Anita Peghini-Räber Gallery announces plein air exhibition featuring Seaford artist Jim Rehak
Spring is in the air and there is a desire to be out in the open. That is the latest theme at 49 Baltimore Ave. The Anita Peghini-Räber Gallery invites the public to a new exhibition highlighting landscape artist Jim Rehak, along with three other artists and their plein air works.
A preview with the artist and the gallery owner will be held from 3 to 8 p.m., Friday, May 10. The artist will also be present at the gallery as part of the Mosaic Art Walk from 5 to 9 p.m., Saturday, May 11.
Rehak, a resident of Seaford, captures the seasonal changes of the Delmarva Peninsula in his landscape paintings. His enthusiasm for plein air landscape takes him outside to paint wonderful scenery including marshes, farms and bays throughout the area. Rehak is inspired by the impressionists and their contemporaries who communicate a powerful sense of light and evoke memories of being in the landscape. It was while studying for his BFA at the Maryland Institute of Art that his interest in oil painting emerged.
Art has always been a vocation for Rehak, as a portrait and caricature artist in Ocean City during college, at the Marson Gallery after college, and as art director at a sign company, teacher and freelance court illustrator. In recent years, his work has been shown in group and solo shows in Maryland and Delaware, where he has won awards.
“I have known Jim for 12 years. He is an outdoor enthusiast, never letting go of an opportunity to paint plein air, whether in 110 degrees or in the snow,” said gallery owner Anita Peghini-Räber. “His color palette reminds me of the Scandinavian School - Edvard Munch comes to mind. Jim’s energetic brush marks bring deep purple, swirling shadows into life, turning subject matter into metaphor.”
The Anita Peghini-Räber gallery is at 49 Baltimore Ave. in Rehoboth Beach. The gallery has a feeling of openness and airiness, similar to the plein air painting experience. Recent Washington College art history graduate Rae Ramos of Lewes is curator for this show. Gallery operating hours are Friday-Monday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
