The Marion Art Center, located at 80 Pleasant Street in Marion, MA is pleased to announce the opening of two exhibitions on Friday, July 20. An opening reception will be held from 6:00 to 8:00 pm.
Marion artist Joan DeRugeris will be exhibiting her paintings in the Cecil Clark Davis Gallery and Bess Woodworth, will be exhibiting in the Patsy Francis Gallery. The two exhibitions will run from July 20 through August 21.
A member of the Copley Society, DeRugeris will feature a new collection of recent work which is a departure from what she has shown in earlier exhibits. The past year and a half has been devoted to creating a series of landscapes, marsh scenes, walled cities, open fields and inlets, which are still in the impressionist style but with an atmospheric mood.
Of her work, DeRugeris says, “I believe that artists cannot exist without influences, it is however, how they use them to form an individual approach that separates one from the other. Many strive to paint what they see, their hand and eyes becoming a camera. I like to see how far I can go from what I see or recall and break down the elements into pattern and design while still keeping the feel of what drew me to the subject to begin with.”
DeRugeris started her commercial art career in New York City’s garment industry. She received her degree from the State University of NY, Fashion Institute of Technology. Joan then went on to head the art department of a leading textile consulting firm where she designed prints for the ready to wear and home furnishings market.
Joan’s commercial career continued with freelance design for Corning Glass, consumer products division. Upon leaving NY Joan taught watercolor painting through Delaware Technical and Community College, while also pursuing an exhibiting career. After arriving in New England, Joan continued her studies in advanced painting at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
DeRugeris has been a Marion resident for more than 20 years and has exhibited widely throughout the East Coast. Her paintings are in corporate and private collections throughout the US.
Boston artist Bess Woodworth’s watercolors will be exhibited in the Patsy Francis Gallery. Bess grew up in the countryside outside Philadelphia, PA. As a child she attended a Waldorf School. The curriculum revolved around art. “Although I was unaware of this influence at the time, I began to develop my artistic talents twenty-five years after a successful career as a reading specialist.”
Of her work she says, “My strength is in color, form and value. In watercolor feelings from my heart can be expressed through the brush and medium to the sensitive paper surface, transforming my expression into the most direct, honest and true vision of the subject. My compositions produce an emotional mood. I am exploring relationships- in nature and between people. I have portrayed these relationships in shallow space often fracturing the images. I simplify shapes in order to make the gesture important.”
The themes of her paintings cover a variety of organic subjects; fog, birch trees, sea shells, plant life, reflections in water, mountains, atmosphere. She has also worked on a series of conceptual paintings about relationships.
She is an alumnus of the School of the Museum of Fine Art of Boston. She has been a volunteer in the education department of The Museum of Fine Arts of Boston touring groups of children through the museum.
Woodworth is a member of a number of art councils, and associations in the Boston area including the Copley Society, the New England Watercolor Society, the Southern Arizona Watercolor Guild and Tubac Center for the Art.
The Marion Art Center Gallery is open on Tuesday through Friday from 1:00pm to 5:00pm and on Saturdays from 10:00am until 2:00pm. Admission is free and open to the public.
