SELECTED PRESS
LaiSun Keane is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Michal Fargo, Susan Metrican and Chase Travaille titled Ambiguity.
This exhibition is a presentation of works which engage with interpretation of form and context. Each artist brings their rich and deeply personal narratives to their work, employing their chosen medium in critical and creative ways.
A common thread runs through these works, from hand-hooked rugs to digital prints to embellished dollar bills
“STITCH!,” a frothy summer show at LaiSun Keane, revels in the tactile quality of textiles, presenting needlework as a metaphor for making connections and bridging divides.
Review by Cate McQuaid, Globe Correspondent 7/26/2022
But the community is more fraught for some. "It feels lonely,” says LaiSun Keane, owner of LaiSun Keane Gallery. SoWa's artists and gallerists are predominantly white, and Keane, who is Chinese Malaysian, feels her difference acutely. Her gallery focuses on art by women and people of color, a project she says people sometimes find alienating.
“When I try to tell people what I do, they don't get it,” she says. “I can sometimes come across to them as aggressive and confronting. And they don't want to hear all that.”
By Amelia Mason 6/22/2022
Where Hannah Wilke’s feminist art flowered into friendship
The pioneering feminist artist Hannah Wilke had a solo show at Boston’s Genovese Gallery in 1990, and I was lucky enough to see it. Her tiny pink chewing gum sculptures of vulvas floored me — they were so daring, intimate, funny, and feminine.
This Lexington art dealer did the unthinkable: She started a new gallery in the midst of a pandemic
Some people would counsel against opening a new business during a pandemic. But LaiSun Keane felt she had to act.
NADA and Untitled Bring Reflection and Relaxation to Miami's Spectacle and Hustle
Art Basel Miami Beach week is often a daunting art overload. Thankfully, there are a handful of go-to fairs that open earlier in the week before the craziness begins that reliably provide a nice mix of familiar faces and emerging artists with exciting work.
A Taste of Home Cooking
If you looked to the kitchen for consolation during the pandemic, you were not alone. Poet and art critic John Yau noticed that his social media feed...
Piecing Together a Legacy
On the eve of his second gallery show, Michael C. Thorpe reflects on how he’s taking quilting—and his identity as an artist—to new levels.
Craft Revival at LaiSun Keane
A work in progress: Developing equitable spaces for artistry to flourish in Boston
As a gallerist, Keane focuses on curating space for people who come from non-white and non-male identities in an industry that the opposite can often dominate. As the daughter of Chinese refugees who were born in Malaysia before living in Australia and eventually the U.S., she experienced discrimination as she advanced in her own career.
Quilty pleasure: Why your grandmother's quilt is today's luxury fashion staple
Thorpe, who recently collaborated with Nike on quilts inspired by the NBA's past and future, brings Black history, his own biracial experiences and childhood dreams to life through textile portraits.
Miami Art Week 2021: The Basel Breakdown
It’s all over. Art Basel Miami is an international treasure, but the Circus has left town. Business makes the world go round, but it is strange. Are the best jobs in the world really crypto and highway construction?
He was an MVP basketball player. Now his star is rising as an art quilter
Michael C. Thorpe, 27, an art quilter and former basketball star at Emerson College and Newton North, now featured in a Dove soap commercial.
Last Chance: Michael C. Thorpe On Quilting a Dream
At his first solo exhibition, Michael C. Thorpe is boldly pulling on the threads of a centuries-old craft—and it’s paying off.
Five Textile Artists Exploring Contemporary Quilting
In his body of work, Michael C. Thorpe explores feelings of joy and happiness as a Black man. Using fabric and thread, his quilted “paintings” are geometrical and pieced together like a puzzle.
Episode 08: Michael C Thorpe
Micheal C. Thrope is a working artist. Unlike many of his young age and position, he doesn't have a second job to buoy his passion...
As we begin our conversation we learn about Michael’s early years and his realization that, for him, quilting isn’t about following a prescribed pattern...