What to do during a pandemic? For artist Gaal Shepherd, the answer was obvious. “What else to do but paint alone?” Her energetic tenacity has resulted in not one but two shows running more or less concurrently at Norman Williams Library in Woodstock, Vermont and at AVA Gallery in Lebanon, New Hampshire.
A few years ago, I was seduced by Gaal’s landscapes of Ireland. She’s not done with them. They are the subject of PASTURE & SHORE: The Calm Side of the Wild West of Ireland at the Norman Williams Library’s Mezzanine Gallery (on view through October 30, 2023.)
Something different is going on at her exhibition FLATWORLD, recently opened at AVA Gallery in Lebanon NH. A departure, I asked? Her response:
It could seem like a departure because I tend to work in series. . . The landscapes of VT and Eire are so obviously compelling that for many years I couldn’t stop seeing yet another gorgeous angle. I still do, but now I am narrowing my world. It is more intimate and surprising.
The paintings on exhibition at AVA embrace nature but contrast with the vistas I had come to know. My eyes couldn’t easily decide where to go within the frame. Shepherd refers to this as “flattening the planes.”
Of course Cezanne was the “inventor” of the idea but he didn’t inspire me. What inspired me was a long-ago show by Clifford West’s painting students who were schizophrenic. . . . The background and foreground fought for pre-eminence in a very dramatic way. There was no way to focus. And yet—what beauty! Not only did I buy one to live with but I never forgot the feeling of angst vs. the divine.
Moreover, Gaal sees that her newest paintings, like “Golden Grasses” (photo, above), have been influenced by her early training and experience as a performer. (The bio on her website says that years ago Gaal helped create “The Slightly Raucous Caucus”-- a political satire comedy group, where she acted, wrote music and jokes, sang and became known around Washington DC “as a spot-on Rosalynn Carter.” And here I thought her wooden sculptures were the surprise.) She credits legendary acting teacher Stella Adler. “She [Adler] said when we were in a museum once, ‘Shhh! I want to hear the leaves blowing in the Corot.’ I find I can see drama in nature everywhere, daily. It involves abundant curiosity. Stella and other teachers fueled this.”
What beauty, indeed.
FLATWORLD is on view at AVA Gallery, 11 Bank Street, Lebanon, New Hampshire through October 6, 2023. For more information, click here. To learn more about PASTURE AND SHORE (including a quick peek) at the Norman Williams Library, click here.
(Photos courtesy of the artist)
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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.