The public is invited to a reception at the Bruce S. Kershner Gallery in the Fairfield Library on August 23 at 4:30 to 6:30 pm celebrating a new show, "Eye-Sights". The exhibit includes the work of Howard Aaron, Lynne Arovas, and Beatrice del Perugia. The artists will talk about their work at 5:30 pm. The show runs from August 16 to October 5.
Easton resident Howard Aaron discovered the joy of painting in watercolors at the age of 50. Although he is primarily self-taught, he has taken watercolor, landscape, and advanced painting courses at The Silvermine Guild School of Art. His commissioned portraits and landscapes, both watercolor and graphite, are represented in private, corporate, and institutional collections in nine states. His work online may be seen at www.aaron-art.com .
Since 2005, Howard has received awards ranging from Award of Merit to First Prize in watercolor in member and open juried shows. These include national and local shows sponsored by Connecticut Society of Portrait Artists, Art Society of Old Greenwich, Easton Arts Council, Society of Creative Artists of Newtown, and the Fairfield County Arts Association. Attendees have voted his portraits Most Favorite in Show in two CSOPA juried competitions. In September, his portrait of Rabbi Israel C. Stein will be in the National Open Juried Exhibition at the Salmagundi Club in Manhattan.
Howard is a member of the Connecticut Society of Portrait Artists, Fairfield County Arts Association, Art Society of Old Greenwich, and is a founder of the Easton Arts Council. He says, "Painting for me is a highly beneficial therapy. Since I've started developing my art, I'm learning more and more how to see rather than look...As for landscapes, there is so much source material to be found in Connecticut, starting in my own back yard in Easton. The fun is stumbling on a scene that says 'Paint me', then to enhance it into painting that would not only interest a viewer, but convey a feeling about that scene. I enjoy doing watercolor because there's so much that can go right, even if I make a mistake... Many times a painting, with a 'mistake' happening in the painting process, will take on its own life and lead me, 'in a zone', into a serendipitous painting I didn't start off to do...As I get older, I'm more cognizant of time. I've structured the remaining years of my life to seek out peace and joy, so I choose subject matter that reflects moments of both. I hope that you as an observer can feel what I felt when I started the painting you may be viewing, be it a landscape or a portrait."
Lynne Arovas, a Greenwich resident, graduated with a B.A. in Psychology and minor in art from Arcadia University (previously Beaver College) and has studied at the Silvermine School of Art in New Canaan. She currently works as an office administrator in Stamford. Lynne is a member of the Art Society of Old Greenwich, Greenwich Art Society, and City Lights Gallery. In the past she was a member of the Women's Caucus for Art.
Lynne's medium is mixed media collage and she has exhibited in five solo shows and over fifty group shows. Lynne has won both first and second prizes for her work. She says, " 'Energy in order' is one way I would describe my work. Arranging expressive designs of nervous energy in a contained, structured way is for me a very calming and almost meditative experience. There is satisfaction placing 'chaos' in order, and excitement combining these contrasting elements into a dynamic composition. Emotions, nature, and color inspire me and are often the intertwining themes in my work. My goal for a collage is reached when I am finally content with the color harmony, pattern relation, and dimension created.
Beatrice del Perugia lives in Westport. She was educated in France, and later attended The University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida; the Philippine School of Interior design in Manila; Silvermine School, in New Canaan, CT; and the Arts Student's League in New York. She studied art with Anne Toulmin-Rothe, Natasha Karpinskaia, Robert Baxter, and others.
Beatrice has shown her paintings in many group shows at the Dalbert Gallery in Sarasota, Westport Arts Center and Rockwell Gallery in Westport, Rowayton Arts Center, Allied Artist in New York, Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, New Canaan Arts Center, and New Haven Paint and Clay Club. She had a solo show at Picture This in Westport.
Béatrice has always drawn, painted, collaged and imagined things in her own way. She says, "I love to look at things, to see how they are made, how they could be remade and altered slightly...I paint what is around me, the things I love, the environments I am familiar with...my garden.... Manhattan, where I often sit for hours in the IBM glass atrium and draw the people going by, really little mice at the bottom of the canyons. The bird on the roof of a small house becomes a giant bird. The house amid the wildflowers becomes tiny and the wildflowers as tall as trees....In the winter time in New England, I paint what is outside my window and magnify it, make it the whole town, even the state. In Florida I am fascinated by the intricacy of the shape of the trees and the flowers. Mostly it is that which never ceases to intrigue me: the shape of things, how varied, how dynamic, how color can make shape come forward or disappear. There is a part, the middle part, after the idea, after the initial sketch; that part is work. To make it come out, to make it artful, whimsical... I hope some of what I paint makes you smile, opens your eyes to how magical things can be, seen through different eyes."
The library is at 1080 Old Post Road in Fairfield. For more info, visit www.fplct.org or call 203.256.3155.