Pastels
September 12 – October 27, 2006
Gallery Nights: September 21 & October 19 from 5 – 9 pm.
Contemporary Rhode Island artist Lee Dimeo views her artwork as “a dialogue between myself and my surroundings,” between the experience of the outside world and the internal climate. The resulting scenes are evocative of the full experience of place, masterfully capturing the emotional landscape with an almost impressionistic attitude. The Bert Gallery dedicates the coming of Autumn to Lee Dimeo’s Pastels this September.
Though familiar with oil and watercolor, Dimeo is drawn to pastels for their ability “to achieve the boldness in light and shade more commonly associated with oil paints.” Her colorful landscapes illustrate a delicate balance of literal and emotional interpretation, realism and abstraction, dangerously poised on the dividing line but never toppling into either category.
To this frequent traveler of the New England coast, experience is key. Dimeo’s journeys have taken her repeatedly to Prince Edward Island and the shores of Maine and Massachusetts. Since studying under Boston pastel artist Lois Tarlow in 1990, Dimeo has worked almost exclusively in the medium. She continues a pastel tradition begun 250 years ago championed by portraitist John Singleton Copley, Venetian scene master James McNeill Whistler, and Edgar Degas, who advanced the medium’s range of effects with his famous studies of ballerinas. Dimeo carries their legacy into the twenty-first century.