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March Issue 2008
Edward Dare Gallery in Charleston, SC, Features Works by Ann Lee Merrill and Leslie Pratt-Thomas
Edward Dare Gallery in Charleston, SC, will present the exhibit, Travel Journals - Visual Diaries: Two Woman Show, featuring works by Ann Lee Merrill and Leslie Pratt-Thomas. The exhibition is on view from Mar. 7 - 31, 2008.
This exhibit will feature a globe-spanning collection of works inspired by the extensive travels of the two painters. Europe, New Zealand, Mexico, the Caribbean, Thailand and Africa are all captured in these visual diaries. Regular jaunts abroad have resulted in a constantly growing and evolving body of work for both artists.
Leslie Pratt-Thomas
Hailing from Ontario, Leslie Pratt-Thomas has made Charleston her home for the past 30 years, dedicating the last fifteen years to painting in oil. Along the way she has pursued working with some of America's best artists in workshop settings around the country and abroad. Common advice she has received from all of these mentors is the importance of drawing daily, painting from life, and painting a variety of subjects. Pratt-Thomas incorporates these suggestions as a happy part of her daily regimen.
"I start by choosing a subject that is viscerally appealing to me," says Pratt-Thomas. "It really doesn't matter where I go to paint, I can always find something that speaks to me; it could be a contrast in value, the shape of an element, an interesting shadow, beautiful light, a strong diagonal, a peaceful curve, anything. Although the lowcountry is filled with a life-time of source material, I have been very much engaged in capturing the distinct differences in the quality of light that are evident in the different parts of the world that I have visited. The ability to experiment with a palette that reflects the quality of the light in these interesting locales makes painting an ever changing, stimulating and exciting new challenge. As an artist, the beauty of traveling is in the experience of capturing light with sometimes subtle changes in my palette and other times very distinct changes. The turquoises of the Bahammas, the gray-greens of Italy, and the terra cottas and mustards of Mexico are a nice departure from the rich colors that we experience in the lowcountry."
Ann Lee Merrrill
Ann Merrill has said that no matter where she
finds herself that she is constantly fascinated with the irresistible
resources for an artist. "I continue to be fascinated by
the lowcountry, with its mysteries and ancient secrets in the
huge live oaks, the seashells in the soil of my garden, the timeworn
surfaces of old buildings with their wrinkled faces of wonderful
details."
Merrill's paintings - subject matter, palette and composition
are also influenced by her extensive travels in Europe, New Zealand
and Africa. During these travels, a great portion of her time
is spent in museums absorbing and studying the works of the masters.
A student of art history, Merrill says that she is "always
learning, always excited about solving new challenges in her paintings
and will never be finished with the process of learning."
Merrill describes her style as gestural realism, "I love
the calligraphy in the brushwork of gestural realism; this probably
comes from years of painting in watercolor. I paint, not with
a slick surface, but with a surface that reveals the process of
the developing painting, the excitement of the brush, eager to
describe the vision. My painting process is an open record on
the canvas, as personal as handwriting and fingerprints. Favorite
brushes push, layer, dance, scumble, scrape and spread paint on
the canvas, allowing traces of previous tracks to occasionally
appear, revealing the previous layers, and the history of building
a painting."
As with Pratt-Thomas, the lowcountry is Merrill's home. Merrill has said, "...the people, the shores, the marshes, the reminders of historic struggles of the peninsula and surrounding areas, are all a part of me. I love the excitement of going over the bridges of Charleston, seeing the long vistas of horizontal bands of color, the thousands of greens, blues, golds and reds revealed as we travel in the lowcountry. This landscape, ageless and ever new, where the big sky and the horizon seem to go on forever, is always so paintable."
Merrill and Pratt-Thomas will continue to travel and bring home their painted visual diaries of their journeys abroad, and you can rest assured that they when they bring these pieces home it will be to Charleston.
For further information check our SC Commercial
Gallery listings, call the gallery at 843/853-5002 or visit (www.edwarddare.com).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2008 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2008 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.