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Opening on Saturday, March 31, the latest exhibit at the Peninsula Gallery is titled Across the Bays. Featuring mostly large oil paintings by Berlin, Md. artist Randy Hofman, the work captures the various moods of Delmarva’s coastal bays.
Randy Hofman began painting when Kennedy was in office. Originally from the countryside between Washington and Baltimore, he chose to study art at the Pratt Institute in New York to balance what at the time had been a mostly rural experience.
While majoring in advertising design and visual communications, he learned how to make pictures ‘talk’, and move the viewer. What he wanted to say would come into focus later through theological study.
On leaving New York, he moved to the Ocean City area to pursue his dream of being an oil painter. As he walked down the boardwalk one day he ran into Marc Altamar, creating Christian images in the sand.
“The Bible themes were endearing to me. I’d do my oil painting during the day and then help out Marc in the evenings. I was his apprentice.” When Altamar moved to Florida in 1981, Hofman decided to keep up Marc’s legacy and today he continues to create huge sand sculptures, while earning his living as a fine artist.
While his sculptures inhabit and transform the local environment, his oil paintings capture and meditate upon the region’s landscape. They are evocative, one might even say ‘spiritually infused’. The dazzling effect of light on water is a recurring theme in Hofman’s paintings. His skillful rendering of light reflecting off water’s surface creates imagery that ranges from the dramatic to the melancholy to the peaceful. There will be a reception for the artist from 5 to 7 p.m., Saturday, March 31, and the exhibit will continue in the gallery until April 26. All images may be previewed on the gallery website, www.peninsula-gallery.com. The Peninsula Gallery is located at 520 E. Savannah Rd, just across the canal bridge, in Lewes and is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Sunday. For additional information call 645-0551.
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