Welcome to the September 2020 virtual exhibition of the Artists of Rappahannock. The Rappahannock Association for Arts and Community is pleased to present this selection of work by artists and galleries on the annual Fall Art Tour.

Please click on the individual images to open a larger image for more detailed viewing.

Patricia Brennan

Tree of Life

Patricia Brennan

fused painted glass mosaic
13-1/8″ x 18-1/8”
$1,200

Cat’s Folly

Patricia Brennan

fused painted glass mosaic
17-½” x 30-¾”
$2,500

Forest Dance

Patricia Brennan

fused painted glass mosaic
30” x 18”
$2,500

Gray Bird of Hope

Patricia Brennan

fused glass
Apx. 7” x 7”
$55.00

Green Bird of Hope

Patricia Brennan

fused glass
Apx. 7” x 7”
$55.00

Yellow Bird of Hope

Patricia Brennan

fused glass
Apx. 7” x 7”
$55.00

Patricia Brennan is a stained glass artist, who has been working with glass for the past 40 years. She is the artist/owner of De’Danann Glassworks, a commission stained glass studio located outside of Sperryville. She has completed several hundred commissioned stained glass windows for churches, businesses and private collectors. She has shown her work in several galleries and art shows.

Working with glass has been a life long study, with the many techniques that can be used in glass, she considers her work a journey in glass that continues to unfold, constantly striving to create more interesting unique detail in her art.

Patricia has been teaching stained glass and glass techniques classes for the past 26 years; she presently offers weekly classes in her studio. She has taught glass classes for several schools, created a large mosaic installation with the children at the Rappahannock Elementary School, she was invited to teach at a studio in Galway, Ireland, and has been featured on television shows.

Stained glass, working with light and color, is her passion. She is dedicated to preserving the integrity of this old world art form, while combining the use of the technology available today.

Contact
Website
Instagram

Jackie Bailey Labovitz 

Monarch

Jackie Bailey Labovitz

Photograph on canvas
16” x 20”
$475

Spicebush Swallowtail

Jackie Bailey Labovitz

Photograph on canvas
16” x 20”
$475

Tiger Swallowtail 2

Jackie Bailey Labovitz

Photograph on canvas
16” x 20”
$475

Snowy Egret

Jackie Bailey Labovitz

Photograph on canvas
24″ x 30″
$1,200

Little Blue Heron

Jackie Bailey Labovitz

Photograph on canvas
24″ x 30″
$1,200

Great Egret 2

Jackie Bailey Labovitz

Photograph on canvas
24″ x 30″
$1,200

As a professional art curator, Jackie Bailey Labovitz has amassed collections for public spaces. After retiring, her passion for art and nature led her to pick up a camera and venture into color photography.

Her first portfolio, “Simple Gifts,” focused on backyard wildlife, including the butterfly subjects seen in this exhibition. Most recently she began to explore large water birds, including the egrets and blue heron featured here. Her critically acclaimed “Understory” portfolio documents native plants mentioned by Thomas Jefferson, father of American botany, in his correspondence.

Over the years, she’s spent countless hours waiting for the exact moment to make the perfect portrait of her subjects in low, natural light. Her work resides in numerous public collections and has been exhibited at the National Academy of Sciences, the US Botanic Garden and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, among others.

Contact
Website
Instagram

Davette Leonard

Waterpenny Sunflower and Wild Persimmons

Davette Leonard

oil on wood
11″ x 11″
$975

Asian Pear and Cherries

Davette Leonard

oil on wood
8″ x 8″
$775

Passionfruit and Red Hot Peppers

Davette Leonard

oil on wood
8” x 8”
$775

Sweetgum and Early Dogwood

Davette Leonard

oil on board
6″ x 6″
$750

Sweetbay Magnolia and Phlox

Davette Leonard

oil on board
8” x 8”
$900

Hellebores and Quail Egg with Shell

Davette Leonard

oil on board
8” x 8”
$900

What compels me to paint realism is in finding the extraordinary imagery present in the deterioration process and its ephemeral nature. It is because of my relationship and connection to the chosen objects that requires that I work entirely from life without the use of photographs. Many of the objects are cut open exposing the seeds and inner colors. Choosing objects that react to light, heat and time, and then deteriorate as I work is an important element in the outcome of the painting. The changing creates new colors, lines and shapes.

The paintings follow a tradition likened to Renaissance and Baroque still life, using layers of translucent color glazes, acute observation, dramatic lighting and exacting draftsmanship. Although, historically this genre of vanitas painting of still lifes was to teach that the transient nature of life is insignificant compared to the life of the soul. I, on the other hand, celebrate the precious nature of life and the material world through my still life paintings.

With the representation of natural forms and color, I hope to offer solace, as nature has always offered in times of human difficulties. The purpose of my work is to provide an existential life raft to myself and the viewer, while also preserving the tradition of realism in still life painting.

