For Linda Rzoska, she finds her muse in trees -- great, craggy trees. For Ellen VanderMyde, her muse can be found in the faces of loved ones. For both artists, it is the life presence they find in their muses that inspires them to paint. The two are exhibiting their art in a partnership, called Presence, at the Eastend Studio & Gallery in Marshall, Michigan.
“I happened to be visiting Ellen’s studio with a group of other artists,” says Rzoska. “I knew I had this show coming up at Eastend Studio & Gallery. I thought Ellen’s work would be a perfect match for my work. The colors and the presence of the artwork—and it was Ellen who decided to name the exhibition Presence.”
“I came up with the title Presence by looking through Linda’s work and mine and considering the pieces,” says VanderMyde. “But then reading through both of our artist statements, I realized that both bodies of work are revealing the presence of something that is alive. I started to see both our work as two sides of the same coin, two different approaches revealing the same thing.”
VanderMyde says this particular body of work for her—titled separately as Before the Light Leaves Us—came after a time in her life when she had lost several family members and was coping with grief.
“In the studio, I was craving the intimacy and the connection when I am working on portraits,” she says. “I spent a year working on this series and discovered that grief and joy are linked.”
For Rzoska, her artwork often focuses on trees and landscapes.
“As a child, I lived on a dead-end street,” she says. “The street had a wooded ravine. It was during the 1950s, so it was pretty safe for a child to wander around and my parents allowed me to do that. I spent most of my time, when I wasn’t in school, in that ravine, in that wooded area.”
For Rzoska, the trees took on personalities, and she felt a life-long relationship grow. When she draws or paints trees, she says she is indeed creating portraits.
The art show for the two artists continues through May 24th at the Eastend Studio & Gallery, 143 West Michigan Avenue, downtown Marshall, Michigan.
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