It’s been hard to find the right words to describe the experience of living through a global pandemic. When the shelter in place order began, we immediately experienced drastic changes in our work, social lives and basic routines. For our first new show since the quarantine began, we wanted to check in with our artists and see how they’ve been doing the past few months. How’ve you been? presents new work made from home by a group of our artists and a few artists new to 13FOREST. Throughout the quarantine art has been a great source of joy and purpose for the 13FOREST team - we hope you’ll be similarly inspired by the creativity our artists have shown working through the pandemic.

New work by Coco Berkman, Andrew Fish, Percy Fortini-Wright, Eben Haines, Elisa H. Hamilton, Patt Kelley, Kenji Nakayama, Wilhelm Neusser, Mary O’Malley, Yuko Oda, Chen Peng, Ellen Shattuck Pierce, Heather Pilchard, Mike Ryczek, Carlos Santiago

July 18 - September 25, 2020

Sat July 18, 2020 - Opening day for How’ve you been?

Voices from Home - a virtual talk with the artists of How’ve you been?

How’ve you been? Tour - a walk-through of How’ve you been? with Gallery Owner Marc Gurton and Gallery Director Caitee Hoglund

How've you been? Artist Talk on New TV's Museum Open House

Due to the public health crisis we have moved our events online - check back here or sign up for our newsletter to see our latest virtual offerings.

Preview How’ve you been?

Voices from Home

Tour How’ve you been?

13FOREST on NewTV

About the Artists

Coco Berkman, Gloucester artist and printmaker, utilizes her love of drawing and a literary inspired imagination along with Japanese carving tools, luxurious oil-based inks and beautiful cotton rag papers to create images that inspire a particular emotional effect. She has studied at several printmaking studios throughout the United States and Ireland.

Andrew Fish studied at the School of Visual Arts, New York and Middlebury College. He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts and exhibits in Boston, Washington, DC and New York. Fish explores psychology, memory and time in his work, which documents and responds to the surroundings of contemporary life. The intention of atmospheric space in his paintings is to create an open narrative in which viewers can reflect on the present and their places in it.

Percy Fortini-Wright is a Boston-based artist who received both his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. When he was young Fortini-Wright wrote graffiti, becoming a technician of wild style graffiti letters, tags and bubble letters while simultaneously developing his skills as a traditional painter of scenes, abstraction and portraiture. Fortini-Wright merges the worlds of classical painting and graffiti techniques, boldly pushing the boundaries of his work. Fortini-Wright has been featured in numerous art publications from The New York Times to American Art Collector, and he received the Boston's Best Artist award from the Improper Bostonian in 2015.

Eben Haines was born in Boston, Massachusetts and he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts with honors from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. His work emphasizes the history and process of objects, focusing on human form and the built environment. Through a process of building up and covering over his material, Haines aims to present hand, object and image simultaneously. He currently lives and works in Boston.

Elisa H. Hamilton is a socially engaged multimedia artist who creates inclusive artworks that emphasize shared spaces and the hopeful examination of our everyday places, objects and experiences. Hamilton has worked with the DeCordova Sculpture Park, MIT List Visual Arts Center and Museum and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to create community engaging art projects, and she has received several grants to implement public art projects around Boston. Hamilton has held artist residencies with the Vermont Studio Center, Boston Center for the Arts, the Eliot School of Fine and Applied Arts and the Fenway Alliance. She continues her creative practice at her studio at Boston Center for the Arts.

Patt Kelley earned a Bachelor of Arts from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. He creates a weekly comic strip for DigBoston called What's for Breakfast. Kelley lives in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife, a dog and several household plants. During the day the Kelleys operate a dog walking business and otherwise, in Kelley’s words, he works on his art “literally every other available second.” With a focus on nature, his illustrative watercolors have a tongue-in-cheek sentimentality that could cause a laugh or make a heart swell.

Kenji Nakayama was born in Tomokomai on the island of Hokkaido, Japan. A mechanical engineer by education, Nakayama made a significant life change in 2005 with a move to Boston, Massachusetts to study traditional sign painting and to dedicate his time and energy to art-making. Meditation and highly-trained craftsmanship are hallmarks of Nakayama's work, which has been shown internationally and acquired by the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York. Nakayama maintains a busy commercial sign painting business in addition to his fine art practice.

Wilhelm Neusser was born in Cologne, Germany. He studied at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe. Neusser's work has been widely exhibited and he has received numerous awards and fellowships. He lives and works in Somerville, Massachusetts. In 2018, his work was featured in the exhibition The Lure of the Dark at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and he is currently engaged in an ongoing collaboration with the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts. 

Mary O'Malley earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and her Master of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts. O'Malley's work has been exhibited widely, including in a recent group show at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park and a solo show at Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, Massachusetts. In 2010, her work was acquired by the U.S. Embassy in Dubai. She lives and works in Rochester, New Hampshire.

Yuko Oda received her Bachelor of Arts from Duke University in visual arts and philosophy in 1997 and a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design. She is currently teaching in the Art and Design Department at University of Massachusetts, Lowell. Oda's drawings, animations and installations have been exhibited at, among other places, SIGGRAPH Asia, Beijing Today Art Museum, Dumbo Arts Festival, Hynes Convention Center Art Program, Boston Center for the Arts, and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum.

Chen Peng lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and works in Somerville. Peng received her Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from the National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan, and then attended the Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, Ohio where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting. Peng was chosen for a prestigious residency at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Taiwan.

Ellen Shattuck Pierce graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a Bachelor of Arts in art and women's studies and received a Master of Fine Arts from York University in Toronto. Pierce's work expresses the private fantasies she experiences as a parent that often do not harmonize with the ideals of modern American homemaking. Pierce enjoys pushing the boundaries of printmaking by using collage and incorporating unexpected materials such as fur or glitter. She currently lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

Heather Pilchard is a painter, photographer, bookbinder and teacher. She graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Pilchard currently lives in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, where she draws inspiration from the ecology of outer Cape Cod. Her paintings are meditations on the natural world, for which she feels deep awe and respect.

Mike Ryczek graduated from Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration. He lives and works as a painter and designer in Dedham, Massachusetts. Ryczek's work reflects his desire to deconstruct things in order to make sense of the world around him. Through this process of dismantling, he hopes to help the viewer see their own most inexplicable, intimate thoughts.

Carlos Santiago is a Puerto Rican-born painter who enjoys exploring the interchange of shape, form and texture. Santiago earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. He subsequently worked for ten years as a design professional in New York City's fashion industry. Santiago continues his artistic education at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where he currently studies oil painting.