SARANAC LAKE — Featured Artist Georgeanne Gaffney taps the romantic and dreamy side of her works in “Luminance,” which opens Dec. 1 at the Adirondack Artist Guild in Saranac Lake.
A reception will be held on Friday, Dec. 1 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the gallery located at 52 Main St. Saranac Lake. The show closes on Dec. 31.
A Marylander, Gaffney majored in Studio Art at Towson University.
She moved to California in the mid-’90s and started doing decorative finishes and murals out there.
Gaffney relocated back to Maryland and continued that.
“When Peter and I moved here, 19 years ago, I was still doing the decorative finishes, but that’s when I started going my fine art again.”
In “Luminance,” Gaffney departs from her traditional realism landscapes and portraits.
“I wanted to work a little bit more stylized and looser and do more with the materials themselves,” she said.
“As I was moving my studio, I came across some sheets of copper. So, I looked into painting copper. Then, I thought, oh, I have some paintings already on gold leaf. Then, I wondered if I had some silver leaf, which I do.
“So I started just doing all my boards in gold leaf and silver leaf and working very loosely on top of the metal or the gilding and then doing my sanding process, which kind of blurs the subject matter and gives its texture and shows the texture of the leaf.”
Gaffney repeats the process of sanding, painting, sanding, painting.
“Which is the process I’ve always done with my regular traditional landscape paintings, but this time incorporating the gilding underneath and working in a looser fashion,” she said.
“So, it’s been a lot of fun working in a new way and kind of getting a different result.”
The exhibit features mostly acrylics on gilding on wood panels.
“But, I also have some oils on copper and oils on sheet metal,” she said.
“There are small little pieces from people who do welding. They are like six-by-six, and they have curled edges. Then I painted them a red and antiqued them.
“There is one landscape. There’s a couple that I’m like kind of playing with. I’m not sure, but a lot of them are flowers and water lilies and they are much more simple almost.”
There are approximately 15 works ranging in size from 8 feet on gilded panels to mini gilded waterlily and floral pieces the size of a business card, and everything in between.
“Then, I also have about maybe 10 little small business-size card, little minis, I call them,” she said.
Gaffney has been a Guild member on and off for about 15 years.
“Each of us get one month to be the featured artist,” she said.
“Normally each of us have a section in the Guild that’s like 8 feet wide, but when you’re the Featured Artist you get the whole back wall, which is much bigger so you can put together more of an exhibit. It just worked out that I had December this year.”
The Adirondack Artists Guild is a cooperative retail art gallery representing a diverse group of artists residing and working in the Tri-Lakes region of the Adirondack Park.
The gallery is located at 52 Main St, Saranac Lake, 518 891-2615. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., and 11 a.m. — 3 p.m. on Sundays. The Guild is on Facebook, Instagram, and on the web at www.adirondackartistsguild.com.