The Olney Gallery at Trinity Episcopal Church is featuring one of the most appealing exhibits I’ve enjoyed since the beginning of the year, with Marissa Vidrio as one of the artists whose works are being featured here until September 28th. Vidrio has an incredible talent for combining printmaking with mixed media. While traditional printmaking is most associated with etching or engravings, some artists such as Vidrio have also created impressive works on paper, fabric or other surfaces. Vidrio’s art is heavily inspired by the gorgeous, vibrant colors of the Sonoran Desert – particularly during the spring, and many of her works featured at the Olney Gallery focus on this.
Her works are spellbinding in the way she uses color with the interplay of light and shadow, reflecting a deep appreciation of desert plants and landscapes. Vidrio’s use of pastels are especially mesmerizing in how she captures the pinkish-orange mystique of immense desert skies (pictured below). I can only imagine the devotion, energy, talent, time and patience required to create such memorable and timeless art that captures the constant springtime regeneration of Sonoran Desert flora which has occurred for millennia.
Vidrio’s impressions are very lush, and even the warmer colors seem to offer a feeling of coolness and serenity in her desert images – an agreeable, refreshing feeling in what is usually a harsh climate much of the year. She also dramatically captures desert plants with delightful combinations of green, purple, pink and orange that tingle the senses. The painting below is especially titillating with its glowing, eye-popping colors.
These are just a sampling of the wonderful paintings by Marissa Vidrio currently on exhibit for September. For further information about this artist and others who have had exhibits at the Olney Gallery, check out: http://facebook.com / Olney Gallery at Trinity Cathedral. Other sites to look into about Marissa Vidrio are:
http://www.instagram.com /Studio Artology
