Opening Reception
Gavin Brooks, Joyce Johnson
Gavin Brooks’ Four Seasons: New England landscapes will feature a variety of plein air and large studio oils. An award-winning plein air painter, Gavin has been extensively featured in Plein Air Magazine. She attended the prestigious Schuler School of Fine Art in Baltimore. The school is steeped in the traditions of European classical painting and sculpture, with a focus on the fundamentals. The disciplines of cast drawing with vine charcoal, painting from the model, mandatory sculpture and intensive study of human anatomy saturate the students seven hours per day over four years. Gavin is a Signature Member in the National Academy of Professional Plein Air Painters and a member of Laguna Plein Air Painters Association, Mid-Atlantic Plein Air Painters Association and the Oil Painters of America. Lately, Gavin has been working on larger canvases on location and in her home studio in Maryland.
“I discovered that painting big compositions teaches me a lot about what I want to be seeing when I’m working outside. I spend extra time looking into shadows for cool temperature changes because larger paintings force me to deal with all kinds of subtleties.” Gavin doesn’t rely on photographs and says she gets the best information from field studies and her visual memory. “Some of my favorite works emerge from a combination of information gathered on location and the influence of my creative instincts for that moment.” She is the most recent Grand Prize winner of the Plein Air Easton National Competition.
After studying in Spain, Joyce Johnson graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston with honors and completed a graduate teaching fellowship there. Ms. Johnson then returned to the family home in North Eastham, starting the School of Sculpture that evolved into Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill. As Castle Hill’s founder and first president and director, she directed the Center for 10 years, turning over the non-profit educational institution to a membership- elected board in order to have more time for her own sculpture. Her new works will include drawings, abstract wood carvings and other sculptures focusing on the torso.
Ms. Johnson has had one-person shows in New England, including at the Cape Cod Conservatory, Cape Cod Museum of Art, Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, Annhurst College in Woodstock, Connecticut, and Central Connecticut State University. Her work has been in group shows including Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, Provincetown Art Association and Museum and Tanzer Gallery in NYC. Her work is in the permanent collection of the DeCordova Museum. Ms. Johnson has received reviews in New York Review, Cape Arts and the Boston Globe, among others. She has been commissioned for public sculptures for Probus Gardens in Cornwall, England, and at High Head public lands in North Truro as well as private portraiture.
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