It may seem like we live in a time when more divides than unites us. But regardless of our beliefs, we all look up at night and see the same moon. Luminous, mysterious, fickle and constant, the moon reminds us that we can still feel awe. We can still feel peace when under the spell of a force greater than any issue or conflict, greater than all of us combined.

A new show at Gallery NAGA takes the moon as its organizing principle and guiding symbolic motif. The 18 artists brought together by Powell Fine Art Advisory, who curated the show, interpret and honor the moon in a variety of styles and mediums, some more successfully than others.

“Before the moon wanes again \ we shall come together”

— Audrey Lorde, from "On a Night of the Full Moon"

The title of the show refers to a little know poem by Nathaniel Hawthorne. “Address to the Moon,” doesn’t have the ominous creepiness of “The Raven” or the gut-punch weight of “The Scarlet Letter.” It’s moody and sentimental, revealing the sense of longing and supernatural power attributed to the moon in the 19th century.

Today, as Space X, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and other billionaire-funded companies race into space like covered wagons full of zealous pioneers, the moon seems more and more familiar, so it’s intriguing to see the various ways local artists perceive it. Of the 18 exhibited artists, a few stand out.

Cig Harvey

Cig Harvey is a British born writer and photographer who lives in Maine. Her large format color photograph “Sadie and the Moon” is my favorite piece in the show. Even as I moved around looking at other work, it called to me from it’s unassuming position near NAGA’s reception desk. The mirrored moon being held by Sadie reflects back nothing and everything, just as the moon reflects back on us what we long for or what lives inside of us. As a metaphor, the moon is only as powerful as the meaning we ascribe to it. This image, with it’s blue-black rocks and curved mountains, piercing and situating the soft pink and lavender reflection on the lake with it’s ombre horizon and confident protagonist, captures the moon’s poetic legacy. Centered in the frame, Sadie is both part of the lake and apart from it, seeking the moon’s blessing as night falls on another day.

Lizzie Gill

Compositionally, Lizzie Gill’s “Still Life with Amphora (Prima)” is in a class all its own in the show. Her uber-flat, two-dimensional still life combines classicism and surrealism against a pop art patterned ground. In this piece, the moon is a symbol devoid of power beyond the referential - no shadows cast, no moody blurring, just a paper sphere as effectual or ineffectual as the other shapes in the work, depending on how you read it. Ancient Greek images on the amphora (I had to look it up, you should too) and classical tableau on the tea set playfully address the line in Hawthorne’s poem: “departed sprits find their rest.” Gill’s work expertly manipulates perception and categorization. She sources materials from museum archives, vintage magazines & geotags, creating collaged scenes that disorient even as they position familiar components and styles.

Lis Sartori

Of all the works in the show, Lis Sartori’s generated the most buzz when I visited. People stepped back, leaned in, asked questions. How does she do it? Where does she begin? What does it mean? Based in Boston, Sartori has built a fine arts practice combining landscape and textile design with a fashion industry sensibility, honed during her years creating windows for Anthropology. Sartori collects textiles wherever and however she can. She says she has accumulated so much fabric she no longer has to dye it, she can find the colors she needs from her vast repository. Recycling discarded fabrics is a vital step in the fight against fast fashion and its planet-harming consequences. Sartori’s two pieces, which portray the moon and the lunar tides respectively, address a deep respect for nature and our planetary responsibility. For me this artist’s soft sculptures honored best the final lines of Hawthorne’s poem: “For who would wish a fairer home \ Than in that bright, refulgent dome.”

Tess Atkinson

According to Hadley Powell, Founder of Powell Fine Art Advisory, she was with Tess Atkinson in Florida when the idea for “Address the Moon” was taking shape. Looking for the abstract in the outdoors, the Boston-based photographer uses a painterly approach to capture the fragility of nature. Atkinson said she would work on adding the moon to her ongoing study of banyan trees. The result, “Moonrise Studies 1-4” are as dreamy and moving as moon poetry at its best. Mysterious and unreachable, the moon in her images reminds us of our insignificance and mortality as it peeks through the shadowy branches. Mother Nature, Atkinson reminds us, is the most successful artist of all. She gives us the moon, the sky in which it shines, the leaves through which it reveals itself. Abstraction belongs, in a sense, to her universal compositions. I love the distance of the moon in “Moonlight 2,” and the absence in “1”and “3.” I love the sense of respect the artist has for nature’s gifts. There is beauty in the world, if we are lucky enough to find it, if we look hard enough, if we hold on to wonder and allow a melted ego, a human sense of awe.

Crystal Liu

Liu portrays the moon in much of her work, including the series “moon side up” featured in her show at Morgan Lehman Gallery last month. A master of collage, Liu forefronts process to achieve her delicate, evocative compositions. Using watercolor, gouache, ink, and gold leaf, “Moon Shower” is a contemporary take on the ancient Chinese scrolls which wrote histories through images and symbols. The most classically beautiful piece in the show, “Moon Shower” reflects Powell Fine Art Advisory’s far reaching reputation and influence with important contemporary artists.

Laura Barr

Gallery NAGA, which occupies space on the first floor of the neo-Gothic Church of the Covenant on Newbury Street, is perhaps best known for representing contemporary painters. Laura Barr’s oils, index card-sized depictions of nocturnal scenes, bring the celestial down to earth. Accessible in their simplicity and rich in color and texture, these quadrant assemblages capture sunset and moonlight as we might experience it ourselves, wearing our artists’ glasses, enjoying the saturated colorscape of New England as the day ends and nighttime reflection softens our gaze.

Address to the Moon, Nathaniel Hawthorne

How sweet the silver Moon's pale ray,
Falls trembling on the distant bay,
O'er which the breezes sigh no more,
Nor billows lash the sounding shore.
Say, do the eyes of those I love,
Behold thee as thou soar'st above,
Lonely, majestic and serene,
The calm and placid evening's Queen?
Say, if upon thy peaceful breast,
Departed spirits find their rest,
For who would wish a fairer home,
Than in that bright, refulgent dome

ADDRESS TO THE MOON, curated by Powell Fine Art Advisory will run through July 12, 2024.
Gallery NAGA is located at 67 Newbury Street, Boston MA, inside the Church of the Covenant.

COVER IMAGE: Crystal Liu, Our Place, “Moon Shower”, gouache, watercolor, ink and collage on paper, 64 ¼ x 49 ¼ in. (framed), 2021. Courtesy of Morgan Lehman Gallery (New York)