Evans, Avery, Savage: 30 Years Under The Umbrella

Madeleine Evans, Lynn Avery, and Margaret Savage have each worked at The Umbrella Community Arts Center since it opened in 1983.  Their work, spanning over three decades, is as rich and varied as one could expect from three artists who have dedicated their lives to the creative process.

Madeleine Evans is a prolific artist with tremendous diversity of technique. While her early years were spent working as a sculptor, she went on to embrace a wide range of media. As with many of the great artists, her styles vary from one stage of life to the next demonstrating growth and a passion for experimentation. “I amuse myself with my art and am much less interested in marketing it”, says Evans. After years of study and the assimilation of numerous theories of color, line and brush stroke, the artist continues to work at her craft as well as spending some time cataloguing her work: sculptures, collages, paintings, monoprints, ceramics, assemblages and jewelry.

After exploring abstraction, Lynn Avery initiated a series based on” The Family of Man”, followed by a lengthy series exploring the naturally abstracted properties of trees entitled “The Sacred Forest”. As an environmental activist, the artist was and is deeply concerned about what is happening to our natural world. Her present work has her exploring natural abstraction again in paintings of the Universe based on photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope. The large scale of Lynn’s work allows the observer to experience rather than merely view the paintings’ subjects as well as the artist’s fine brushwork.

Margaret Savage’s paintings epitomize the marriage of complex composition with explosive color, made all the more vibrant with her use of complementary colors.  While her landscape paintings are the result of her extensive French travels, most of her still lifes are influenced by her thoughts, imagination, and experiences. “The objects I use are things in my studio that mean something to me or that have a particular shape I need for a painting. Using intervals of space to make everything work right together is like a game to me – it’s an amazing challenge to stand in front of nice big white empty canvas. I can’t wait to dive in.”

Evans, Avery, Savage will be on view from June 18 - August 12, 2015.  Join The Umbrella for the opening reception from 6:00-8:00 pm on Thursday, June 25 to celebrate these three artists and the arc of their work.