Somerville artist Charlie Dov Schön’s first solo exhibition “I’ve been trying to reach you” is on view at the Concord Public Library through March. Ethereal and bittersweet, it’s a testament to loneliness, grief and the fraught desire to connect with others.
The show takes the same name as an installation that Schön made in a residency at the Flathead Lake Biological Station in Montana. The original piece – in which airy tulle pockets filled with stones were wrapped around a phone booth – invited visitors to enter, place a stone in a cup and write responses to a prompt in the fake phonebook provided. In the Concord Library exhibition, there’s no phone booth; the tulle fabric hangs from a wall, and the book is shut.
Though the exhibition has little in the way of interpretive text, Schön’s works themselves speak volumes. She combines found objects and textiles whimsically, creating otherworldly creations that are at once domestic and industrial. Tulle threads are wrapped tightly around wood frames in “grief glyph I.” Intricately molded gesso becomes an unexpected form of lace in “Brocade/highway lacework.” Sweetgum pods form an absurd and ornate checkerboard in “wound/window.” Delightfully, Schön placed a tulle piece right above the library’s vent, with “quilt for you (you know who you are).” Air blows through; the piece flickers with movement and life.
A recent graduate of Hamilton College, Schön is up and coming in Boston (and beyond). Her work was in group shows at Brandeis Kniznick Gallery (“Deeply Rooted; Faith and Reproductive Justice” in 2023-2024) and the 2023 Cambridge Art Association’s Emerging Artist exhibition, and she’s exhibited works as far as Tennessee and Montana.
An opening reception with Schön is 2 to 4 p.m. March 17 at 129 Main St., Concord.
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