Local artist Gloria Gustafson's stunning watercolor, acrylic, oil-on-canvas and mixed media works are featured in a new book authored by acclaimed York writer Rose Safran and produced by Peter E. Randall Publisher, LLC.
Courtesy photo
YORK - "I don't remember how young I was when I realized the play of light is never ending. Facing East, I once watched a sunset for over an hour while the colors in the sky meandered through most of the colors on my palette. Truly amazing!"
That is how York artist Gloria Gustafson describes her passion for light and color in her new book, "Gloria Gustafson: Maine Artist, Sunrise To Sunset," by Rose Safran.
Books are now on sale at the Village Gallery in York, and a book signing will be held there on April 26 from 3 to 7 p.m.
From the shades of sky and sea in the moments just before sunset over Long Sands Beach to the purple, pink and white hues of lupines in bloom; from abstract scenes inspired by moments of quietude to lighthouses, harbors and marshes, this book is filled with the beauty of the interior and exterior world, as filtered through the artist's eye and experience.
Authored by acclaimed local writer Rose Safran, the book is a journey through places as familiar to locals as the York Harbor waterfront and Portsmouth, N.H., with scenes from locations across Maine as well as abstract-influenced paintings inspired, as is noted in the book, by "quiet times and quiet places as well as inner passion."
The book also features some of Gustafson's commissioned works, including stunning oil-on-canvas and acrylic-on-canvas paintings capturing the natural beauty and brilliant colors of irises, lilies and country gardens.
Matched perfectly with each image from Gustafson's immense assemblage of works are Safran's evocative descriptions. She captures the communities where landscapes were painted, conveys biographical information on the artist's connection to the places, plants or buildings featured in her artwork or includes excerpts from works of famous poets and philosophers that seem to have been written especially for Gustafson's artwork.
Safran writes, for example, "According to Gloria Gustafson, the nature of the iris is such that it offers the artist an endless variety of artistic approaches" to accompany reproductions of Gustafson's stunning flowers.
"Sunset on York's Cape Neddick River at the close of day, the sun playing with colors until darkness overtakes all," Safran writes alongside Gustafson's haunting oil-on-canvas entitled Cape Neddick Sunset, and, "During the 1800s, schooners moved freely along the York River inland all the way to Sewall's Bridge, the only bridge on the river at the time. It was a time when life was more simple" accompanies Gustafson's York: 1880s painting, which was derived from a photograph of that era.
As Heartwood College of Art Photography Department Chairman Stuart Nudelman put it, "It is the magical quality of Gustafson's art that enables it to reach into forgotten universes of the viewer and bring forth the moody experience and energy of nature in a way that is accessible to a broad audience on varying levels of reality and abstraction."
As Safran notes in the book's introduction, Gustafson "works predominantly in watercolor and oil, although she also creates mixed media works of art - most reflecting various aspects of her home state."
Gustafson, who is well known in York and throughout Maine for both landscape and expressionist paintings, was born in Augusta and raised in Bath, moving to York in 1968. A member of the York Art Association, Gustafson opened the Village Gallery on York Street in 1999 with several other local artists. For more information on the April 26 book-signing event, call the gallery at 351-3110.
For more about Gustafson and her artwork, visit www.gustafsonoriginals.com.
