Arielle Gray

Boston

Arts Reporter at WBUR-FM (Boston, MA)

Bostonian. Queer. Arts Reporter at @WBUR, Boston's @NPR station. Co-founder of bookstore Print Ain't Dead. Bylines: @NPR @Glamour, @Zora, @Bustle.

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Articles

An art-inspired mystery on the Cape

2 weeks ago | wbur.org | Arielle Gray

CommentaryEditor's Note: This story is an excerpt from WBUR's weekly arts and culture newsletter, The ARTery. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here. It’s not every day that you get to see a “lost” artwork saved from a condemned house. I had this experience last October. Our team received an email from arts specialist Christine Berland at Eldred’s auction house, who was attempting to save a unique Norman Lewis artwork painted on the chimney of a home in South Dennis.
A unique Norman Lewis painting goes up for auction on the Cape

3 weeks ago | wbur.org | Arielle Gray

A 1960 painting by Norman Lewis is up for sale, months after it was saved from a condemned Cape Cod house. Bidding for the colorful, abstract piece, which was painted on the interior façade of a chimney, starts at $40,000. Christine Berlane is an arts specialist at Eldred's, the auction house that currently houses the painting. She was heavily involved with saving the piece from the home of Marguerite and Hampton Gill, a couple from Harlem who spent summer at their house in South Dennis.
Book clubs across Mass. read Mel King’s 'Chain of Change'

1 month ago | wbur.org | Arielle Gray

Legendary local activist, educator and community leader Mel King wrote his book “Chain of Change” in 1981. It’s both autobiographical and an analysis of the impacts of racist power structures on Black neighborhoods in Boston. King outlines the many local efforts to create pertinent, needed change in the city’s underserved communities.
John Wilson's portraits at the MFA blaze with humanity

1 month ago | wbur.org | Arielle Gray

Roxbury artist John Wilson spent his decades-long career creating drawings, paintings and sculptures that explored what it meant to be human. Born in 1922 to Guyanese immigrants, his work was deeply informed by his experience being a Black man in twentieth-century America. More than 100 of his works are the subject of “Witnessing Humanity: The Art of John Wilson,” a new exhibition on view through June 22 at the Museum of Fine Arts.
A new home for Black artistry in Boston

Dec 5, 2024 | wbur.org | Arielle Gray

Editor's Note: This story is an excerpt from WBUR's weekly arts and culture newsletter, The ARTery. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here. A new arts facility is coming to Boston in 2027. Castle of Our Skins, an arts institution that celebrates and aims to generate curiosity in Black music, cut the ribbon on Thursday, Dec. 5, at its new location at 566 Columbus Ave. in Lower Roxbury/South End.
The Institute of Contemporary Art announces a new director

Nov 20, 2024 | wbur.org | Arielle Gray

A new director is coming to Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art. The museum announced that Nora Burnett Abrams will step into the role in May 2025. Abrams, who has been the director of Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art since 2019, will succeed Jill Medvedow, who will leave her position in March 2025. Medvedow leaves big shoes to fill, but Abrams seems well poised to step into them. ICA board co-chair Bridgitt Evans led the yearlong search for the museum’s new director.
Cambridge artist Tomashi Jackson makes a cosmic exploration of society and self

Nov 18, 2024 | wbur.org | Arielle Gray

One of the first pieces immediately visible in “Tomashi Jackson: Across The Universe” at Tufts University Art Galleries is a video collage titled “Self Portrait: Tale of Two Michaels.” It practically glows as it's projected onto a gallery wall, beckoning the eye from the entrance. Overlaid with blocks of orange and blue, two figures (wearing what Jackson calls knitted color studies) move rhythmically to “It Keeps You Runnin’” by the Doobie Brothers.
A work by a famed Black painter is saved from a condemned Cape Cod house

Oct 16, 2024 | wbur.org | Arielle Gray

A work by a famed Black painter is saved from a condemned Cape Cod houseThe home of Hampton and Marguerite Gill in Dennis after it was torn down only leaving the tarp-covered fireplace with the mural painted by Norman Lewis. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)In 1960, famed Black artist Norman Lewis made a trip to Cape Cod. He visited his friends, Hampton and Marguerite Gill, and somehow ended up painting a piece on the chimney of their house in South Dennis. Norman Lewis' painting on the chimney inside the house.
Celebrating emerging artists with WBUR's 2024 Makers

Oct 8, 2024 | wbur.org | Darryl Murphy |Arielle Gray |Amanda Beland |John Bender

Darryl C. Murphy HostDarryl C. Murphy is the host of WBUR's daily news and culture podcast, "The Common."Amanda Beland Senior ProducerAmanda Beland is a producer and director for Radio Boston. She also reports for the WBUR newsroom. John Bender Associate ProducerJohn Bender is a newscast producer for WBUR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. When he's not on the newscast desk, he produces segments for Radio Boston.
WBUR Presents: The 2024 Makers

Oct 6, 2024 | wbur.org | Tania Ralli |Dianna Bell |Arielle Gray |Amelia Mason |Andrea Shea |Solon Kelleher | +2 more

Earlier this year, we put out a call to the public to nominate local artists of color they feel passionately about — the creative people whose art inspires awe, creates joy and transforms communities. More than 350 nominations rolled in for all types of artists. Painters. Photographers. Musicians. And for as much as WBUR’s arts reporters and editors track the art scene in Greater Boston, we encountered a load of new talent. It made the process of vetting each nomination both enthralling and agonizing.