This year’s Annual Maxwell Shepherd Memorial Arts Invitational Exhibition is “In the Thicket” by Susan Bogle Finnegan. Finnegan’s bold, often gestural depictions of bushes, trees and flowers explore nature’s entanglements up close. Working from memory, as if immersed in the growth, she employs paint to search out feeling and
meaning in shapes, color, space and structure. “My aim is to organize the ‘sense of air,’ structure, weight, surface, space and light within the subject.” Finnegan earned an MFA in Painting from the Hartford Art School. She teaches at the Hartford Art School and Trinity College.

Patty Weise’s solo show, “Recent Work,” consists of gouache paintings on paper and board. She examines the rituals of daily life through her intimate depictions of interior spaces and still life objects. Weise has exhibited at Five Points Gallery, Artspace in Hartford, South Shore Arts Center in Massachusetts, and the Rhode Island Watercolor Society. Illustration clients include Farrar, Straus and Giroux, HarperCollins Children’s Books, and The Hartford Courant. She has an MFA from the Hartford Art School and a BFA from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. She teaches at Central CT State University and at Northwestern Connecticut Community College.

Also on display is a group show entitled, “Painting Study Group.” Since 2011 this group of painters regularly meet at each other’s studios to discuss their work, share ideas and do critiques. Members paint together at various outdoor locations around Granby. This exhibit features some of these paintings, so viewers see different interpretations of the same scene. Also included are scenes from Cape Cod, New Hampshire, Vermont, Italy
and the Canouan Islands. While some started out in art related careers, most turned to painting later in life.

The opening reception is Saturday, April 21 from 6:00-9:00 pm. Prior to the reception at 5:00 pm, Susan Bogle Finnegan is giving a gallery talk. The reception including
refreshments is free, and the public is warmly invited.

The Maxwell Shepherd Memorial Arts Fund is having a Poetry Reading by Clare Rossini at the Gallery on Saturday, May 5 at 4:00 pm.

The Canton Artists’ Guild at the Gallery on the Green, the longest continuously-running artist guild in the state, has 3 separate galleries and hosts month-long exhibitions nine times a year. The gallery is located near the intersection of Dowd Avenue and Route 44 at 5 Canton Green Road in Canton. Hours are Friday – Sunday, 1-5 pm. The main floor gallery is handicapped accessible.