A Treasure Trove of Art. . .Now at Haynes Galleries

Haynes Galleries is holding their small works show, and it promises to be a sellout. A Treasure Trove of Small Things opens November 22 in Nashville, Tennessee. 

I urge anyone who can get to Nashville to attend the opening, or at least the show, before it closes. Judging from the artists whose works will be displayed, this promises to be a sellout show.

Three paintings of mine will be in the show. They are all plein air landscapes, painted this summer.

 Breakfast at the Huttchen, oil on linen on panel, 10.5" x 12"

 Three Roofs, Horn Hill, oil on aluminum panel, 7.5" x 15"

  Whitehead looking towards Gull Rock, oil on linen, 18" x 14"

Recent Portrait Unveiling

Early this month, my portrait of Ben and Gerri LeBow was unveiled and hung in the new Gerri C. LeBow Hall of the LeBow College of Business at Drexel University. The building replaces an older, outdated facility, and will truly be a beautiful and functional centerpiece of the school for many years to come. I feel honored to have been asked to paint this portrait. For a more detailed description of the portrait and the event, click on this link.

Here is a photo of me with Mr. LeBow in front of the painting. (The portrait looks a little dark because lighting was not yet installed.)

At the opening, I sat at a table with the LeBow grandchildren, who were all delightful young people. I also got a chance to reconnect with some of my former and future portrait "subjects." The surprise of the evening was seeing my childhood friend Daniela Voith. Danelli and I were in the same class at the Miquon School and shared many adventures. She was at the opening because her architectural firm, Voith and Mactavish, designed the beautiful new building! My husband snapped this photo of us.

Fall group show at Fischbach Gallery!

This group show, opening September 5th at the Fischbach Gallery, showcases the work of 22 representational artists with a variety of styles and subject matter. I am happy to be included along with many wonderful artists. I'm also pleased that my friend Jeff Gola, who is now represented by Fischbach, will be in the show. Fischbach has been a champion of representational art since the 1960s, through the Modern and Postmodern periods, and into the present day.

SEASON PREVIEW

5 SEPTEMBER– 5 OCTOBER 2013       

Jeff Gola  House on Buddtown Road  2012, egg tempera on panel, 10 x 10"

The Fischbach Gallery is pleased to present Season Preview, a group exhibition featuring the following artists: Leigh Behnke, Helen Berggruen, Alice Dalton Brown, Colin Brown, Tom Cordell, Barbara Dixon Drewa, Fredericka Foster, Jane Freilicher, Victoria Gitman, Jeff Gola, Patrick Gordon, Nancy Hagin, Glen Hansen, Polly Kraft, John Laub, Brad Marshall, Anita Mazzucca, Denise Mickilowski, Emma Tapley, Alexandra Tyng, Jeffrey Vaughn, and James Winn opening 5 September and continuing through 5 October 2013.

Season Preview presents a selection of these Fischbach Gallery Artists’ new paintings that offer a foreshadowing of work to come.  Displaying contemporary American representational painting and works on paper, Season Preview highlights these Artist’s explorations of their artistic sense of style, intellectual approach, and inner passion, everything that evokes new inspirations for their most challenging, current paintings.  Whether a vivid landscape, a lush atmosphere, or an alluring still life, these works of art represent a preliminary showings of each Artist’s ability to push themselves to the brink and become better and better in their skill.

The Unseen Aspect

I'm excited to announce the opening of my show of figurative paintings--and a few landscapes, too--at Dowling Walsh Gallery in Rockland, ME. Please stop by if you can!

THE UNSEEN ASPECT

Opening: Friday, September 6, 5-8 p.m.

Show dates: September 6-September 30

Royalty, oil on linen, 42" x 54"

In my latest series of figurative paintings I explore themes of personal/psychological interaction and motivation. Using family members and close friends as models, or characters, I distill ideas down to their essence, creating scenes out of my imagination that appear “real,” although they have never actually happened as they are painted. Time is used fluidly. Situations that developed over many years are painted as though they are happening in a moment of time. People who lived in various time periods appear alongside each other, and a single person can appear more than once, at different ages, within a single painting.

357 Main Street

Rockland, ME 04841

207-596-0084

info@dowlingwalsh.com

Women Painting Women (R)evolution

In September, the 14 artists who exhibited last year in The Expedition and Beyond are returning to Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA for another Women Painting Women exhibition, and each of us have invited another artist to show with us. In addition, four gallery artists will be joining the show.

Considering that I'm more of an evolutionary than a revolutionary, and more of a humanist than a feminist, you may ask why I'm excited to be part of a show with revolution and women in its title. Well, I'm excited because I want to encourage change, and because I believe that the work of male and female artists should be seen and taken equally seriously.

The way I see it, WPW is kind of like Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action is considered necessary by some people as a way of eliminating racism--yet it offends other people because by definition it is racist, and how can we get rid of racism by establishing a racist situation? Affirmative Action is an experiment. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. The ultimate goal is to get to a point where there is no need for it.  I see WPW as similar to Affirmative Action in that it gives women artists venues in which to show work, separated from the work of men, with the ultimate goal being not ghettoization, but inclusion, on equal footing, with male figurative artists. Women Painting Women gives accomplished, professional female painters the chance to show the world what they can do, to increase representation of female artists in galleries and museums. I'm all for a level playing field.

