The 81st Annual Members’ Fine Art Exhibition opens Friday, July 26 with an opening reception from 5 – 7pm at the Rehoboth Art League in Henlopen Acres. This exhibition showcases artworks by over 100 Rehoboth Art League member artists in a wide variety of media including paintings in pastel, watercolor, acrylic, oil, and mixed media; sculptures; both digital and darkroom photography, and more. Following a long-standing tradition, a variety of awards of excellence, such as The Sarah Ethel Tunnell Award for Best in Show, The Mary Hall Leach Award for outstanding work, The Louise Chambers Award for excellence in sculpture, and, among others, The Faucett Okie Award for an emerging Delaware artist, will be presented at the opening reception.
This year’s awards judge is Leslie Shaffer, who is the Interim Executive Director at the Delaware Contemporary. Ms. Shaffer completed her undergraduate studies in the History of Art and Architecture at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and received her M.A. in Museum Studies from John F. Kennedy University in Berkeley, CA. She has held teaching positions at the Delaware College of Art and Design, Albertus Magnus College, and, among others, the Corcoran College of Art + Design. Ms. Shaffer has a long history in educational programs within museums and has served as the Curator of Education at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the Executive Director of ArtSpace in New Haven, CT. Join Ms. Shaffer at the Rehoboth Art League on Saturday, July 27th at 2pm for an informative gallery talk about her award-winning selections. She will shed light onto the process of judging such a large exhibition, as well as discuss some of the works chosen. She will also be available to speak to individual artists privately about their work. This gallery talk is supported, in part, by the Delaware Humanities.
Concurrent to the Members’ Fine Art opening will be an opening reception at the Homestead for Ethereal Ireland—works by Beth Trepper. “For a country boasting forty shades of green,” says Trepper, “it might seem odd to portray the beauty of Ireland in near-monochrome photography. But once I started to shoot these images, I was drawn to the timeless drama and haunting quality the infrared camera produces. Ireland is such an ancient, mystical place, steeped in history and folklore; the dreamlike properties of infrared, which converts green foliage to snowy white and people to ghost-like figures, seems to evoke the mood of my ancestral Irish heritage. I have traveled throughout Ireland nearly two dozen times. Each journey has brought new discoveries and familiar homecomings. Staying on farms in the wild Connemara region and the remote southwestern peninsulas has given me access to dramatic, breathtaking scenery, gregarious villagers and my very favorite pastimes: wandering aimlessly down a dirt road, stopping to talk to the animals or exploring the rugged coastline.”
Beth Trepper’s eclectic portfolio comprises fine art, fashion, portraiture, figurative, documentary, landscape and entertainment images. In more than 400 solo and group gallery exhibitions, she has shown her work extensively throughout the U.S., Ireland, Europe and the Caribbean, and has numerous book, magazine and newspaper publishing credits. Beth has won many photographic awards and in 2007 was inducted into the National League of American Pen Women in the Division of Arts. She was a founding member of the Brandywine Photo Collective in northern Delaware, a group of regional professional photographers. In 2017, Beth was awarded an Established Artist Fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a subsidiary of the National Endowment for the Arts.
For further information about the galleries at the Rehoboth Art League and the complete list of Awards for the 81st Annual Members Fine Art Exhibition please go to our website, www.RehobothArtLeague.org.
All of these events are free and open to the public. The Rehoboth Art League is located at 12 Dodds Lane, in Henlopen Acres. Gallery and Homestead hours are 10:00am – 4:00pm Monday through Saturday and Sunday 12:00pm-4:00pm. This organization is supported, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. The Division promotes Delaware arts events on www.DelawareScene.com. The opening reception is generously sponsored by Dogfish Head.
The Rehoboth Art League is a membership-based nonprofit arts organization dedicated to teaching, preserving and inspiring the arts in the region. For additional information on the Art League, its classes, events and exhibitions, visit the website at rehobothartleague.org or call 302.227.8408. Connect with us on Facebook and Instagram @RehobothArtLeague.
