Four female artists — watercolor artist Jean Crane, ceramic artist Renee Schwaller, oil painter Lois Eakin, and mixed media artist Kristy Goggio — will headline Fine Line Designs Gallery’s third and final exhibit of the 2018 season. The exhibit premiers with an artist reception on Thursday, August 9 from 4 to 7 pm, with Goggio on hand for an artist demonstration the following day (Friday, August 10) from 11 am to 2 pm.
For more than 40 years, watercolor artist Jean Crane has concentrated her works on the natural world in all of its forms. Whether her subject matter is fresh and lush, or withering and dying, it’s nature — in all of its life cycles — that Crane uses to make her lyrical and sensual statements. Crane says she’s drawn to watercolor because of its transparency and how it captures the light, saying, “each painting is a continuous act of balancing and rebalancing color and value; each change in light and shadow shifts the sense of balance in the work.” Her aim is to create paintings where these elements maintain and generate their own sense of energy while contributing to the work as a whole.
Ceramic artist and Door County resident Renee Schwaller’s latest collection, “we”, centers around unity. “I was observing all the clay bodies I had and how they have different characteristics and beauty — but are also alike in purpose. It reminded me of all the different cultures around the world, and how those characteristics and beauty translate to people.” Schwaller uses clay as the vessel to create her people, with different painted or carved details as representations. “Some of the people are holding tiny glass bowls, which represents fragility and balance. Some have little things in them, and some hold nothing. They’re a sort of offering to represent what we truly need in life to survive.” The collection is about embracing differences, understanding our similarities, and working together through compassion and compromise for the good of our planet.
Oil painter Lois Eakin was born and raised in the Chicago area, and was exposed to the paintings of the Dutch Masters and the 20th century Realists while studying at Chicago’s School of the Art Institute and the Palette and Chisel. These works influenced heavily influence Eakin’s style, and she stays true to painting the objects of everyday life, using the technique of chiaroscuro to lead her viewers through her paintings using light. In Eakin’s pieces, simple and often taken-for-granted objects are beautifully lit, with careful consideration given to the color, value and edges of her subjects — be it a bowl of fruit, a flower, a vase, or a single onion. The result are paintings that, although they may look on the surface to be “still lifes” — are pieces with a surprising sense of energy.
Kristy Goggio’s mixed media works have centered around a few steady themes — women and birds — for much of her art career. A nod to Mother Nature and femininity, Goggio’s use of the female figure in her pieces portrays the essence of giving relationships — she nurtures the birds and in return, is given gifts of flowers and fruit. Honeybees have made their way into her paintings in recent years because of Goggio’s hobby as a beekeeper, and her passion for them and their struggles motivates her to include them in her paintings.
Fine Line’s third exhibit will run through Friday, September 14.
Fine Line Designs Gallery, located in scenic Door County, is housed in a 1950s chicken coop that was renovated in 1999 and turned into a multi-level gallery space. The gallery showcases seasonal, monthly rotating exhibitions, highlighting the works of selected artists along with the general display of works by over 100 regional and nationally-acclaimed artists. The gallery features original paintings, glass, jewelry, clay, custom wood furnishings, sculpture, and fiber rich in color and texture in addition to a two-acre sculpture garden adorned with pieces created from bronze, stone, metal, copper, and stainless steel. For more information, please visit www.finelinedesignsgallery.comor call (920) 854-4343.
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