RAL to host opening reception May 9 for five new exhibits
In May, the Rehoboth Art League will mount five art exhibitions highlighting various mediums, styles and techniques, with an opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m., Friday, May 9, inviting patrons to visit the Corkran, Tubbs, Ventures and Homestead galleries.
Through Sunday, June 8, the league will display solo exhibitions from abstract painter Martha Spak, mixed-media artist Kim Klabe, ceramicist Susan Gladstone and assemblage artist Tim Barton, as well as a showcase of Howard Schroeder sketches from the RAL Fine Art Collection.
Uncharted Terrain: Abstracted Landscapes features works by Martha Spak that explore the intersection of nature and abstraction, where landscapes are reimagined through a lens of vibrant colors, fluid shapes and bold movement. Each artwork is a dynamic interpretation of distant horizons and hidden vistas, where familiar landmarks dissolve into flowing forms and surreal textures. This exhibition in the Corkran Gallery breaks free from traditional depictions of the natural world and offers an immersive journey that inspires introspection and wonder.
Kim Klabe showcases her newest body of work in What About the Women. This exhibition in the Tubbs Gallery explores the expression, beauty and challenges of women, both in today’s world and in history. The work is a mixed-media collection that utilizes wood panels, heavy watercolor paper, rice paper, smudgy charcoal, pastel pencils, house paint, liquid watercolor and cut paper. The images invite the viewer to feel the challenges these women have experienced, with some of those challenges being suggested with the title, the blurry words behind their faces or their expressions.
The Ventures Gallery will display two exhibitions: ARTifact, showing assemblages by Tim Barton, and Alternate Firings, featuring ceramics by Susan Gladstone. Barton takes found objects and transforms them into art for the wall-hanging pieces displayed in his exhibition. He spends many days scouring antique shops, antique malls and auction houses locally and across the country for unique items that speak to him. His work finds him reaching back in time and exploring aspects of his life in unique ways, searching for themes in his human experience that all can relate to. Gladstone’s exhibition showcases ceramics that are fired in different ways, such as pit fire, naked raku, horsehair, and saggar fire. The beauty of alternate firings is the uniqueness of the finished pieces. Shapes can be duplicated, but the firing techniques create one-of-a-kind works of art.
The league’s historic Homestead building has reopened for the season and will remain accessible to the public through the end of October. RAL’s Doors of Fame, which feature the signatures of more than 285 prominent artists, creatives and notable citizens from the art league’s history, will be on display throughout the summer season. The Homestead building will also host the exhibit Studio Time: Sketch Group Paintings by Howard Schroeder. In 1949, Schroeder started the Open Studio Sketch Group, today known as the Howard Schroeder Sketch Group, to give artists an opportunity to gather once a week to sketch or paint live models, an idea inspired by a group he had belonged to as an artist in New York City, his birthplace. Selected works for this exhibition depict these weekly sessions. Schroeder created thousands of sketches and paintings, many of which are now part of Rehoboth Art League’s Collections. The sketch group remains active today and is open to interested artists by reservation.
The Rehoboth Art League exhibitions are free and open to everyone during its regular hours, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and noon to 6 p.m., Sunday.
