We've moved! Find us at 238 Bridge st, Northampton

PLEASE NOTE: walk ins are welcome for the gallery, on your own or small groups of up to three people. Please wear a mask.

New Pastels by Amherst Artist Ruth Rinard

Her grandfather’s farm made her an artist. Golden wheat in the wind, expansive blue sky, billowing clouds, tall yellow tasseled dark green corn, shimmering heat lightning, searing dry heat, or small buildings on the distant horizon filled her with a sense of awe. A transcendent bright abyss opened before her.Later to get an education and to raise a family she moved east. Hills crowded in on each other, sky was hard to come by, and roads disappeared around curves. Ever changing light filtered through forests. Humidity hung everywhere. Everything came in quick glimpses. Everything demanded intimacy, interiority.

Awe and intimacy, two constant threads in her work, are held together by narrative. As she starts a painting, she has a title or phrase in mind. It becomes the narrative linking the deeply personal interior and the unfathomable outer world. Her art strives to make this connection visible.

About Ruth Rinard:
After careers in academe and health sciences, Ruth became intrigued with the freshness of pure pigment and the tactile possibilities of pastel. When she realized she could use her drawing skills within the painterly framework of pastel, she never looked back. Ruth has studied painting with Christine Labich and exhibited work with the Connecticut and New Hampshire pastel societies. 

PLEASE NOTE: walk ins are welcome for the gallery, on your own or small groups of up to three people.

Paintings by Hadley artist Rodney Madison. Rodney’s dynamic and colorful paintings are in the gallery until August 27th. He’s a prolific painter and passionate about his work, and paints every day. Come see the work of this talented self-taught artist!

About Rodney Madison:
Rodney is a self-taught artist originally from Chicago, now based in Hadley. He began painting in his 50s and has become recognized as a powerful and prolific painter. Relying on his alchemy of art, he has become an artist with few boundaries and a wildly active imagination. He has opened new windows of creativity and continues to share his vision with the universe. instagram.com/rodneymadisonstudio

Banner images: Juice of Chitterlings and Roots, both 36×48: and acrylic on canvas,

New work by Laurieanne Wysocki, July 7th to August 1st.

Artists use abstraction to push beyond the recognizable world and ornamentation to decorate it. Laurieanne’s recent work explores the relationship between the two concepts in vibrantly colored and highly textured paintings. Identifiable forms and motifs are blended with spontaneous gestural work bringing the two pursuits into a delightful harmony.

Of her work, Laurieanne says: “The eye will automatically seek out familiar forms so I begin by imprinting combinations of patterns into plaster with wood blocks and highlighting details with contrasting colors. I add in interlacing flowers, trailing vines, and spiraling geometric shapes to make the composition rhythmical rather than random. Then I intentionally disrupt the subtle functions of the forms by the addition of more texture or by the removal of some of the plaster with a hand sander. It’s a very process-driven, transformative style. The challenge is to not go too far in one direction and destroy what may have taken months to build up. It’s a fine line and not without risk but if the painting begins to look too predictable I remove what I call the obviousness of it. I’m inspired by the frescoes of antiquity and interested in what remains – the parts that have stood the test of time, whether hidden by nature or intentionally covered up, and are revealed centuries later. The destruction and persistence of the piece is my take on an ancient process.”

About Laurieanne Wysocki:
Laurieanne is a painter and mixed media artist. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts she studied at the Arts Student League in New York City and had her first solo show in 1990. She has traveled the world, both independently and for the last 20 years as a tour director for Road Scholar educational programs and to date has visited more than 80 countries. Her cultural impressions are often reflected in her colorful and intricate paintings.

Laurieanne’s exhibit of paintings and metal assemblage works, “Pentimento”, was shown in the gallery in 2016.

Banner image: detail of Marrakesh, mixed media on canvas, 24 x 48″