Context is Everything

The collected works in the show by Michèle Fandel Bonner and John Bonner, arose from a medical emergency that happened while staying in France this January. These represent the different ways we processed the experience.

The exhibit will be hosted by Salem Arts Association Galleries with an artist’s reception on Friday, July 11, 2025, from 6:00 to 8:00. The exhibit runs until Saturday August 2nd.

About John Bonner

One evening, about ten years ago, the artist George Nick, visited me to look at my work. At the time I felt powerless and couldn’t see my work clearly. I believe he saw something in my work that I was unable to see myself just then.

Completely isolated from any art community I had cold-called him after I had seen some of his work reproduced in Yankee magazine, thinking that it bore some resemblance to my own.

I made tea and propped my paintings up against the unused fireplace, one after another, bending an anglepoise lamp towards them so we could see them more clearly. My first ever serious art crit began.

Now, having successfully exhibited and sold my work in multiple exhibitions, solo and group, and as part of the Art in Embassies program, I remember almost nothing of what he said that night. He merely paid me the complement of being interested and as it turned out, that’s all that mattered.

www.johnbonner.com

About Michèle Bonner

Michèle Fandel Bonner is a mixed media artist working with found and recycled materials. Her current work transforms waste from the fashion industry to address issues of excess, identity and the passage of time. Her work has been shown around the US and in Australia. She is a member of the Surface Design Association, Fiber Art Now, Cambridge Arts Association, and was an Associate Member of the Boston Sculptors Gallery 2020-2022. She has a studio in Marblehead, Massachusetts. She holds a BA in Art Therapy from the University of Massachusetts.

www.michelefbonner.com