The second episode of “Artists of Lowell: Their Stories,” a documentary series from Subes Acharya, his wife Soumita Acharya and Peter Tsaklis from Lowell Telecommunications Corp, highlighting the work, inspirations and challenges of Lowell’s artists is now available.
This episode profiles painter Gay Tracy, known for her expressive, colorful paintings of dogs and fine art photographer Frank Tadley, who can tell a story in one black and white image.
Tracy has been an artist-in-residence at the Brush Art Gallery for 13 years and can also be found in her space at Western Avenue Studios.
Not formally trained as an artist (she has a Master’s degree in business administration), Tracy has taken classes at the Museum of Fine Art and the DeCordova Museum, but prefers to draw her art inspiration from her gut rather than rely on technique and “rules.” When artists get caught up in following process, their art suffers, she said.
“I like to paint emotion and motion,” Tracy said, adding she was attracted to using dogs as her primary subject because their emotion is so clear in just one look, unlike people who have the ability to mask their feelings.
Tadley, has been in Lowell for one year, a resident of the Appleton Mills live/work units in the Hamilton Canal District.
He picked up some cheap camera equipment while serving as a medic during the Vietnam War. After working for several years in the hi-tech field, he attended the New England School of Photography and began to get serious about his art.
As a fine art photographer, Tadley does not shoot advertisements or weddings; he works on larger projects, using his sharp eye and lenses to capture human emotion, as well as the beauty and detail of everyday places and items that people often do not stop to appreciate.
The second in the “Artists of Lowell” series (the first profiled Debra Bretton Robinson and Rachel Kowalik), it provides an interesting insight into Lowell’s artists and the city’s ever-growing art scene.
Subes Acharya said the purpose of the series is to help the artists market themselves both in and outside of the city and to serve as a learning tool for young people who are considering an art career.
The series is part of an effort spearheaded by the Acharyas and assisted by Tsaklis to “rebrand” Lowell and erase some of the inaccurate negative perceptions of today’s Lowell.
Last year, the Acharyas were house shopping. They were dissuaded by colleagues, friends and even real estate agents from looking in Lowell. They were told it was dirty and not safe.
Following a visit to Lowell to bring their young daughter to the circus, they began to look around. They liked what they saw and purchased a condo.
The perception of their new culturally diverse, historically and architecturally rich home as a rowdy, crime and drug infested city did not sit well with the new Lowellians. They are working to erase that perception, and rebrand the city as a place for families, art, culture and business, the best way they know how – through documentary film.
It is a non-profit labor of love, their way of giving back to their adopted hometown; the city in which they will raise their daughter.
In addition to the artist profiles, they are also working on a larger documentary project focused on highlighting the evolution and successes of Lowell over the last five years. Check out www.brandlowell.com.
For more information contact Subes Acharya at 508-395-6379 or by email at thenetsearch@gmail.com.
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