She Who Shines exhibit to open at Peninsula Gallery March 7
Artistic renditions of the mystical female spirit will be showcased in the She Who Shines exhibition from Saturday, March 7 to Sunday, March 29, at the Peninsula Gallery, 520 East Savannah Road, Lewes.
The exhibition will feature 35 works of heavily stylized and whimsical imagery of women. Through imaginative aesthetics and intuitive art-making, this exhibition celebrates feminine energy and the power of archetypal women in lore and history.
A free opening reception will be held from 5 to 6:30 p.m., March 7, open to the public, and offering complimentary food and drink. Attendees will have the opportunity to mingle with some of the participating artists.
The show features art from Kathy Daywalt, Deborah Johnson, Rachel Romano and Pritha Srinivasan.
Daywalt has been honing her craft for more than 40 years. She works in a variety of media but has opted to include watercolors in this exhibit. Her interest in figures and beautifully patterned compositions is evident in her work. The flattened and elongated figures wearing royal regalia, along with the appearance of mosaics and icons, give the pieces a medieval feel, evoking imagery often associated with folklore and mythology.
Johnson is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the connection between inner life and the natural world. Working primarily in oil and cold wax, she creates layered, atmospheric paintings in which women, animals, water and landscape merge into a single emotional space. Her practice is rooted in material knowledge and traditional hand processes, allowing each medium’s physical properties to shape the final image. For this exhibit, Johnson is showing off both her oil paintings and kiln-formed glasswork. Her luminous pieces fuse womanhood with the natural world, exploring the quiet intersection of figure, environment and inner life. While the glass pieces rely on a limited palette and fundamental curvilinear shapes, her paintings explore light, shadow and color.
Romano is a surrealist figurative painter who finds inspiration in humanity’s adversity, strength and resilience, and the absurdity of life. She considers herself a storyteller for adults, expressing the myths and experiences of humanity. Romano’s surreal oil paintings are bold, colorful and symbolic, with each object serving as a metaphor for a deeper meaning. Conversely, her pencil pieces offer the same storytelling but through stripped-back scenes and monochromatic palettes.
Srinivasan has been creating art since childhood. Deeply influenced by her cultural heritage, travels around the world, literature and an abiding love of nature, she uses watercolor and acrylic to convey her unique narrative. The ethereal women in Srinivasan’s paintings are bathed in layers of color. While defined in their faces, the realism begins to fall away in other elements of the paintings, such as the garments, hair and backgrounds. The vibrant pigments flow freely across the surface in an explosion of spirited color.
