“EVENING PORT CLYDE” BY NEAL HUGHES
Sylvan Gallery’s Late Summer Exhibition, featuring the work of contemporary New England artists, is now on view and will continue through Sept. 30. A reception marking the gallery’s 17th anniversary will take place Aug. 31 from 5-8 p.m. and will coincide with the Wiscasset Art Walk.
Works by Maine-based artists will be featured, including pieces by Susannah Haney of Wiscasset. Haney spends several weeks every year sketching on Monhegan Island. Back in her studio in Wiscasset, she transforms the sketches into oil paintings.
Wiscasset artist and gallery owner Ann Scanlan’s favorite subjects to paint are animals in rural farm settings. She will often follow cows as they wander across the landscape, looking for the right composition or interaction between animals that will inspire a painting. In her works she tries to capture a sense of the peace she feels while in their presence.
Stan Moeller, of York, turns his attention to the streets and architecture of Florence, Italy, in “Piazza della Signoria.” He is an experienced plein air painter whose work captures his travels abroad. Moeller has taught numerous painting workshops on Monhegan Island, Tuscany, and in the South of France. He was honored with a one-person show at the Island Inn on Monhegan Island this summer.
Artist Robert Noreika travels to Maine throughout the summer to paint en plein air, directly from life. Noreika’s paintings have a spontaneous quality that is achieved by what he describes as his “gestural, fluid approach.”
Neal Hughes is a plein air artist who travels yearly to paint on the coast of Maine. Hughes is a former illustrator who has been painting professionally for more than 30 years. His work has been accepted into many national juried exhibitions, and he has won many awards including an Award of Excellence at the prestigious International Marine Art Exhibition at the Gallery at Mystic Seaport. He was the grand prize winner of the Utrecht 60th Anniversary Art Competition, winning the top prize out of more than 12,000 entries.
A selection of work by the gallery’s other contemporary artists will also be on display, including Peter Layne Arguimbau, who paints shoreline views from the vantage point of his catboat as he travels up the coast; Joann Ballinger, whose pastels focus on children playing at the beach and scenes of farm animals; moonscapes by Al Barker; a series of winterscapes by Angelo Franco; a collection of photographic images of Scottish Blackface Sheep by photo journalist and shepherdess Nina Fuller; three separate paintings of birds — a seagull, a puffin, and a bird of prey by Charles Kolnik; jewel-sized still lives by Heather Gibson Lusk; intimate small oil paintings by Crista Pisano; a series of 8- by-8-inch landscapes of marsh, ocean, and woodland by Polly Seip; Laura Winslow’s watercolors inspired by nature; and oil paintings of children at the water’s edge by Shirley Cean Youngs.
For more information, call (207) 882-8290 or go to www.sylvangallery.com.
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