This month's exhibit will feature a collective of local artists and members of Artists' Cooperative Gallery of Westerly! Head to the Hoxie Gallery from 5-7 pm Wednesday, February 7th to "Meet the Artists". Their pieces can be viewed in the Hoxie Gallery through the month of February during library hours.
Participating artists will include John Craig, Richard Inserra, Elizabeth Goor, Tom O’Connell, and Lois Lawrence.
About the artists:
John Craig is a recent transplant from South Jersey where, “after concluding a screamingly dull career in the highly disciplined and regulated world of finance,” he explained, ” I found painting and broke free. I’m untrained, undisciplined, and have no plan. I work in acrylic and oil, applied with brushes, putty knives, and sometimes a strong right arm." "These are my tools for exploring the range of emotion in abstract painting. My style is crude and improvisational, entirely lacking in subtlety. Don’t look for deep thought. It’s simple, unfiltered, and occasionally startling."
Richard Inserra, largely self-taught, "I gravitate towards scenic painting - landscapes and seascapes - often including sunsets or sunrises as part of the theme. I strive to create a work that draws the viewer into the painting to see additional detail and creative touches. Ideas and inspiration for my paintings derive from nature and “wanderlust” – places I have been or plan to visit. My primary style of painting is realism with idealistic or ethereal touches. However, I will from time to time do pieces that are impressionistic or abstract. My primary medium is oil, although I occasionally work with acrylics and mixed media."
Elizabeth Goor's artistic journey began years ago, but it's only been in the last 4 years that she's devoted her time and energy into art. She was born in Rome, Italy, and moved to the United States as a child. She earned a degree in Italian Literature at Hunter College, in New York and spent her last year abroad in Florence. After retiring from a career in real estate, she began to study painting with several teachers, particularly New England artist Robert Kozora. After moving to RI and becoming a realtor, she retired after 32 years and devoted her time to painting. She began as a representational painter, but more recently has fallen in love with abstract expressionism. "It's a very freeing and spontaneous avenue of expressing myself. I love playing with colors and shapes and forms and am always amazed how differently everyone sees my paintings, often completely separated from what I actually intended. That, to me, is the beauty and mystery of abstract art.
Tom O'Connell a retired advertising veteran, lived many years in Europe including eight years in Italy where he developed a keen interest in glass art. An extended apprenticeship in Siena at the studio Vetrate Artistiche Toscane helped him develop his skills in cutting, painting and assembling stained glass panels. Passionate about his glass work, Tom works to create relatively small objects, sometimes whimsical and abstract, to help bring the beauty and fun of glass to people’s homes. Much of his work is inspired by nature and natural color often with a nautical theme. His work started out with leaded pieces, but the main direction of his work now is working with kiln fused glass. He enjoys fused glass the most as it brings the beauty of glass to its full potential - and the firing process is a continuation of the creative process.
Lois Lawrence is a representational painter who works most often in acrylics and oils. "My paintings pay homage to the places I travel and to my hometown of Stonington, Connecticut. Here at home, I return often to the same lovely coves, salt marshes and freshwater ponds close to my home on the Connecticut coast while never producing the same image twice. Instead, I explore these places from different vantage points, at different times of day, and in different seasons. My travels most often take me to francophone destinations so the streets and gardens of Paris, the south of France, the island of Martinique, and both rural and cosmopolitan Quebec are frequently represented. Now and then I paint strictly from memory and imagination."
