October: Patricia Wertz and Dick Whitson
Give a brief description of your upcoming show. And what might have inspired it.
I have always been inspired by gardens and landscapes. They are reminders of how fragile and beautiful life is. I am drawn in by the various textures, colors and the abstract forms they provide.
How have you expanded existing themes/ideas for which you are best known/or if this body of work is a great deviation from your norm, what inspired this new approach?
I wanted to give the work more of a dreamlike state by softening the lines of the objects. Paintings should take you on a journey. As in most journeys there can be surprises along the way. There may be a patchwork of light and color that gives us pause. Or coming upon a landscape that captures the vitality and luminosity of a scene.
Stylistically and/or technically, what do you hope collectors notice in your new work?
I wanted to push the mark making of my technique that morphs from representational to the abstract. Lost and found edges of an object or scene was important for me to capture in this work. I feel it gives the viewer a sense of the magical and mysterious element of life.
Add any additional info that might interest the viewer.
I appreciate the quiet moments of life and try to participate in the visual experiences that are always around us.
Dick Whitson
Give a brief description of your upcoming show. And what might have inspired it.
This series of Lancaster cityscapes was completed over the past several months specifically for this show. The thirteen paintings began with an interest in the monument in Penn Square. I developed an affection for it when we moved to Lancaster 52 years ago. There was at that time a restaurant, called “Delmonico’s” I believe, in the northeast corner of the square with a very charming awning over the entrance which I saw as I drove up the hill on West King Street
and I always hoped to hit the light red so I could enjoy that sight of the restaurant and the monument. Sadly, I never photographed or painted it. The paintings of the square and surrounding sites will, I hope, help us all look a little closer at the engaging city we live in.
How have you expanded existing themes/ideas for which you are best known/or if this body of work is a great deviation from your norm, what inspired this new approach?
My “usual” paintings tend to pay homage to the beauty of our farm-centered county and I strive increasingly to emphasize a looser, more relaxed and expressive quality to those works. These city views carry that effort into the architectural subjects.
Among the subjects is the Griest Building. I painted it at different times of the year but the first one I started on a very cold day in January and it was planned as a full-length “portrait”. After several rub-outs and unsatisfying starts I decided to focus on the communications equipment crowning the building and by Spring the painting had become a horizontal “head and shoulders” titled “New Spring Bonnet”!