Student-faculty summer research inspires landscape painting exhibition on view in Rice Gallery

McDaniel College’s Esther Prangley Rice Gallery showcases a group exhibition of landscapes inspired by student-faculty summer research conducted by Steven Pearson, the Joan Develin Coley Chair in Creative Expression and the Arts, and Art majors Sarah Mendez, a junior from Damascus, Maryland, Lacy Newhouse, a junior from Westminster, Maryland, Zoe Shelby, a junior from North East, Maryland, and Mandy Smith, a sophomore from Cambridge, Maryland.

“Light and Color, Space and Place: Landscape Painting on Site and in the Studio” looks at “place” through landscapes both real and invented, painted en plen air and in the studio. The exhibition runs Tuesday, Nov. 7-Friday, Dec. 8. An opening reception takes place Thursday, Nov. 9, from 5:30-7:30 p.m., with a gallery talk beginning at 6 p.m.

According to Pearson, “Landscapes both rural and urban, showcasing subject matter that explores common threads and unique approaches to this traditional genre” are featured.

In addition to work by Pearson and the students, the exhibition includes selected works by members of the Baltimore Plein Air Club and the Susquehanna Valley Plein Air Painters in Pennsylvania. Members of the Baltimore Plein Air Club include Gavin Bromell, Cathy Cole, Mary Ann Clarendon, Jim McDonald, Lark McPhail, and Karen Winston-Levin. Cindy Baker, Donna Berk Burlap, Mary DePalma, Jean Frey, Susan Benigni-Landis, and Julie Riker represent the Susquehanna Valley Plein Air Painters.

Painters Hans Habeger of Chicago, Sean Sauer of Philadelphia, and Erin Raedeke of Washington, D.C., who feature plein air painting in their broader studio practice, also have works in the exhibition. Additionally, McDaniel College Provost Flavius Lilly showcases watercolor paintings featuring scenes of Baltimore and Nora Sturges, a painting professor at Towson University, exhibits select paintings from her “The View from the Road: Darwin”, an ongoing project that she began during the pandemic and explains that she is “using Google Street View to follow the route Charles Darwin took with the Beagle (1832-36) and making tiny, postcard-sized paintings of what I discover.” 

The exhibition and reception are both free and open to the public. The Esther Prangley Rice Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., and Saturday, noon-5 p.m. For more information, call 410-857-2595.