Our Spring 2021 exhibit focuses on four female botanical artists. They each celebrate the beauty and inspiration of Mother Nature in their unique ways.

As a lover of nature, Cara Enteles subtly addresses environmental issues that plague our natural world. These include declining numbers of pollinating animals, such as monarch butterflies, birds, bees and bats. She believes that nature has an amazing ability to right itself, given the chance. “I aim to make the work positive and want it to be an advocate for nature.” We will be featuring, Where’d You Go Karner Blue, focused on on the Karner Blue Butterfly and created with recycled aluminum cans.

The exhibit includes new gallery artist Rebecca Swanson and her Prismatica series. Swanson “paints” with her camera, blending the abstract forms of nature with subtle colors to build intimate portraits of perfect, individual blooms. The Prismatica series which are focused on the flower's center. They have a kaleidoscope sense of motion and a wonderful sensual quality.

We are featuring for the first time Connecticut Artist, Deborah Weiss with work from the “Blooms” series. According to Weiss, “Blooms is a celebration of the contemporary botanical image. I have used my own dyed and painted papers for these hand-cut collages. Choosing to interpret the textures and organic shapes in blue and white is in reverence to the rich history of this color pairing. First in China and later in Europe, blue and white wares were treasured. Taking the bloom formations a step further, I am also pursuing multiple color palettes and the inclusion of vintage papers.”

The exhibit will also include a new series of 2020 Mixed Media monoprints by Cynthia MacCollum.

About the Artists: Cara Enteles’s work is inspired by environmental issues and attempts to raise awareness of the harmful impact humans can have on nature and wildlife. To create an intricate play of light and depth in her work, Enteles paints on aluminum panels, as well as acrylic sheets using both sides with a backing of gold mirror. The combination of reflective sheen, transparency and opacity, which changes according to the viewer’s position, mimics the shifting quality of light in nature. The human impulse to conquer and control nature has been a consistent theme in Enteles’s work.

Awards and honors include the Art in Embassies Program at the American Embassy in Mauritius; a fellowship to the Julia & David White Artist’s Colony; a studio at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts; and a grant from the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance Fellowship for the Visual Arts. She received a BFA from Parsons School of Design and has studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Her work is in private and public collections around the world.

Cynthia MacCollum, according to Connecticut painter and printmaker, Cynthia MacCollum, "I find inspiration in fragments of nature held close for reflection. I employ a personal vocabulary of fluid marks and organic imagery to express the sensual pleasure and ephemeral quality of the natural world. Within this realm, my work varies from representational to abstract, and I am continuously moving along the continuum between the two."

Her work has been exhibited throughout the world since 2010. She received her BA from Washington University in St. Louis and continued her art education at Fashion Institute of Technology (NY), Santa Reparata International School of Art (Florence, Italy) and Center for Contemporary Printmaking (Norwalk, CT). Her studio is in New Canaan, CT.

Rebecca Swanson’s work is inspired from her childhood in Ohio, growing up with her mother, an avid gardener, and her grandmother, an accomplished china painter. Swanson studied drawing, painting, photography, and sculpture at the Cleveland Institute of Art and moved to New York to work as a textile designer.

She has been exhibiting since 1995. Her photographs can be found in Private and corporate collections including Banana Republic, St. Regis, Marriott and Omni hotels and in hospitals throughout the country.

Deborah Weiss is a visual artist creating both works on panel and paper. According to Deborah, "The energy of the natural world is both highly charged and subtle simultaneously. My work is an exploration of the exchange between nature's elements, terrain, plant life and atmosphere. The work begins spontaneously one gesture at a time, editing takes place as the work unfolds. There is a layering and excavation process as I work. Each layer informs the next both concealing and revealing information. As in the natural world randomness and order coexist."

She has exhibited throughout the United States and has been included in several international exhibitions taking place in China, Sweden, Italy, England and Denmark. Weiss’ works are also included in numerous private and corporate collections including Mattatuck Museum, Fidelity Investments, Ritz-Carlton Hotel and Shenzhen Hotel. She was born in New York and now maintains a studio and residence in Connecticut.