Tilde Cambridge has been slinging coffee and wine for less than a month near Davis Square, but it’s already a burgeoning hub for local art.
Two large and striking photographic pieces by Evan Jaccodine are on the shop’s walls. Jaccodine, who grew up in the neighborhood, pitched the works for Tilde’s space after striking up a conversation with staff. He made the pieces this summer after finishing his MFA at the Rochester Institute of Technology, but they look like they were made for the space.
Jaccodine has a compelling method for making his works, which ponder the intersections of technology, image-making and human labor. His black-and-white photographs, some figurative and some abstract, are printed with a risograph. He attaches plywood onto his canvases, pasting each printed photo onto the surface like wallpaper. Jaccodine’s process intentionally adds imperfections, with misprints and smudges adding texture to the final product. His approach echoes Xerox art, a 1960s movement in which artists used the quirks of photocopying machines to manipulate their images – in some cases, creating copies of copies, each successive image increasingly degraded.
You wouldn’t know it from far away, but both works are made up of 16 sheets of 11- by 17-inch paper. The closer you get, the easier it is to see that some panels are slightly darker than others; that the lines don’t quite line up. The blurs and soft shadows in “Hayflowers,” a floral still life, are a lovely complement to a line-heavy untitled piece on the neighboring wall. It’s a beautiful excuse to stop and slow down in a cafe that’s lovingly trying to get its customers to do the same.
The pieces are on view for the foreseeable future. They are on sale and prices are negotiable.
Tilde Cambridge, 2376 Massachusetts Ave., North Cambridge
Share your own 150-word appreciation for a piece of visual art or art happening with photo to editor@cambridgeday.com with the subject line “Behold.”
This post was updated Jan. 6, 2025, to change information about the price of buying the art.
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The cafe is lovely and the featured art is really worth a look.