A group show by gallery and guest artists inspired by the beauty of the island surrounded by the expanse of sea and sky will be on exhibit from August 26 through September 7 at the Jessie Edwards Gallery on the second floor of the Post Office Building. A virtual reception video will be released on August 27.
Whitney Knapp Bowditch’s oil “Aerial Atmosphere” captures the connection of the sea and sky surrounding the island from the point of view of a plane approaching the bluffs, while a 36 x 48” oil on canvas titled “Vaill”shows an expansive sea and sky with waves washing over the rocks onshore.
An image of the North Light by Elizabeth Pannell shows the lighthouse in the distance against the blue sky with an expanse of the deep blue waters of Sachem Pond in the foreground. The old Tuna Club in William Skardon’s “Untitled Seascape,” a watercolor on paper from the 1960’s, is a distant structure on the bluffs with brilliant streaks of blue defining the waves and the boulders along the shore. Another Skardon circa 1960’s “Untitled Island View” is a watercolor in ink on linen with the blue sea defining the horizon beyond the structure of the abandoned Highland House hotel on the East Side.
“Under Sea” is a photograph by Alison Meyer and captures what lies below the surface of the shimmering sea. Also by Meyer is her photograph “Open Sea” which shows a broad expanse of sea in shades of blue that blend imperceptibly into a cloudless blue sky. Similarly, Carrie Megan’s oil “Ocean Sky” merges the sea and sky but with puffs of clouds rising above the water high into the cobalt sky.
Cynthia Guild’s oil “Alone Together” depicts two freighters in an expanse of blue sea and sky. For her, it is a metaphor for the isolation we all felt during the pandemic. Two oils by Heidi Palmer suggest a sense of solitude rather than isolation, with sunlight falling on Adirondack chairs looking out to sea in “Island Mind,” and in “Perfect View, a view of a calm sea and cloud-filled sky seen from both outside and through the windows of a house in the right foreground.
Four near-abstract watercolors by Elizabeth Dickinson are variations of the exhibit’s theme with “Rocks on Beach” a quartet showing white rocklike forms surrounded by blue; “Waves and Tides” is a triptych of abstracted shore and sea, and “Peninsula in Blue” is a diptych where land (Sandy Point) meets sea and sky .
“Mansion Beach,” an oil and cold wax by Tom Martinelli, is a view of a gentle surf at Mansion Beach rolling onto the sand under a blue sky and conveys his feeling of calm when he sets foot onto the beach — “God’s tranquilizer,” he called it in a recent statement.
Two oils by Kate Knapp show the sea and sky merging in views from the bluffs. “Blue Ocean and Bluffs” looks across boulders to the sea and sky while “Bluffs at Moonrise” is a dramatic view of a full moon rising and casting its light from the horizon to the shore.