Windham Art Gallery - August, 2006

Works on Paper

Windham Art Gallery is pleased to present Works on Paper, an exhibition encompassing a wide range of styles and approaches to making art on and with paper. Work by the following artists will be shown: Ric Campman, Stuart Copans, Jim Giddings, Judy Hawkins, Lesley Heatcote, Linda Mahoney, Carolyn Nelson, Cary Nelson, Melissa Scheid Frantz, Lori Schriener, Linda Striedieck. The exhibition will run from Friday, August 4 through Sunday, August 27. There will be an opening reception on Friday, August 4 from 5-8 PM.

ARTISTS' FORUM: THURSDAY, AUGUST 10 at 5:30 PM

Works on Paper will include oils, pastels, drawings, watercolors, mixed media, prints and paper cut-outs with subject matter that ranges from realistic to abstract. Many artists are able to complete a works-on-paper in a single session, as opposed to producing something over several days or weeks, and so the process is more freeing and less formal than working on canvas, and entices them to take more risks and experiment.

Jim Giddings, a watercolorist in a previous life, creates works on paper using oil sticks. Using transparent oils, and no white paint, the white paper showing through Giddings’ work creates luminosity in his painted surfaces. Giddings has said he likes the way paper “records and preserves pencil marks, scratches and fine lines” and explains that these marks are at least as important as the subject itself.

The inspiration for the pastel-on-paper works by Leslie Heathcote, were “the first flowers of spring,” what she calls the “small miracles after winter.” Melissa Scheid Frantz, who paints entirely with her fingers, finds that painting on paper creates an intimate relationship between the paint and the image, while the “inhabited landscapes,” by Linda Mahoney are monotypes which she has created this summer and are “worked up from sketchbook images.”

Just as a unity of form among shapes and colors that play against each other are found in Linda Striedieck's works-on paper; the interplay of the landscape, in and around Conway, MA, with the people and things that inhabit it, have informed Cary Nelson’s latest work. In a departure from the low horizon line and expansive skies that characterize much of Judy Hawkins’ work, her most recent paintings feature a high horizon line with vast skies reflected in water. Both inspiration and materials for Carolyn Nelson's latest work were collected in Mexico. Nelson's collages, made with various kinds of paper, include colors and textures that reflect native Mexican themes.

Windham Art Gallery, a non-profit program of the Arts Council of Windham County, is located at 69 Main Street in Brattleboro, Vermont. Gallery hours are Thursday through Sunday from 12:00-5:00 PM and other times by appointment.

For more information call: 802-257-1881.

Judy Hawkins
"Going Back"

Melissa Scheid Frantz
"Johnson, Vermont"