Featured Artists
Chestnut Hill Gallery Presents critically acclaimed local artists showcasing area images
Susannah Hart Thomer
Susannah
works primarily in watercolor, studying to understand and experience the
basic nature of the medium’s intricacies that always result in great satisfaction
for her. A Moore College of Art graduate, Susannah is a signature member
of several national watercolor societies and also volunteers for local art
organizations. Currently, for example, she is Editor of a monthly newsletter
for the Greater Norristown Art League in Norristown.
Susannah has been involved
with the art world since graduating from college. She is represented in several
galleries, has illustrated children’s books, designed professional magazine
covers, and participated in painting several outdoor sculpture pieces, including
Chestnut Hill’s “Ab-zoo-lutely.” Recently, her commission work has been focused
on creating pen & ink and/or watercolor
house portraits and murals for private and public settings. Examples can
be seen on her website:
www.susannaharthomer.com.
“Having roots in Chestnut Hill, I have returned many times to paint the beauty and uniqueness of the area which lends itself to my style of artwork.”
Susan Schary
Susan Schary is a world-renowned artist whose lushly painted
and realistic images have been gracing the walls of private collectors as
well as institutions throughout the world for more than forty years. Her
portraits hang in universities, Judges' chambers, courthouses, businesses
and private homes which span the country and cross the seas to Europe, Japan,
and Saudi Arabia. Schary's youth was spent studying art at many different
Philadelphia art institutions including the Museum School of Philadelphia,
the Philadelphia Art Museum, and the Fleisher Art Memorial. At age seventeen,
Scary began private study with the great Russian artist Vladimir Shatalov.
She received a BA from Tyler School of Art cum laude, where she earned the
Dean's Prize for Painting. Schary has received numerous awards and honors
from Philadelphia area institutions and city departments, including an Award
of Honor from the Tyler Alumni Association for her contributions in her field
and was given a thirty-five year retrospective exhibition held at Temple
University in 1993. Schary also served on the Faculty of Fleisher Art Memorial,
where she was awarded the B.W. Gottleib Memorial Prize. She has had several
one-woman exhibits and numerous high-profile portrait commissions. "For
me, art is an expression of love. Our feelings are as individual as we are.
Our emotions are our own private fusions with sensations, experiences, loves,
hates, politics, fears, and strengths. And these precious affirmations of
individual humanness is what my art is all about. I bring to you who view
my work, an expression of my love of nature, humanity, color and form and
the very essence of the medium, all with one purpose: to move and stir the
very depths of you
Bill Roberts
Bill Roberts was raised on a dairy farm in Wales. From an early
age, he enjoyed drawing and attended Shrewsbury School of Art. He later graduated
from the University of Wales with a Bachelor of Architecture with Distinctions
in 1957. He worked as an architect in London and then earned a scholarship
to the Graduate School of Fine Arts, University of Pennsylvania. He was appointed
to faculty at University of Pennsylvania where he later formed a professional
firm offering services in architecture, urban planning, and landscape architecture
known as Wallace, Roberts and Todd. After forty years if professional practice,
he retired to concentrate on developing his skills as a painter, by working
in watercolor with several professional painters. Although I have used
acrylics, pastels, and oils, I am most intrigued with the luminescence of
transparent watercolors. It yields surprises and challenges, and I find the
heritage of great watercolor artists of both Britain and the USA to be an
inspiration.
Alex Forbes
Born in Paisley, Scotland, Alex Forbes has worked as a graphic designer
and illustrator, and he has been working as an art teacher, a portrait and
landscape painter and an illustrator since moving to Oreland in 1992. His
watercolors are resplendent with detail, light and a strong sense of atmosphere.
Eleanor Day
Eleanor Day is a professional painter living in Mt. Airy, a PA Academy of Fine Arts Graduate, specializing in figurative and portrait work, often with the theme of women, children and nature. www.eleanorday.com
Anne Buckwalter
Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Anne Buckwalter is an undergraduate BFA student in painting and drawing at Tyler School of Art. In 2008, she graduated from Temple University’s Rome Program. The same year, she received the West Award for Creative Achievement.
Italian landscape and architecture have been a heavy influence on her work and process, and she has been incorporating details of the subject matter into her paintings for the past couple of years. While a considerable bit of her work revolves around landscape, Buckwalter also deals with narrative subjects, and she draws from her imagination as well as from life. She works mostly in oils and pen and ink illustration, frequently combining the two mediums. Her paintings have been featured in exhibitions in Philadelphia and Lancaster since 2005. Anne currently paints and lives in Elkins Park, PA.