Not knowing each other well, they began to share initial memories that stimulated their art and therefore Shared Landscapes: Invisible Worlds came about through recognizable similar childhood memories that had been imprinted on them separately.
Alyn’s early exposure to nature is strongly linked to her grandmother’s farm in Maine. Seeing light move over hills, pine trees with indigo edges cooling a stone stoop, soft and settled under her small feet, left impressions on Alyn. She and her grandmother, side by side, were content for wordless observation and absorption of hill, tree, and pond. The view becoming an internal landscape that would grow for a lifetime. A landscape that would find its way out and into paintings.
Alyn’s abstract landscapes begin with a brilliant ground applied to wooden panels. She then builds and layers poppyseed oil paints, oil bars and sometimes pencil over the ground, scraping and removing the paint to create contrasting line to bring form and tension to her landscapes.
Joan’s memories are early sensations of color and smell of honeysuckle and roses cascading down in a welter to a salt water river pulsing with seaweed and orange umbrella jellyfish. King fishers darting in blue across a cold spring of water, rolls of fog coming in like cotton batting are familial memories of her grandparents cottage /boathouse that have provoked the tactical release of memory into the pouring of paint, the excitement of color, the sensation of texture.
Joan Potkay’s artwork includes painting on canvas, paperworks and printmaking. She works in a downward motion of mark making and pouring of thin layers of luminous paint. The process allows action and movement to weave together the plasticity of the various mediums evoking texture, chaos and the beauty of nature.
A reception will be held on Saturday, November 30th from 1:00 – 4:00 pm. Admission is free. The public is cordially invited.
Images:
2nd photo: New Shoreham Alyn Carlson
3rd photo: Storm Stillness Joan Potkay
4th photo: New Shoreham 10 Alyn Carlson
5th photo: Cloud 8 Joan Potkay
