Abstract Visions: The Colors and Forms Behind the Everyday
Annual Abstract Group Show

Tracy Spadafora, Susan Morosky, Cherie Clinton, Linda Cordner, Charyl Weissbach, Kellie Weeks, Kay Hartung, Laura Roosevelt & Roberta Gross

Show Dates August 29 - September 25 - EXTENDED
Opening Reception Saturday, August 30, 5-7pm
Labor Day Weekend 
Curatorial Talk Friday, September 5 at 5pm with Roberta Gross
Results : 63 Photos

PRESS RELEASE: (Martha's Vineyard) It is with great pleasure that the Louisa Gould Gallery presents the Seventh Annual Abstract Show, “Abstract Vision: The Colors and Forms Behind the Everyday” , opening on August 29, 2014 and continuing until September 18, 2014. The artists’ reception will be on August 30 from 5-7 p.m. The exhibit showcases the work of (9) artists: Tracy Spadafora, Susan Morosky, Cherie Clinton, Linda Cordner, Charyl Weissbach, Kellie Weeks, Kay Hartung, Laura Roosevelt, and Roberta Gross. Each of these artists look around them at the ocean, ponds, lakes, and forests capture a sense of a reality beneath the changing everyday appearances of these vistas. They creatively explore the color and forms behind the everyday using an interesting variety of media: acrylics, encaustics (highly pigmented beeswax which is affixed by heating); abstract photography on paper; photo transfers on canvas and mixed media compositions. Come by and meet the artists at the opening and enjoy light refreshments. Also, join Roberta Gross for a curatorial discussion of the exhibit on September 5 at 5 p.m.

Tracy Spadafora’s talent as an encaustic artist has been recognized by her numerous group and solo exhibitions both nationally and in Massachusetts, by her inclusion in books and articles focusing on this medium and her demonstration of the art of encaustic for various art supply companies including Dick Blick and Jerry’s. She also is an active instructor at various art colleges including Rhode Island School of Design and School of Worcester Art Museum. Her art reflects her longstanding concerns for the environment including global warming and genetic food modification. The paintings exhibited in the show are box constructions which are built on visual and symbolic associations. She explains. “(T)he layering, obscuring, deconstructing, and preserving of images in wax helps me address a complex and shifting relationship between man, his biological roots, and the shaping of our natural environment”.

Susan Morosky’s vibrantly, colorful acrylic paintings reflect her journey to understand the natural world “through the observance of movement, form, and color”. She works by continuously layering, adding and then removing paint from the canvas. Her work “develops from an abstract vocabulary inspired by the properties of water, fields, and their boundaries”. Susan exhibits both nationally and internationally, and is reviewed in various publications including Santa Fean, and Architecture Digest.

Cherie Clinton’s visits to the canals of Venice and the surf of the Skopelos Islands in Greece after earning her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art inspired her to paint the natural world. She describes her work in both acrylics and photo transfers and acrylics as “a developing story.....part autobiography with a dash of Grimm’s Fairytales around the edges". Cherie has shown her paintings in solo exhibits at the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham (where she has taught painting and drawing for 12 years) and the Tower Hill Botanical Garden in Boylston, MA. She is the creator of the Fountain Street Studios in Framingham, now the largest collective of working artists west of Boston. And partnered with photographer Marie Craig to open the Fountain Street Gallery.

Linda Cordner’s encaustic paintings have been described as “ enveloping and intimate… captur(ing) the shifts of the daily atmosphere, space and light…open widows onto the dichotomous ephemeral, eternal quality of physical experience”. She works in encaustics creating depth and translucency by layering, preserving accidental traces of drips, blurs, blooms left by the artistic process. She exhibits her work nationally and her work has been reviewed in various publications including Art New England and Artscope Magazine.

Charyl Weissbach, a Boston based artist who also exhibits nationally, explores nature using minimal color and flowing patterns. Her Balsam Poplar Series is based on a western balsam poplar tree located in Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum. She utilizes stenciled wax, resin, metal, and incorporates accents consisting of different kinds of metal leaf. The MetalScapes encaustic paintings combine metal with polymer resin. Charyl’s artwork is in many collections, including Brigham & Women's Hospital, Children's Hospital, UPenn, Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, Winchester Hospital, Oracle Acme Packet, and, NovaCare Pharmaceuticals. She is featured in “Encaustic Works 2012: A Biennial Exhibition in Print” , by Joanne Mattera, and 100 Artists of New England , by E. Ashley Rooney.

Kellie Weeks paints with pigment sticks and encaustic, creating basic fields of saturated color, shapes, and objects in dynamic compositions. She views her paintings as illuminating “…the human spirit and the journey it is on”. Her work has been exhibited nationally in many juried and group shows, and is included in many private and public collections. Additionally, she has worked on many commissioned pieces. In October 2011, Kellie was included in a group show called “Imagination” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2010, she was the featured artist of the month for R&F, the premier manufacture of commercial encaustic products. She also was the featured artist for cadmium colors for that company in 2011.

Kay Hartung’s richly, colorful encaustic work is related to her fascination with the microscopic world. She explains, “I have been looking at electron microscope photographs and am inspired by the abstract organic shapes and intense colors of this hidden world. I imagine the energy and interactions that go on in my body and the mind to produce action and thought.” Kay exhibits widely and her work is found in many corporate and private collections. She has been an active art instructor as well as a member of various art organizations.

Laura Roosevelt, a year round resident of West Tisbury, is someone many Islanders know as a poet, journalist, and/or active community member. She is also an abstract photographer. In this exhibit, her abstract photographs reflect her continued interest in bodies of water in which she responds to visual images of the boats, pilings, docks, buildings -- seemingly solid objects -- as they become distorted and transformed by the water’s movement. She aims for her photographs to appear painterly rather than more hard edged and presents colorful compositions of swirling patterns and distortions.

Roberta Gross, the curator of, and a participant in this exhibit, is a resident of Aquinnah and Philadelphia, PA. She shows her work in galleries in Philadelphia and on the Vineyard. She often can be seen at the Featherstone Center for the Arts where she teaches the abstract and mixed media art courses. For this exhibit, she is experimenting with burning Tyvek, the material builders use in the early stages of preparing a new house. The paper appears lacey and creates an interesting dialogue with the colorful, textured layers on which they are attached. These new paintings reflect a mix of chance effects and controlled painting. She is also exhibiting several acrylic paintings on canvas. These compositions with their bold, big shapes and sinewy lines appear to reflect the earth’s organic formulation and reformulations.

Please join us for the opening artist reception on Saturday, August 30 from 5 to 7p.m. at Louisa Gould Gallery located at 54 Main Street, Vineyard Haven. Please call (508) 693.7373 or visit www.louisagould.com for directions. The show may also be viewed online.  
















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