13FOREST Gallery is pleased to present Heartwood, an exhibition featuring the work of Boriana Kantcheva and Andrea Tishman. Heartwood refers to the oldest and strongest wood at a tree's core, which supports its supple, growing outer layers. Through their disparate styles, Kantcheva and Tishman's work further expands on the contrasting character of forests.

Just as a tree contains stillness and vitality, Kantcheva's paintings express many contrary qualities. Using hybrid bodies that combine humans and animals, Kantcheva draws on the visual languages of nature and folklore to create imagery that is at once familiar and unfamiliar, humorous and unsettling. Her surreal images focus on the complex relationship between humans and the natural world.

While Kantcheva's work highlights the narratives of the forest, Tishman takes an abstracted approach that focuses on the patterns of light and shadow formed by tree trunks in the woods. Her paintings heighten reality by turning organic forms into rhythmic repetitions that welcome the viewer with their tranquil regularity, while also invoking a sense of foreboding.

Heartwood invites the viewer to explore the forest as a place of imagination and transformation through the unique aesthetics of Kantcheva and Tishman.

13FOREST Gallery will host a reception to mark the opening of the exhibition on Saturday, March 18, from 4 to 6 pm.

March 18 - May 6, 2017
Sat 3/18, 4-6 pm: Opening reception
Sat 4/8, 12-4 pm: Spring in the Square - events throughout Capitol Square
Join us for From Florist to FOREST - a collaboration with our neighbors Derby Farm Flowers & Gardens
Sat 4/22, 4-6 pm: Heart of the Matter: a conversation with the exhibition's artists

About the artists

Boriana Kantcheva draws on memories and imagination to create compelling narrative images in print and gouache. Kantcheva received a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University joint degree program. For several years she was an assistant teacher at the Carpenter Center for Visual and Environmental Studies in Cambridge, and is now on the faculty of Maud Morgan Arts, also in Cambridge, where she manages the Chandler Gallery.  Kantcheva is the recipient of several Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching awards. She has exhibited her work in Boston and New York.

Andrea Tishman has been an artist in the Boston area for over 25 years. She works primarily in oil on canvas, oil on wood panel, and pastel and charcoal on sanded paper. Her recent work features the trees she observes. From the uniform groves of vertical evergreens to the twisted, muscular branches of gnarly, old beech trees, Tishman tries to capture the stillness, beauty and exultance of the woods, as well as the sometimes fragile relationship between trees and people. Tishman received her BFA from Cornell University and studied at l’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.  Her work is in many private collections and has been exhibited in galleries in Massachusetts, New York, and Paris.

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