Just to make it clear, I cringe when I see art shows entitled "Five Women Painters," or "Three Women Paint the Figure." To me, the fact that all the painters are women is not enough to make a valid theme for a show. I have a method for testing these titles out: in my head, I change the titles to "Five Man Painters" and "Five Men Paint the Figure" and see if it sounds strange. It does. Mentioning the sex of the artist doesn't add anything to the title, in fact it detracts from it because it distracts from the point that shows like this really should have nothing to do with the sex of the artist.

But Women Painting Women has a valid, worthwhile, and interesting theme. A few years ago, the WPW blog was born from the question asked by Sadie Valeri, Alia El Bermani, and Diane Feissel: (to paraphrase) "Do women paint women differently than men paint women? Let's find out!"

Three or so years later and several shows later, we have 32 female artists exhibiting their paintings of women at Principle Gallery, and that question can be asked, pondered, and maybe even answered by the people who see the show. I believe that the viewpoints of women painters need to be recognized and valued. Shows like this not only raise the profiles of the artists involved, but also, by doing so, they enlarge our portrayal and understanding of the woman as subject in art.

Here are two of the three paintings I will be showing:

The Grandmothers, oil on linen, 40" x 34"

Year at Sea, oil on linen, 69" x 46"

Women Painting Women (R)evolution opens September 20th, 6:30-9:00 p.m.
The Principle Gallery
208 King Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
703-739-9326   info@principlegallery.com

A New Series of Figurative Paintings

Though I've always been especially drawn to painting people I know--sometimes over and over again--about a year ago I began thinking about going even further in this direction and painting my family members as characters in scenes of my own imagining.

My idea was to bring people together from different places and time periods, and to set them in scenes that would look "real" in a sense, yet have an element of something beyond realism. Would this be called "magic realism?" I'm not sure. I also wanted to continue exploring the use of symbolic visual language, and ways of suggesting meaning without telling the viewer how to interpret the painting.

I was afraid to begin the first painting, but an idea kept nagging at me. I was looking through my digital files and saw a particularly good photo of my brother's mom blowing out the candles at her 80th birthday party. Then I remembered I had a similar photo of my mother at her 80th birthday. When I put the two photos together in my mind I saw them blowing towards each other, creating a firestorm in the middle of a huge cake between them. Letting my imagination run, I saw my father (who died 40 years ago) rising out of the flames. The whole scene began to take shape in my mind, and it was not until then that I realized it was a painting about a wish for transformation, for positive change.

More paintings followed this one. I'm exploring ideas and connections and interests and feelings that have been important to me all my life. It's kind of scary to be doing this, but it's incredibly enjoyable, too. And the people in my family have been such good sports, posing for me in different positions and under odd lighting conditions, without knowing exactly what I was going to "do" with them!

This September I'll be showing some of these paintings in a solo show at the Dowling Walsh Gallery in Rockland, ME. The show is called The Unseen Aspect and it will open September 6th. Stay tuned for more details.

Article in American Arts Quarterly

Last summer I met author Stephen May at the Dowling Walsh Gallery and we went across the street to an outdoor seafood restaurant for lunch. Stephen and I had arranged to meet because he was going to be writing an article on my work for American Arts Quarterly. I was very excited at the prospect of being featured in such a prestigious art journal. We sat down and started chatting. Steve was charming, super intelligent and perceptive--and he asked such good questions I found myself talking way too much. Amazingly, he was able not only to make sense of what I said, but also to make a terrific article out of it.

Meanwhile, my husband was enjoying some quiet time away from his talkative wife in the local coffee shop, where he was reading the latest Dick Francis thriller. Definitely a win-win situation.

The article, which was published in the Winter 2013 issue of AAQ, can be found here. Upon looking through the magazine, I discovered I was in great company: also in this issue is an article on the wonderful work of my good friend, artist Catherine Prescott.

America's Parks I Exhibit

I have so much catching up to do, I'm just going to hit the highlights of the last year so I can bring this blog  up-to-date.

My biggest excitement over the winter centered around the show America's Parks: Through the Beauty of Art. Comprised of 50 two-dimensional works of art depicting any park in North America, the show is now traveling to different venues around the United States. After.opening at the Ella Carothers Dunnegan Gallery of Art in Bolivar, MO,  it traveled to the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in Jamestown, NY, and will end up at the Kenosha Public Museums in Kenosha, WI, from August 17 to October 13, 2013.

My painting, Marsh at Round Pond, was accepted into the show. . . and shortly thereafter I got a call from curator David J. Wagner who told me that I had won the prestigious Juror's Choice Award! I was thrilled. In all my years of landscape painting, this was the very first time I had ever won a major, top award for a landscape.

Marsh at Round pond, oil on linen, 22" x 40"

Here are a couple of links to the press release and review of America's Parks:

Press Release

Article in Outdoor Painter