FARM, WINERY & BISTRO III EXHIBITION RECEPTION THIS SUNDAY

"Barn Island Trees" 

Oil on Panel

8"H x10"W

Two of my recent landscape paintings have been accepted at the Chamard Vinyard / Six Summit Gallery invitational exhibition for Connecticut Women Artists, Inc (CWA, Inc) members.  

The opening reception is this Sunday, Dec 7th from 2-5pm at Chamard Vinyard in Clinton, CT. The vinyard is located at 115 Cow Hill Road, Clinton CT, 06413.

Dinner will be available before and after the reception; call 860-664-0299 to make your reservations.

The exhibition itself runs from January 23rd to March 22nd.

Door of Textures

9" x 12" oil on panel

Yes, I pushed the textures in this old door of peeling paint.  It appears to have been painted at least two or three times; the visible under-layers reminded me of warm, intense red-rust spots.  The building this door is attached to is in New London, near the Thames River.  I have never seen this door being opened in all the times I've passed the spot, but I think there is a business behind it.  A part of me wishes I knew something of the building's history - but I'm content to let it have it's mystery.

Wasted Spaces Series - The Old Door

8"x 8" oil on board

The brackets give the effect of an old train station (thankfully, many of these are being preserved across the country) but in fact it's an old loading station.

Wasted Spaces Series - Nailed Shut Again

8" x 8" oil on board

This brick apartment building is gone now, replaced by a landscape of bare, dusty soil, garbage and the crane featured in my previous post.  Even in it's half-wrecked and empty state it was dignified if not beautiful, the way an old man or woman might be - the ones we have forgotten how to listen to, and utterly fail to see.

Wasted Spaces Series - Nailed Shut

8"x 8" oil on board

This is an ongoing series of paintings about wasted spaces.  I see so many empty buildings, just waiting for something or someone.  This is really a record of history because as you read this, most of these buildings in this series have already been demolished.

I find unlikely and forlorn beauty in these abandoned buildings and their neglected landscapes. Their aged textures, forms and patinas are like jewels when light cast its shadows. The questions of what will happen to the places left behind, what happened to the people who once lived and worked in them, is not unlike a more personal question for myself: where will this series take me?  

For me, there is beauty and sadness in decay.

Lemon Reflections

6" x 6" oil on board

SOLD

One of my favorite recent (still-life) paintings, in terms of achieving what I wanted: using thick, buttery impasto both to convey a lusciousness of surface texture (so you're aware of the paint), but also to convey the reality of the objects shown. This was particularly challenging with the smooth, transparent surface of the glass, as you might imagine, so I'm pleased with the result.

6 x 6 inches, oil on panel

As with the previous painting, this is an image of bison skull I sculpted, rather than an actual skull.  (Which, in turn, was copied after an genuine skull, which still hangs on my wall.)  This is also another palette knife painting, and the physicality of painting this reminded me of how it felt to lay down pieces of clay to create the original sculpture.

Mortar and Pestle

This was painted the same week I painted "Cup a Day" in the previous post.  I chose a similar color palette but a much different textured effect, using a palette knife rather than a brush.  It's an old technique, but for me there is still something new and even exciting about using the knife rather than a brush.  Working with impasto is like literally sculpting in paint for me; I love thick textures, which only the knife can really shape to my satisfaction.