The “Explorations!” photographic and mixed media exhibit opens at Studio Walsh in Estate Peters Rest, Christiansted, on Friday, March 3, with a reception from 5 pm to 8 pm.
The artistic team of local photographer and painter Toni Lance and visiting photographer Don Boyarski will show their new works through March 18.
Boyarski’s artist talks on Saturday, March 4, at 11 am will provide an opportunity for community engagement. Regular gallery hours are Wednesdays through Saturdays, 10 am to 3 pm and by appointment.
Lance is well-known for many years for photographing, painting, and rehabilitating birds on St. Croix. She has had a number of one-woman shows from 2003 through 2014 with watercolors, oils, and photographs as her mediums of choice. Her art is boldly composed, highly detailed creations that are inspired by the animals she works so closely with.
Growing up in California, Lance began studying and drawing wildlife at a young age. She received a photographic scholarship from Laguna Beach Festival of Arts to attend college. Her education ran the gamut from studying Waste Management and Photography at Humboldt State University to a Biomedical Illustration program at Long Beach State. Lance’s passion for wildlife took her to many places with an interest always in birds.
In 1980, Lance moved to St. Croix where she continued her bird art. She became enchanted with the colors, architecture and people of the Caribbean, and began painting and showing many of the scenes that captivated her. She continues to paint, photograph, and run the St. Croix Avian Sanctuary.
“Explorations!” will reveal Lance’s new work in mixed media. She is notably the only artist on island who has been able to consistently fill the large exhibition space at Studio Walsh with new paintings on a regular basis.
In the Explorations exhibit, Lance will share the gallery with her friend and fellow artist Don Boyarski, who will show his photographic montages.
Boyarski is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. He holds an MFA in Graphic Design from Indiana University and a BA in Art/Design from Saint John’s University in Collegeville, MN, and completed post-graduate studies in graphic design and film animation at the School of Design in Basel, Switzerland.
Boyarski’s long tenure at Carnegie Mellon (1982-2017) enabled him to collaborate on a wide variety of projects, and in the spring of 1999, the Design Management Institute awarded him the Muriel Cooper Prize for “outstanding achievement in advancing design, technology, and communications in the digital environment.”
Boyarski has always been a photographer. He began as a kid with a Brownie Box camera taking snapshots of siblings and the family dog. In the 1970s he graduated to a 35mm SLR camera.
“With a decent camera,” he said, “I was able to capture the world in a different way. I no longer took pictures to document people or events – I began to focus on capturing light and shadow, colors and textures.”
Being a designer and an artist, Boyarski pushed the visual structure of individual images of pictures he had taken in the Forbidden City in Beijing.
Pushing them even further, he began to take pieces of the photos and digitally move and combine them to form a new single image.
The process is spontaneous, he notes. And at the same time offers endless opportunity for refinement, as it is all done digitally.
Boyarski’s frequent visits to St. Croix, over the years, have included many hours of photographing the island with his focus on color, texture, light, and shadow.
Patrons are sure to delight in the montages that will truly reflect Boyarski’s EXPLORATIONS of St. Croix and Lance’s new works in mixed media.
For more information:
340-332-2504
tonilance.com
“Under Her Wings” on Vimeo
Directions to Studio Walsh: Off Constitution Hill Rd. (Route 70) behind Coca-Cola in Peters Rest.
