Reception This Weekend—

New Hampshire And Maine Artists

Featured At Fenn Gallery

WOODBURY — For its next exhibition Fenn Gallery will present “Art as Impetus,” featuring the work of Kim Bernard of Berwick, Me., and Tom Driscoll of Plymouth, N.H. The exhibit will include acrylic paintings on canvas and paper, work in encaustic, and ceramic sculpture.

The show opened on May 17 and will continue until June 24. The public is invited to the artist reception on Saturday, May 19, from 4 to 6 pm.

In his book entitled Concerning the Spiritual in Art, W. Kandinsky proffered that painting as an art “must be directed to the improvement and refinement of the human soul.” Both artists in this new show identify the search for an expression of universal truths through an abstract visual language as a primary impetus for their work. Both lean towards the lyrical, and demonstrate a spiritual kinship with primitive art.

“Encaustic,” meaning “to burn” in Greek, dates back to the 5th Century BC. Used as a contemporary medium, it is a versatile method of painting with fortified, pigmented beeswax. Ms Bernard achieves deeply luminous coloration and richly textured surfaces through the build up and scraping of layers of wax, which often include embedded collage material.

Her earthy palette includes varying harmonizations of garnet, teal, golds, and sepias, sometimes with copper and lead accents. Ms Bernard typically divides the picture plane into contrasting square or rectangular sections of color and material, and then over paints with free and spontaneous circles, spirals, dashes and scrapings. Her work was just featured on HGTV in April.

Tom Driscoll’s visual language of pictographic and calligraphic symbols convey a mythical quality similar to that in Native American Indian and primitive art. Interested in the illusory and metaphoric powers of color, he plays with surface, light and the relationships between forms to present universal truths that are communicated purely visually. Mr Driscoll builds up luminous, modulated color backgrounds, onto which he creates his narrative employing recognizable shapes, such as crescents, pods, arrows, and human and animal figures.

The gallery is at 345 Main Street. Regular hours are Thursday through Sunday between noon and 5 pm. Call 263-3449 or visit FennGallery.com for additional information.