Artists to Watch (and Collect!)Your eyes will thank you

{ Allie Heimos }

It’s time to ditch the dorm room posters and get yourself some grown up art: it looks better than your dead plants, and you score some major cultural cred in the process. Art collecting might conjure visions of SoHo snobs and flavorless crudité, but you can be snobby without even leaving the area code (and you can bring whatever snacks you want).

Nestled between Boston and the Berkshires, there’s a growing community of young artists emerging in the region. They’re creating, exhibiting, and selling their art here. Their voices are new, and their ideas connect with our current moment. Get to know a few of their names, and consider investing in their work the next time you have a chance. 

Parker Milgram (they/them): @parkermilgram

Parker Milgram is an illustrator, fine artist, and published author. Milgram develops distinctive characters through their drawings and places them in imaginary worlds. The style is raw, yet dreamlike, oftentimes angular and bold–you instantly recognize the artist upon glimpsing the work. Milgram’s characters seem to express feelings we understand but push below the surface. The environments fabricated from inside the artist’s mind place us in a realm outside of reality, yet one that is not entirely unknown to us. A frequent gallery exhibitor, you can find original works by Milgram across the Worcester area.

For your bookshelf too: Recently, Milgram started up an independent publishing house, Post Meridiem Press, which promotes “fearless books which push the bounds of fine art and traditional publishing." 

Jacob Strock (they/them/he/him): @jacobsalad_

The visual and recording artist from Massachusetts has always been creative, and has been wracking up new skills from a young age, “learning guitar and drums at age 10, teaching himself bass and to produce at 15.” Now, not only is the artist a multi-instrumentalist, Strock is applying that maximalism to their practice using a variety of media, including paint, sculpture, and mixed media. Consider the fearlessness of a recent sculpture, Abominable Amalgamation 002: Fashion, where Strock applied collaged magazine cutouts onto a plaid button-down shirt in order to play with themes of gender expression and societal expectations. “This work allows me to throw every material I have at the canvas without abandon,” says the artist, “without standards for myself, without expectations, and with a sense of play, release, and discovery.” 

And as if that wasn’t enough: Strock recently showed off their curatorial chops, hanging work for Artists on Fire, a Juniper Rag exhibition at the Worcester Center for Crafts. 

David Wesley White: @davidweswhite

White works in response to our maddening news cycles and increasingly divided politics, employing a breadth of media. “I am drawn to materials with rich subtexts that tell controversial or forgotten stories,” says the artist. New Deal Sound Mazuma takes an unconventional approach to fiber: a replica of 1930’s-era propaganda critical of the New Deal has been embroidered onto a vintage towel, and exposes the long-held anti-Labor views we cannot escape through a time-consuming embroidery technique. A crazed-looking donkey with a missing tooth draws you in; the imagery flanking it on both sides keeps you around for important conversations. Born in Worcester, the artist is back in town after stints in New York (Parsons) and California (UC Santa Barbara), and now White is showing up in exhibits across town.

Direct to video: White has been exploring more socio-political themes through video installations. The 7-minute long Burn, Dig, Filter, Fly runs four videos at once and explores the ways humanity connects with and interferes with our natural environment. The video piece was one of ten works selected by the Fitchburg Art Museum for Call and Response: Impact, recently on view in the museum’s Community Gallery.