Artist Statement

The uncertainty of what to do when and when to do what, inspired these ink drawings while in Ireland in the Fall of 2022. Limitations of time as one ages can make what is and what isn’t  necessary difficult decisions to make. You feel frantic,grabbing this and that to find relevant meaning in a world where no one means what they say. These drawings seem funny and frantic at the same time; an embolden figure running around itself, no beginning and no end,caught in time and space as an artifact. Eventually we may evolve into humanoids with more feet for speed and more hands to accomplish more tasks;saving time.

In Ireland I became interested in the artifacts under our feet as I roamed the countryside on an island in the Atlantic. I thought,is this the beginning or the end of the earth. If we had to chose one spot on the planet would this be the beginning or end. Did we start here or end here. The earth is enlarging in physical volume as we enlarge populations and bury more things. I will deal with this issue in my solo show in 2024.

Biography  

Mira Cantor was born in New York and graduated with an MFA from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. She was awarded a Fulbright in 1994-95 to Alexandria, Egypt where she taught and showed her work at the American Center. Her solo shows include the Tokyo American Center in Japan, the BWA Gallery in Krakow, Poland, Hampshire College, De Cordova Museum, Fitchburg Art Museum, The Contemporary Arts Center in Honolulu, and Gallery Lohrl in Dusseldorf. She is in the collection of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University (drawing) and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (drawing), Simmons College, The Danforth Museum, as well as the Honolulu Academy of Arts and the Contemporary Arts Center of Honolulu. Her drawings have been exhibited at the Vienna Biennale, Norwegian Internationale Print Biennale as well as biennales in Yugoslavia and Krakow. She is in many private collections in the US and Europe.

Mira Cantor lives and works in Boston and is represented by the Kingston Gallery. Her solo exhibitions include an exhibition of drawings and sculpture called “Silver Lake” in 2005 at the Genovese Sullivan Gallery and an exhibition of police at Moakley Courthouse in 2009. Mira Cantor has been in many group-drawing exhibitions in Boston, e.g., “Passion,” curated by William Stover from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 2003; “The Boston Drawing Show,” curated in 1998 by the former Director of the Rose Art Museum, Carl Belz and, in 1993 by Cliff Ackley from the Museum of Fine Arts. In Spring 2009 she was on sabbatical working on a series of painting where she was an artist in residence in Banff, Canada, (2010) resulting in her first solo exhibition at Kingston Gallery called “Meltwater”. She just returned from Ireland on her last sabbatical from Northeastern University working on a new exhibition opening in 2024. Her new ink drawings in the project space opening this March  2023 (Never a Dull Moment) speak to the frantic state that many are facing about which way to proceed; forward (or backward?) here or there. These humorous figures seem to be going everywhere and nowhere which somehow capture the current state of the world.

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