This month the artists at Gallery One embrace a theme intrinsic to all “Art” - “Light”. Light can be in all its forms, from the straightforward depiction of its illuminating effects to the more metaphorical emotions that the word Light conveys. This idea is summed up in artist Jeanne Mueller’s sentiment, “Do you feel happy if you wake up to a sunrise where the sun is peeping out as if to say, “Good Morning” rather than a gloomy, cloudy day? I know I do!  Another day is dawning and with it comes a new day filled with new adventures in life. “Sunrise at Cape Henlopen State Park” is Jeanne Mueller’s oil painting of the sun coming up over the ocean - always different and always beautiful. 

“Lilac Cottage by the Sea” acrylic painting by Jan Moffat is her newest painting in The Blue Door Collection. “Light Matters” in a landscape painting, it is very important. Light and shadows set the mood, tell the viewer the time of day, and is it warm or cold? Light highlights details that are important to the painting. For example: the lace curtains on the Blue Door and the shadows on the path.

Light has been an ongoing theme in artist Laura Hickman’s artwork and this month’s theme painting, “Light, Korcula” illustrates this beautifully. “I love the play of shadows and light on clear, sunny days, when light is literally bouncing off one surface onto another, creating reflected colors within the shadows.”

Artist Lesley McCaskill’s watercolor painting, “On the Move,” embraces the theme of light in both a literal and a metaphorical way. The subject of the painting is a child, Lesley’s grandchild, in her bathrobe filled with energy moving toward and bathed in the bright morning light after the darkness of night. The painting’s deeper meaning is about the innocence, vitality and positive outlook of a child. She uses softly broken brush strokes to show the movement and youth of the figure and her use of light and dark draws attention to the subject.

The oil painting, “Water Lilies” by Eileen Olson was inspired by her view from her doctor’s office window. The dazzling light reflected off the water in such a way that the exquisite layers of complexity were created with the sparkling juxtaposition of the life beneath and the foliage above. It is part of a small garden art donated by a wealthy, appreciative donor to the Beebe Hospital Foundation. “I found the gardens offered me serenity and comfort. Life is good.”

“Sunlit Crab Shanty” by Dale Sheldon.is a work were “Light not only allows us to see and explore and appreciate our surroundings, it also describes shapes and gives us reflections and shadows. In this painting the sun shines directly on one side of an old crab shanty on Tangier Island. It makes that side clearly visible while the darker side recedes

Michelle Marshall’s acrylic painting, “Misty Morning Light on the Marsh”, is a loving illustration of the ebb and flow of light. The lost edges and obscured definition brought by the morning fog shows just how important the bright light of day is in defining the familiar shapes we see in the landscape. The morning mist turns our familiar surroundings into a more abstract and impressionistic reality that is mysterious and delightful.