All artists must consider how to assemble a good composition. But how about taking one apart? “Composition/Decomposition,” a group show at the Adamant Cooperative Gallery, does both, plumbing the meanings of those words. Lois Eby channels Wassily Kandinsky. Heidi Broner takes a dynamic approach, highlighting workers as they interact with geometric orange safety cones and angular fire escapes. Cathleen Daley gives us color palettes that shouldn’t work but do, with a surprisingly dramatic landscape in neutral tones in one painting and a gray ground with vermillion trees in another. Kep Taylor embraces an ecological take on the theme with “Circle Game,” an installation whose materials include seeds, rotting honeynut squash and protozoa. A few works go down the naturalist road, including Ruth Coppersmith’s elegant bell jar over a snakeskin and bat skeleton, Paul Cate’s invitation to observe tree growth on a walk in the woods, and Dan Thorington’s engagement ring box made from an owl pellet. Lest any interpretation of the word be omitted, Liz Benjamin has contributed “Gone, Gone” — an original composition for viola and piano, presented as sheet music.
‘Composition/Decomposition’ On view through April 15 at the Adamant Co-op Gallery in Calais.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Get It Together”
This article appears in Money & Retirement Issue • 2026.
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