“Word Art,” a biennial tradition at Gallery on the Green, is now in its 20th year. Writers and artists collaborate to create a visual piece that expresses the synergy between the visual and written arts. Visual artists create a work that is inspired by prose or poetry, while writers create a written response to visual art. Text appears next to the art or is directly incorporated as words or letters into prints, paintings, fiber, drawings, photographs or sculpture.  Saturday, May 13 from 7 to 9 pm authors will read aloud their writing as viewers contemplate art that it reflected or inspired.

Upstairs are two solo shows. In “A Journey Through” Suzanne Jill Levy exhibits large-scale abstract acrylic paintings in which the layering of colors as well as the shapes and rhythms of the composition elicit a sensation of calm and contemplation. Levy is inspired by Piet Mondrian’s use of color and graphic abstraction and by the color fields of Rothko, whose large regions of color burst with possibility.  After earning a Masters in Social Work she moved to Manhattan and studied at the Art Students League of New York. While in NYC Levy painted the New York City Marathon mural finish line artwork in Central Park. Her paintings can be seen in gallery and juried exhibitions, corporate and private collections and even on craft beer cans.

Brigid Kennedy, the second soloist, presents “Inside/Outside.”  These paintings represent visual complexity through the intersection of an exterior view with the reflection on glass of the interior space. The images are a metaphor for our layered existence, for what we look at but don’t see and the abundance it holds.  Kennedy has exhibited her sculpture, drawings and paintings nationally and internationally and has lived and worked in South America and Europe exhibiting unique, site-specific sculptures.  Her work is in the permanent collections of The Burchfield Penney Art Center (Buffalo, NY), The New Britain Museum of American Art, Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY), and Trinity College (Hartford, CT). As an artist/educator she has received numerous awards including the Greater Hartford Arts Council’s Individual Artist Fellowship Grant, a Fulbright Scholar Lecture/Research Award to Chile, a State of Connecticut Commission on the Arts Artists Project Grant, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award, multiple National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Grants and fellowships at Yaddo and MacDowell.

An opening reception for the three exhibits is on Saturday, April 22 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. The public is warmly invited to attend both this reception and the author reading on May 13.  There is no charge for either event.

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.