Join us at Barn Gallery on Thursday, September 19th (at 6 PM) for a Barn Gallery Talk by our two Fall Exhibition Showcase Artists: Patricia Gerkin (Painter) and Merrill Black Aharonian (Painter).
Meet the artists, see their work, learn about their processes, and ask questions.
These insightful and inspiring Gallery Talks always provide further insight into our exhibitions and give attendees the chance to hear stories + learn tips and tricks from present day juried artist-members of the Ogunquit Art Association, Maine’s Original Artists’ Group (est. 1928).
This is a FREE event and it is open to the public.
Featured Image (above): (R) Patricia Gerkin; Among the Kelp; 12 x 24; encaustic, oil sticks, metal leaf on panel + (L) Merrill Black Aharonian; “Radiance” (detail), Acrylic and Paper, 29H x 36W
About Patricia Gerkin – Painter
About Pat Gerkin
Artist Statement
Although my work is deeply rooted in places and nature, I have chosen to commit to abstraction as my personal expression. I like to work in the crack between 2-D and 3-D, using paint or encaustic and disparate materials on various substrates. Mixed media gives me the opportunity to bring a sense of history and of unearthing a mystery into the current works. My visual vocabulary is rich in pattern and texture and a sense of something beneath the surface, and I am interested in topography–interior and exterior.
Artist Bio
Pat Gerkin’s abstract paintings and encaustics have been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows throughout the Washington, DC area and the Greater Boston and New England area. Her work is in public and private and museum collections in the U.S., South America, and Europe. Memberships include New Hampshire Artists’ Association, Robert Levy Gallery, Portsmouth, NH; Associate Artist, Torpedo Factory Art Center, Alexandria, VA; New England Wax (former); Ogunquit Artists’ Association, Barn Gallery, Ogunquit, ME. Galleries include Art3Gallery, Manchester, NH; L’Attitude Art, Allston, MA.
LEARN MORE: gerkinstudios.com
About Merrill Black Aharonian – Painter
Merrill Black’s essays have appeared in the New York Times, New York Press, UnderWired Magazine and in the anthologies Autobiographical Writing Across the Disciplines, published by Duke University Press and Becoming Portsmouth: Voices from a Half Century of Change, The History Press. In 2018, she gave a TEDx talk in Portsmouth, NH, titled “Embarrassed to death: The cost of shame’s silence.”
A 2003 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Creative Non-fiction, she taught Nonfiction Writing at Southern New Hampshire University and now helps students develop their college admissions essays through the Arthur Ashe Institute of Urban Health in Brooklyn, NY.
Merrill Aharonian circled back to visual art in her sixties. She uses collage, acrylics, charcoal and mixed media to explore landscape and figurative form. She is continually inspired by her husband Russell L. Aharonian, and artists everywhere.
She lives in Portsmouth, NH with her husband, seacoast artist Russell Aharonian. Merrill is currently working on a memoir about generational alcoholism intertwining the stories of a mother’s recovery and her son’s death from the disease, bearing witness to the powerful community, enduring sense of connection and surprising moments of joy that can emerge from addiction, recovery and loss.
LEARN MORE: merrillblack.com
Barn Gallery 2024: Exhibitions, Gallery Talks, Workshops, Demos, Auction, More…
Learn more about the Barn Gallery 2024 Schedule: barngallery.org/2024-season
