This year’s Annual Maxwell Shepherd Memorial Invitational Exhibition is “Interplay: Joseph Byrne and Elizabeth Gourlay,” an exhibition of paintings and works on paper. Interplay brings
together two artists whose works center on interactions of color, shape, line, and space. Although their approaches differ—Byrne’s paintings begin with still life arrangements of objects, and Gourlay calls on her long-developed language of abstraction based on geometric shapes and line—both build architectural armatures to carry their personal responses to the surrounding world. In “Interplay,” their works create conversations among themselves and with each other, drawing attention to their commonality and underscoring their distinctive pathways. Byrne states that “in all of my work, it is the relationship between perception, representation,
and abstraction that fascinates me. For example, how a group of objects on a table becomes an arrangement of color, physical marks of paint on canvas or paper, and how the painting that results can resonate with the viewer’s own thoughts and experiences.” Gourlay describes herself “falling somewhere along a line between Indian meditative tantric paintings and Mondrian’s paintings about jazz while I am trying to capture the complex reactions that I have to architecture, nature, and music itself.”

Byrne is Professor of Fine Arts at Trinity College. Gourlay has an MFA from Yale and is teaching at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts and The School of Continuing Education at Rhode Island School of Design.

Susan Spaniol’s mixed media solo show entitled, “Event at Herring Cove,” was inspired by her viewing the dissection of a giant battered whale carcass on a windswept Cape Cod beach. Throughout that day, small groups of people arrived and left in silence—like participants in a silent and holy vigil. Returning to her studio she began spontaneously making intensely colored winged shapes that she later realized comprised a visual metaphor for the spirit of the whale. Spaniol was a professor in the Art Therapy Program at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is currently at Springfield College. She has exhibited widely in national exhibitions.

Twenty seven artists contributed to “Marks, Symbols, Lines: Calligraphic Art in New England”  in a celebration of the elegance and beauty of alphabet and writing in both contemporary and
traditional forms. Hand lettering is on a variety of media from paper to stone carving. A “Closing Reception” on Sunday, May 21 from 1-4 in the upstairs gallery will feature short talks by painter Judith Osborn and by stone carver Adam Heller.

The opening reception will be held on Saturday, April 22 from 6 to 9 p.m. and will be preceded by a gallery talk by the Byrne and Gorlay at 5:00 p.m.