This painting, ‘Storytime’, is the signature image of the ‘All Paintings Great and Small’ exhibition, which opens tonight at The Cooley Gallery.

The Cooley Gallery hosts an opening reception for the annual holiday exhibition All Paintings Great and Small this evening from 5 to 8 p.m.

The exhibition features historic and contemporary works of art 12″ in size or smaller and for many in the area, this annual exhibition and opening celebration, which features 30 artists for its 30th year, has become an undisputed kick-off to the holiday season. Artists from around the country, with a concentration of works by artists in Connecticut, participate in this annual show.

For this year’s exhibition, the gallery is featuring select works by 30 contemporary artists. Each artist has been given “a wall” for their work. Gallery owner Jeff Cooley notes, “This show will be 30 little exhibitions within the holiday exhibition of select small works of art — these will be in addition to the upstairs gallery hung with historic small paintings. This slightly modified approach will offer an immediate overview of an artist’s work and may make this wonderfully large show a little bit easier to navigate.”

As in years past, All Paintings Great and Small offers a wide variety of subjects and media carefully chosen by the staff at the gallery.  Three of the four galleries at 25 Lyme Street are hung “salon-style” with multiples by each artist hung from floor to ceiling and a wealth of varied artwork. Prices range from the low hundreds on up giving collectors at all levels a chance to acquire some truly wonderful original works of art.

In addition to the holiday show the gallery will feature recent acquisitions and paintings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

As in years past, All Paintings Great and Small offers a wide range of subjects and media carefully chosen by the staff at the gallery. Cooley notes, “We are a small operation. Everyone gets involved in everything here but especially with this exhibition: discovering artists and choosing their favorites. Lorre Broom, our gallery manager, orchestrates the logistics and artists. Nancy Pinney our website guru and an artist in her own right, makes sure the images are perfect and gets it all posted in time for people to get a start on their holiday shopping.”

The galleries at 25 Lyme Street are hung “salon-style” with multiples from floor to ceiling, and a wealth of varied artwork. Prices range from the low hundreds on up giving collectors at all levels a chance to acquire some truly wonderful original works of art.  The other exhibition in the back gallery features recent acquisitions, paintings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The show runs through Jan. 7, 2017.

Founded in 1981 and located in the heart of historic Old Lyme, the Cooley Gallery specializes in fine American paintings from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, including the Hudson River School, American Impressionism, and select contemporary artists.

Visitors are welcome and encouraged Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays 12 to 4 p.m. or online anytime at www.cooleygallery.com

Jan Dilenshneider (right) discusses her work with writer and art critic Nicole Prevost Logan

This is the final week to view artist Jan Dilenschneider’s stunning exhibition titled, “4th Dimension,”which comprises 30 of her recent works on view in the Sill House Gallery at Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts of the University of New Haven.  The not-to-be-missed exhibit will run through the end of the day on Saturday, Nov. 12.

Dilenschneider gave a fascinating talk Oct. 27 to a large audience of artists and art-lovers.  An engaging public speaker, she was both amusing and articulate, and her audience was clearly captivated by her remarks.  

Explaining that the title of her exhibition speaks to her wish to invoke the participation of viewers into her paintings, Dilenschneider expressed her hope that the “4th Dimension” will, “keep you guessing,” thus creating a desire to look longer at her paintings and therefore experience a more intense emotional reaction to them.  

She mentioned the Leonardo da Vinci technique of sfumato that she uses in which a fine shading is meant to produce a soft transition — in her words, “the mystery of the shadows,” — between colors and tones.  Dilenschneider described the overall effect of the technique as  creating an image that is, “misty in the distance.”

A view of Dilenschneider’s “Impressionist Room” within the Sill House gallery.

Dilenschneider talked first to her audience in what she dubbed the “Impressionist Room” in the Sill House Gallery before moving into the second room where more of her abstract pieces are hung, including a vertical triptych.  She describes herself as, “An Expressionist who like Impressionism,” saying, “One cannot exist without the other.”

Some of her main themes were — to quote Confucius — that “there is nothing that does not have beauty in it.” She expands on that philosophy saying what everything you see around you is, in reality, “a work of art from which one can pull out the aesthetic.”  She notes there are four main themes to her work, “Color, relationship, design and gesture,” adding, “Color is the joy … gesture is the passion.”

Jan Dilenschneider stands in front of two of her paintings in the Sill House Gallery.

Dilenschneider often does paintings in pairs … or more, noting, “If you find a motif you like, paint it and paint it and paint it again …”  She is also captivated by color, saying, “I work on color … the theory of color … what is known as, ‘simultaneous contrast,'” adding, “If you get [the right] two [colors] together, they sing,” or to put it another way, she likes the colors to “vibrate” together by the juxtaposition of strong, clear or complimentary color schemes.

Dilenschneider’s vibrant landscape paintings, inspired by a passionate confluence of impressionist and expressionist styles, speak to the Old Lyme landscape that gave birth to American Impressionism. This idyllic setting is as appealing to artists today as it was when viewed over a century ago by Barbizon School painter Henry Ward Ranger, who called it a “landscape waiting to be painted.”

Lyme Academy College Campus Dean Todd Jokl chats with the artist during the Opening Reception.

Emerging from a family of artists, Dilenschneider has painted all her life.  Yet, she never had a desire to exhibit or sell her work until the spring of 2013, when a friend insisted on buying two paintings.

Soon afterward her studio doors opened to the world. She was offered a solo show at the prestigious Galerie Pierre-Alain Challier in Paris’ historic Le Marais district, which started a remarkable chain of events: Three additional annual solo gallery shows in Paris followed by a solo museum show at the Bellarmine Museum in Fairfield, Conn. that broke attendance records.

Recently, she exhibited at the Art Paris Art Fair at the Grand Palais and the European Art Fair – Monaco (EAF-Monaco), which opened on July 19th at the Grimaldi Forum in Monte-Carlo. In addition to her participation in the Art Paris Art Fair and EAF Monaco, Dilenschneider will also be among the artists who will be part of a trip to Toledo, Spain, this fall under the auspices of the Springfield Museums in Springfield, Mass.

Paintings on display in Dilenschneider’s “Abstract Room.”

Dilenschneider’s training includes studying at the North Shore Art League in Chicago, the National Academy of Design in New York and the Silvermine Art Center in Connecticut.  She has a BS in Fine Arts Education from Ohio State University.

Since she started exhibiting her work three years ago, Dilenschneider has sold more than 50 of her paintings, and developed a unique style of expressionistic painting.  Her inspiration comes from the ever-changing landscape around her Connecticut home on Long Island Sound. Living by the sea, she is inspired by shore grasses bending in the breeze, blue skies reflected in the cool water and extraordinary trees silhouetted against green lawns.

Lyme Academy College Vice President of Development Fritz Jellinghaus, who conceived the idea of the exhibition, stands with the artist.  Both are members of the Connecticut Arts Council.

Philanthropic work is also an essential part of Dilenschneider’s life. She is a member of the board of the Connecticut Arts Council and is also a board member of Family Centers, Inc. in Greenwich, Conn. and Catholic Charities. She has been honored with the Helen Gratz Rockefeller Award for Outstanding Volunteerism and the Family Champion Award from the Connecticut Council of Family Service Agencies. She has also been honored by the Catholic Academy of Bridgeport for her artwork and her service.

Visitors to the exhibit view Dilenschneider’s work in both galleries of the Sill House.

Dilenschneider established the Janet Hennessey Dilenschneider Scholar Rescue Award in the Arts, which is administered by the Institute of International Education (IIE), a world leader in the international exchange of people and ideas that oversees the Fulbright Scholars program and helps rescue artists from countries in turmoil. The program she created with IIE recently relocated a Syrian artist and her family to New Jersey, where the Syrian is now a professor at Montclair State University and has applied for political asylum.