Paintings by three local artists are on display in the new program room at Kent Public Library!
Fine Art Oil Paintings by Bea Gustafson
"There is an energy and beauty in all of nature which is a never ending source of inspiration for me. I try to translate that onto my canvas, giving homage to the bounty before me. I enjoy painting my landscapes en plein air as well as in my studio, working from photographs and sketches.I want to tell the viewer a story, share my experience with them. In the translation from nature to canvas, I seek to discover nature’s truth and give life to a painted image by understanding the rhythms and pulses behind the appearances and the best is the feeling of being an integral part of it all. I am most successful with a painting, if I can evoke and emotional response from the viewer."
Bea Gustafson
www.beagustafson.com / 914-204-0846
Doreen O'Connor
"I have been drawing and painting as long as I can remember and got my degrees in Art Education. After teaching for two years, I went back for my Masters but found a job I loved in a historic house museum. I stayed in the museum field for twenty years while always painting on the side.In 1990, I started a decorative painting business, "Wildflowers" where I do murals, tromp l'oeil and faux finishes. I have enjoyed the variety and creativity of the work but am now doing more painting and exhibiting for myself. Nature has always been my main inspiration. The lower Hudson region and the farm I live on in Poughquag provide more subjects than I have time to paint."
Doreen O'Connor
1doconnor@frontiernet.net / 1doconnorwildflowers.com
Fine Artist Oil Paintings
Mary Elizabeth Smoot-Souter, Oil Painter
"As I began painting form life, classical training from the model revealed complexities in drawing and form. Studying from old masters and life size casts that were seized from the basement of the Metropolitan and donated to the N.Y. Academy was an amazing access for students studying realism in the 90's. Design and compositional ideas from Maitland Graves have influenced my work and color theory elements suggested by Joseph Alber's. Turn of the century painters such as John Singer Sargent and Joaquin Sorolla's powerful use of direct painting and color is insurmountable. Commanding light and shadow patters is something I love in Rembrandt and Vermeer and the quiet sincerity of Chardin's still-life paintings. My work is traditional in technique and style but reveals a personal, contemporary realism of the 21st century!"Mary Smoot Souter
www.marysmootsouter.com
