Navigation

Painting South of the Clouds in the Middle Kingdom

Barnsite Gallery and Linden’s Gallery are finalizing plans for a three-week oil painting trip to Southwestern China in April 2008 that includes a nationwide contingency from the Oil Painters of America (OPA) organization.

The objective of the trip is to sketch and paint in the ethnic minority areas where many of China’s 80 tribes live and maintain their traditional dress, culture, foods and family life. The group will be hiking into remote villages with painting equipment and will have access to private homes and families in their normal living atmosphere.

OPA member, and Group Spokesperson Marci Oleszkiewicz, commented that the painting group will be joined by an equal number of Chinese painters for direct plein air painting. China has maintained and developed a strong painting interest and extensive academic arts programs in historic and contemporary painting. They have relied strongly on Russia and the Soviet Union to train hundreds of their fine art professors for their prominent art education programs since the nineteen thirties.

At the end of the trip, a major joint exhibition of paintings for Chinese art collectors will be held in the Capital of the Yunnan Province.

OPA participants include: Norma and Dick Bell, WI; Jan Brough, VT; Gene Costanza, OR; Susan Diehl, AZ; Cynthia Hamilton, CA; Frances Johnson, IL; Nancy King Mertz, IL; Ned Mueller, WA; Kathleen Newman, IL; Marcie Oleszkiewicz, IL; Susan Ploughe, IL; Elizabeth Pollie, MI; Dianna Shyne, WA; Scott Tallman Powers, IL; and Carol Lee Thompson, MD.

American art collectors will be presented with a Wisconsin Exhibition of works from the trip at the Barnsite Gallery, Kewaunee and the Linden’s Gallery in Ellison Bay and Madison, WI, in the fall of 2008. The Kewaunee Academy of Fine Art and Linden’s Cultural Center in Yunnan, China are the hosts of the trip.

For more information visit http://www.lindensgallery.com or http://www.barnsiteartstudio.com.