Cooperstown NY—The Art Garage is offering a series of free Artists’ Talks to accompany its current exhibition, Star Power Painting.

The show features three accomplished artists, Deborah Geurtze, Tracy Helgeson and Lilian Voorhees. Each established artist’s truly distinctive art is familiar to area art-lovers, who are always eager to see their latest work, currently on view at 689 Beaver Meadow Road, Cooperstown /Middlefield.

Rural Hartwick artist, Lilian Voorhees, kicks off the three-part series on Thursday June 8 at 5PM with a talk about her powerful abstract oil paintings, and how she got there from the Upstate-inspired mostly organic tableaux in her previous Art Garage shows. She will also participate in the Artists Panel Discussion on Wednesday July 5, at 5PM, when all three artists plan to discuss their processes and more in a panel format. Reservations optional but recommended, as seating is limited. Call 607-547-5327, text / call 315-941-9607 or email LeArtGarage@gmail.com

The second program in the series will be Thursday June 15 at 5PM, featuring renaissance artist, Deborah Geurtze.

The third, Wednesday July 5, 5pm, is an Artists Panel with all of the artists participating. The Star Power Painting exhibition is open Saturdays 11am-3pm and every day with a text or call to 315-941-9607.

The Finale Day of the show is Saturday July 15. Light refreshments provided at the talks.

As always, guests are reminded to park on the gallery lawns, not on the town road. Free admission.

MORE ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:

All three well-known artists have an individualistic, distinctive vocabulary that has richly evolved over several decades. Deborah Geurtze, who divides her time between the Adirondacks, the Capital Region and Boston’s North Shore, will feature magnificent, richly-textured large landscapes layered with loose and luscious brushstrokes, installed in the Middle Bay. Tracy Helgeson, originally from Minnesota but now settled on a farm near Springfield, NY, will offer radiant iconic rural tableaux, a kind of soft-focus magic realism, her brushwork all but invisible.Lilian Voorhees, whose work is perhaps the least often shared with the general public, will present a new body of work comprising stunning richly-abstract compositions, devoid of the natural world influences subtly discernible in her previous work.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

LILIAN VOORHEES grew up outside Philadelphia and earned her BFA at the Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, in the early 1970s, a formative time of art-making in the US and internationally. She moved to TriBeCa in Manhattan, then an industrial area where artists could afford to live before it was “discovered.” She exhibited exclusively at the Andre Zarre Gallery in New York’s Chelsea district until she permanently moved to the hills of Hartwick, NY, with artist husband, James Herman. Though rooted in abstraction, her oil paintings began to reflect the lay of the land on their Hartwick farm, that she thematically divided into ‘woodlands’, ‘wetlands’ and ‘gardens’. Today they are unabashedly abstract, endlessly inventive patterns created by the tension between “intuition, intention, control and its loss…. [witness to the] turns, exits, and entrances of the unexpected…..the dialogue between me, the painter, and my painting.” Like Tracy Helgeson, also in Star Power Painting, she regularly exhibits her ambitious and very beautiful work at the Art Garage, as it continues to evolve in intriguing and exciting ways. Please see FB / Instagram ArtGarageCooperstown for images and more information.