Welcome To Our Virtual Curated Gallery

The four artists in the virtual exhibition are Audrey Yee Fink, Ed Horvath, Fred Marshall and Concetta Volpe. They are all plein air painters who paint in the Garden State of New Jersey. The exhibition is about the beauty and the many moods of winter with each artist contributing their own version of it, but all reveal a similar search and persevere in winters multifaceted beauty in the Garden State.

The Paintings are done both in plein air and in the studio. Plein air is painting outside on location. The studios' paintings are painted using their plein air studies as a reference for a larger studio painting.

They are painters who paint winter landscapes. As plein air painters they find beauty in every season. One season that all these artists find unique is winter. They are seeking out the challenge of searching for color in barren land as notes in a song. In the bleak, barren, and cold landscape, bare trees and shrubs reveal their colors. Some branches are in shades of red, dormant forsythias are more orange, the green grasses of summer are hues of yellow. Evergreens such as reddish-green cedars, blue-grey pines, boxwood, and holly pop out against the grey barren land and the snow. Ice is a greyish yellow and shadows are blue on sunlit snow juxtaposed against ultramarine blue streams, a winter blue sky, and the monochrome colors of the snowy, misty day. The Garden States Ramapo Mountains provide a beautiful backdrop for the flat plains. The artists listen to the honks of Ringwood’s swans and geese. The artists ask what is brighter, the swan or the snow? In no other season can you see such a blue tree shadow on a pond as in Concetta Volpe’s “Morning Sunlight on Frozen Pond.” Audrey Fink shows the beauty of frozen water united with bare leafless shrubs in “Icy Creek.” Ed Horvath’s “Frozen Pond” is a beautiful, desaturated palette of warm grey, red, yellow, and blue. Fred Marshall shows the vivid winter blue sky against a dark tree line and white snow with blue shadows.

They paint not for money and not for awards. They show up because their heart is in it. They are devoted to their landscapes. Winter calls and they answer by showing up on early freezing cold mornings and evenings,  with winds blowing they trek in deep snow and ice, hands numb and feet numb standing on the cold snow. Warm layers of clothing are not enough to sustain more than one hour standing still in the cold. Oil paint goes on the canvas or panel with quick and spontaneous brushstrokes as revealed in their paintings. Some areas are thick and some thin. They paint in plein air because it stays in their memories of which they take back into the comfort of their studios where they paint all the while with the memory of the day and the study as a reference. They humbly but enthusiastically show their paintings of the many moods and harmonies of winter in the Garden State.

Side image: "Backyard Winter"  W 7 x H 14 by Fred Marshall
Cover image: "Greenhouse" W 10 x H 8 by Concetta Volpe