June brings the Great Art Heist! To the RAL Art Center, where you can purchase a ticket and then win a piece of original artwork, for much less than its true value. This is a steal! And while you are there you can steal a look at the Gallery Windows display, where we have two painters that work in an impressionistic style.
Sarah Elliott works in oils and is a fairly new painter. After working for 37 years in marketing and publishing she retired, and feeling seriously adrift, she decided to take the painting lessons that she had wanted to take for so many years. Those lessons taught her that Thomas Merton was so right when he said, “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” Sarah finds that her canvas is the perfect place to express her creativity, energy and love of color. Using deliberate, yet loose brushstrokes, she enjoys finding unexpected colors in her reference sources and bringing that color out on her canvas for all to see. Sarah says that she "brings her whole self to the easel", and she hopes that this will translate to those who see and admire her work.
In the Gallery Windows you will see a delightful waterside landscape titled, Over the Pond to Indian Creek. The light, the colorful illuminated clouds, the flat reflective water, and the little red boat with the structures in the background, all were inspiration for Sarah. Her hope is that this painting brings about the same sense of serenity and awe of nature's abundant beauty that she felt when she saw it. Sarah’s display will have a variety of subjects, including landscapes such as this one.
Laura Edwards is a native of Tidewater, Virginia and learned oil painting at The University of North Carolina in Asheville. For 25 years she then maintained an artist studio at the famous Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria. Laura relocated to the NNK in 2020 and now lives in Irvington where she continues her work in her home studio.
Laura says that her work evolves intuitively without any reference point. She describes her paintings as “color and surface-driven, re-imagined landscapes. All of the paintings create their own environments: a painting seen and one you imagine.” Laura’s paintings evolve by elimination of the unnecessary: ‘ Less’ becomes the strength of the composition. With multiple layers of paint, she creates wonderful abstract/impressionist pieces that will engage you and challenge the viewer to see more than just the paint on a canvas. Take some time to look at Laura’s large and expansive painting, On The Edge, and find what it evokes for you.