion.... Read more

The 1878 Victorian residence on Montpelier’s Main Street roundabout houses the Lazy Pear Gallery, a haven for playful artworks. The Lazy Pear’s current show, “Adding Dimension,” lives up to its whimsical rep with mixed-media pieces by Vermont artists Alexandra Bottinelli, Timothy Fisher and Maggie Neale. Fisher’s frisky cloth collage images are always ebullient. While painters Bottinelli and Neale have been known to present moody works, their offerings here are upbeat.... Read more

West Branch Gallery & Sculpture Park in Stowe features two strong painters this month in an exhibit with the intriguing title “The Temperature of Color.” Canadian artist Christopher Griffin and Danilo Gonzalez of Burlington have shown internationally, and, though their works are quite different, they complement each other in this shared exhibit. Both use lively lines and a limited range of hues to interesting effect.... Read more

Although boats and ships are essentially just vehicles to transport humans and cargo through water, they hold a special — and often metaphoric — place in our imaginations. Hence “The Boat Show,” currently at Studio Place Arts in Barre, artistically plies the maritime motif with 40 artworks by 27 artists from around Vermont and as far away as the West Coast. Aptly named curator Janet Van Fleet organized the exhibition into loosely related groups according to theme.... Read more

One of the giants of American painting was Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (1844-1916), a realist painter par excellence and a controversial director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Among his innovations were the use of photography as a tool and the introduction of nude models to most of the figure-drawing classes — the students had previously relied on plaster casts. Under Eakins’ leadership in the 1880s, the Academy became one of the world’s great art schools.... Read more

Between Soft Machines and Hard Science” is the provocative title of an exhibit by SUNY-Plattsburgh professor W. David Powell, currently on view in the Wilbur Room of the Fleming Museum. It juxtaposes giclée prints with pseudoscientific apparati from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Humans are the “soft machines” that Powell examines; the “hard science” noted is a blend of quackery artifacts and contemporary diagnostic imagery.... Read more

Vermonters, or any Americans, who are curious about Cuba should travel to the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts before June 8 to see the most comprehensive exhibit of Cuban art ever assembled outside the island nation. This exhaustive retrospective — entitled “Cuba! Art and History From 1868 to Today” — may never arrive at an American venue, owing to the nearly 50-year policy of “protecting” U.S. citizens from the ideas and images of the Cuban revolution.... Read more