Intuition Exchange Group Exhibition
Curated by Virginia Sandman
March 6 - 29, 2026
Arts Night Out / Opening reception: March 13, 5-8pm
Venue: A.P.E. Gallery, 126 Main St, Northampton, MA 01060
Gallery Hours: Wednesday - Sunday 12 - 5, Friday 1 - 8, closed Monday & Tuesday
Contact: Mollye Maxner: mollyemaxner@apearts.org
For additional public programming related to this exhibit, visit apearts.org
Intuition Exchange, the March exhibition at A.P.E. was curated by Northampton artist Virginia Sandman. Sandman invited Marianne Connolly, Barbara Hadden and Debra Olin, whom she knew from Boston's art community in the 1980s. Out of touch for decades, Sandman noticed an aesthetic coincidence among herself and these women. Through online searches and renewed connections, the show grew from a notion to what is on exhibit today.
The invited artists are Boston friends from the 1980s. Sandman said in a statement, "Boston at that time was a hot bed of queer women’s creativity; it is there where we met and there where I first looked into each of their eyes and noticed a familiar. Our lives have changed and we’ve gone separate ways. Yet, from those first moments I witnessed in them a person who was willing to handle the hot coals and quiet whispers of creativity."
Sandman says that intuition transcends understanding and pierces the rhythms of daily life. Sometimes disturbing, it pulls back a curtain and reveals something outside of the limits offamiliarity.
INTUITION EXCHANGE incorporates diverse media—photography, collage, printmaking and painting—and the works are hung intuitively to be in conversation with one another, rather than being divided by artist or media. The show opens on Friday, March 6 followed by an opening reception on March 13 from 5-8:00 pm. All are welcome.
Art Forum Online on Wednesday, March 18
On Wednesday, March 18, at 7:30 pm, the four artists of INTUITION EXCHANGE will present, share images and talk about their work, discussion, questions, and comments from the audience. Preregister for this Zoom event via https://linktr.ee/Intuition_Exchange
About the artists & curator:
Marianne Connolly is an artist and writer living in western Massachusetts, and one of the original members of Gallery A3 in Amherst. Her visual art explores storytelling, narrative, and the connections between language and image, often influenced by mythology and magical realism. She collects the images for her paper collages from discarded books and magazines, hand-cutting and pasting with scissors and adhesive. The works are page-sized and analog—none are computer generated. Marianne writes and publishes speculative fiction under a pseudonym, and her stories have appeared nationally in magazines and anthologies.
Barbara Hadden began her career as an artist working with photography. Then she shifted into representational painting, especially of woods and rocks and water, and from there into abstract landscapes. Her painting and photography has won several awards, grants and residencies. She was a founder and co-director of the 10$ Movie Co. in Boston in the 70's with a group of women artists and filmmakers. Last year, The Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History accepted the collective's films, where they will be digitized and made available to the public.
Debra Olin is a printmaker, living and working in Somerville, MA. Her experimental monoprints and woodcuts combine drypoint, stencils, and collage to make both two and three-dimensional works with paper and fabric. Much of Olin’s work is involved with the body and its connection to nature. Her prints are found in National and International collections. Grants include Massachusetts Cultural Council, Berkshire Taconic Art Resource Trust and The Rappaport Prize.
Dreams are the source of some of Virginia Sandman's photos. Others come simply from touching and playing with materials like thread, cloth, clay – and experimenting with the ever-baffling entity of light. Her experience with sculpture, video installations, film and performance art influence the photographic outcomes. A native of South Jersey and longtime resident of Somerville, MA, she studied philosophy and art briefly in English in Vienna. Later she earned a BFA and MSAE at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Her work in film and photography has been recognized nationally and internationally.
