PUTNEY — "Portals," a series of abstract paintings by Liz Hawkes deNiord, is now on exhibit at Putney Public Library, 55 Main St., through Dec. 2.
"Liz's dynamic paintings reflect her immersion in the physical process as well as her love of saturated, radiant color and luminosity," the library said in a news release. "The paintings are both dreamlike and grounded. Her process is one of multiple layering, scraping, covering up, and building up heavily textured surfaces with palette knife and paint. The paintings emerge layered with pure colors creating an iridescent quality."
She says, "What lies beneath each one is essential to what one sees on the surface. Working mostly on large vertical canvases, the vertical alignment resonates as a physical presence. The paintings evolve through layers, through rotation of the canvas and through a suspended trust in the outcome to 'pay attention' consciously and unconsciously."
Liz Hawkes deNiord is a painter, ceramic artist, and educator, having taught for 38 years in Vermont, Connecticut, Iowa, and Virginia. Locally, she taught ceramics at The Putney School and drawing at Landmark College. For more than two decades, she taught Foundations in Art, sculpture, and ceramics at Brattleboro Union High School.
A studio art major and Asian studies minor in college, she took two masters degrees in education, one in learning disabilities, which enabled her to tutor and or teach in schools, prisons, and psychiatric hospitals, and the other in art education.
She works in her Westminster West studio and currently shows her work regionally in Manchester and Burlington, Vermont. For more information about her work, see lizhawkesdeniord.com.
The library will host an artist reception on Saturday, Oct. 21, from 1 to 3 p.m.
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