First Friday, Spring Renewal Art Exhibit
The public is invited to the First Friday, Spring Renewal Art exhibit reception, May 5, 6-9pm, at the Milton Art Center to meet 30 local artists and view art they have generously donated to the MAC’s silent auction fundraiser happening May 6, at the Spring Renewal Art Auction Fundraiser.
First Friday’s are a monthly event, free and family friendly, with delicious platters of food and desserts donated by the Fruit Center Marketplace, cash bar, and live music.
On offer is the opportunity to bid on having your house portrait custom painted by Daphne Confar. Long known for her whimsical, playful portraits of endearing characters, Daphne brings the same freshness; a bird’s eye, primitivism, sweeping view of house and landscape that are immediately nostalgic, placing your house and what you love in a historic timeline feeling of what we value about the past to where you live. Tell Daphne the elements of what speaks to you about your property, the rolling hills, flowering trees, a garden, a winding path, sleeping pets. Daphne, with bold and simple shapes will capture the timeless, unique, panoramic view of where you call home.
Fans of Sue Hoy’s paintings will love “Hydrangeas,” a 16×16” oil still life of blue, breezy hydrangeas with translucent slices of lemons and lime in the foreground. Sue simplifies her subjects down to the essentials, painting with confident, vibrant, bold strokes of rich color, capturing the essence of light and its effects on the essence of her subjects.
Award winning pastel artist, Laurinda O’Connor, creates a scene of depth and dimensionality in her landscape, “Colors of Summer,” with decisive, spontaneous, marks of luminous yellows and greys and lavender, capturing up-close details and far off dark areas with the immediacy and motion of wind and movement, rippling through her dynamic landscape.
Michael Eder’s silkscreen on paper, “Gettysburg,” was triggered after a visit to the civil war battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This created a shift in the focus of Michael’s work, juxtaposing the beauty of landscapes poignantly with the weight of the events of the past. Michael incorporates layers of color and texture, creating a sense of depth and complexity that adds to the richness of the composition
“Vinalhaven,” Maine, a watercolor by Esther Garcia Eder, the subject of, and summer studio place of Esther’s, reflects her deep connection to her subject and her emotional response to it. Esther’s watercolor, captured with bold, loose, fluid strokes is dreamlike, evoking memory and yearning at the same time.
Vibrant colors and graphic bold shapes, “Fresh Flowers,” Tracy Allegro’s mixed media painting brings us spring renewal with a teal sensation of playful, bursting flower shapes, using color and form to create a mood of vitality, lightness and joy.
“Westport, #2” a monoprint on Rives paper by Camille DeMarco captures the brooding and atmospheric quality of a Westport beach scene, with deep shades of deep blue and gray dominating the color palette. This moody and evocative representation uses subtle variations in texture and tone to add depth and nuance to the composition, conveying a sense of the power and beauty of ocean, as well as the artist’s own emotional response to the landscape before her.
Scott Nobles’ photograph, “The Marginal Way,” has rich and varied texture, with dark, jagged, tactile rocks contrasting with the misty, ethereal, receding wave, using dramatic composition to create a timeless scene of the enduring power and majesty of our natural world.
A big thank you to Christine Schoettle, artist and MAC board member who organized the silent auction, now live for viewing on the Milton Art Center site: www.miltonartcenter.org. Viewing is open to view all the artist’s work. Bidding starts Monday, May 1, noontime and ends Saturday night, May 6, midnight.