Contact
Facebook

Margot S. Neuhaus

Outcry #1

Margot S. Neuhaus

acrylic on canvas
60″ x 216″
Price on Request

Outcry #4

Margot S. Neuhaus

acrylic on canvas
60″ x 216″
Price on Request

Outcry #5

Margot S. Neuhaus

acrylic on canvas
54″ x 58″
Price on Request

Outcry #6

Margot S. Neuhaus

acrylic on canvas
50″ x 50″
Price on Request

Forest

Margot S. Neuhaus

various woods, sculpture
on the grounds of the Art Museum of the Americas, Washington D.C.
Price on Request

Forest

Margot S. Neuhaus

various woods, sculpture
in the artist’s studio
150″ X 108″  X 114″

Price on Request

As I set out to work, I often sit on the ground or the floor and surround myself with the natural materials with which I work, play. I order the materials in patterns that speak to me, I carve them in lines that go with the grain, or I draw them the length of a breath. Somehow a communication is established between the material and myself. When I am fortunate, I feel that the communication goes beyond the material, beyond me. I feel that I myself am a part of a pattern that speaks of a greater order. In turn, something in me changes, as does the work I do. The door has been opened a crack and a bit more light let in.

I’ve shown in the USA and abroad and my work is in several collections including the Art Museum of the Americas and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Forest was a temporary site-specific installation commissioned by the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington, DC, for its grounds. The component pieces are currently in my studio in Virginia. Forest could be placed indoors, such as a house with a cathedral ceiling, or the lobby of a building. If treated, the set could also be placed outdoors.

The Outcry series of paintings expresses my reaction to disturbing developments in the country and the world. They reflect my concern regarding what we’re doing to the planet, as well as the increasing income inequality, discrimination against women, minorities, people of color and refugees, which have been exacerbated during the pandemic.

Website
Contact

Paul Rutz

Amarone – SOLD

Paul Rutz

oil and gold leaf on carved plywood
20″ x 15.8″ x 1″
$1,400

On the Train

Paul Rutz

oil and gold leaf on carved plywood
25.3″ x 9.7″ x 1″
$1,533

Lunar

Paul Rutz

oil and gold leaf on carved plywood
13.4″ x 15.8″ x 1″
$990

Serena

Paul Rutz

oil and gold leaf on carved plywood
14.5″ x 16″ x 1″
$1,200

Solar

Paul Rutz

0il and gold leaf on carved plywood
15.6″ x 20″ x 1″
$1,450

Stationary

Paul Rutz

oil on carved plywood
9.7″ x 14″ x 1″
$690

Moving bodies are the subject of my work. I love to study athletes and other kinds of dancers (everyone is a dancer) twisting their muscles around their bones. And while I do that, I’m thinking about you, the viewer. How might I get you moving?

Lately, I’ve been preparing plywood surfaces to paint on. While I carve and sand each one—in the shape of a curtain, maybe a hammock or chain-link fence—I’m making a visual question waiting for an answer. Once sealed with gesso, these wood slabs act on me like propositions, the first steps on a trial-and-error painting journey. Some of the paintings in this show have three abandoned paintings underneath, each a different subject or color scheme than what you see here. The combination of shiny oily paint and gold leaf on undulating 3-D surfaces hopefully leads you to dance a little, stepping close to see the brushwork, back again to enjoy the illusion, then to the side to see what’s hidden in a fold of plywood or the glint of real gold shining against the wall.

In other words, these paintings really want you to be there with them. I’ve filled them with details that reward a second viewing from another angle, then a third. My route to painting like this has been full of tight turns and continuing education. After working at sea on an aircraft carrier, as a reporter, and as an academic, it’s a great honor to spend the day making objects for you to see.

Paul Rutz is represented by Gay Street Gallery in Washington, VA.

Gallery Contact
Gallery Website

Lori Wallace-Lloyd

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Lori Wallace-Lloyd

oil on canvas
8″ x 10″
$295

Crown Imperial Fritillaria

Lori Wallace-Lloyd

oil on canvas
16″  x 9″
$850

Magnolia Grandiflora

Lori Wallace-Lloyd

oil on canvas
8″ x 10″
$295

Ballet Shoes

Lori Wallace-Lloyd

pastel pencil
14″ x 11″
$395

Barred Rock Bantam Rooster

Lori Wallace-Lloyd

pastel pencil
15″  x 10″
$395

Study of Ava

Lori Wallace-Lloyd

pastel pencil
15″ x 13″
$600

Lori Wallace-Lloyd has been an artist since childhood. As a former military officer stationed in Italy, she became fascinated with painting. While forwarding her family and career she began her classical art training at the atelier of Virgil Elliott as well as studying with many well-known artists around the country. Lori has also earned her Master of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting from Academy of Art University in San Francisco, Ca. The realist figurative and still life work she creates is the result of her rigorous atelier training and acquired skills. Lori has won many awards for her work including Grand Prize and People’s choice at the Portland Rose Festival. Lori makes Castleton, Va in Rappahannock County her home.

“I strive to develop a luminous quality of light within my paintings and drawings while attempting to capture the unique spirit of each subject. Through explorations of chiaroscuro and bold color in a classical manner, each painting becomes a journey. Using timeless themes and archetypes, I am constantly inspired by history as well as my contemporaries.” – Lori Wallace-Lloyd, MFA

Wallace-Lloyd is represented by Silver Maples Gallery in Washington, VA.

Gallery Website
Gallery Contact
Artist Website

Watch the live Meet-the-Artist September recording here: