Newsletter

Newletters - 5/1/2008

American Crafts Now at the Harrison Gallery!

 
The art form known as 'crafts' – having shed its image as a poor cousin to the fine arts --is now being displayed alongside traditional paintings and sculpture at the Harrison Gallery in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
"The very best of craft art -- in fabrics, wood, glass and ceramics – adds diversity and creative energy to our collection," says Jo Ellen Harrison, owner of the Gallery. "We've chosen to exhibit eight exceptional craft artists who work with materials that allow their imaginations to run free … to create objects of spectacular beauty and originality."

New Artists Kate Winn & Bonnie Rapaport
With the arrival of spring come two new artists to the Harrison Gallery… 

Kate Winn, a graduate of New York State College of Ceramic at Alfred University, who treats her landscapes more life portraits than snapshots of a place.  "Portraits contain both subject and observer, and good portraits show some evidence of that relationship."  Winn's paintings are fun and bright but with a closer inspection her strong connection to the landscape in evident…

Bonnie Rapaport, retired her briefcase and the corporate life to return to her love of painting.  Using the Old Master's technique of chiaroscuro, Rapaport gives the viewer the joy of seeing real objects, by creating paintings that will evoke something special that moves beyond the literal into the realm of the empathic.  Her use of light and brushwork reveals the subtlety and the remarkable singularity of each object she selects to incorporate into the paintings.

New Works by Petria Mitchell, George Van Hook, & Eng Tay!


Petria Mitchell
With the exception of one large painting, local Vermont artist Petria Mitchell has scaled down to a much smaller and more intimate size with this body of work.
Maintaining the charisma of her imaginative composition, these smaller paintings are just as strong as her impressive large scale landscapes.  Pairing two or three of them together allows the viewer to engage in the story that each piece holds.


George Van Hook
Painted with the same quick and enthusiastic brushstrokes that distinguish Van Hook's work, this new group of figures and still life paintings continue to immerse the viewer in the immediacy of the painting and take you to that exact moment in time.


Eng Tay
Oil, bronze, and etching are the three mediums that Tay has come to master with the same iconography throughout.  His irresistibly charming figures portray the importance of family, music, but most of all the celebration of life itself.