Ee Oh Lay: Through the Woods: Presented by By Hand Gallery features the mixed media paintings and drawings by mother and son team Kay and Kurt Eagleman on Friday, June 3rd, from 5–8 pm for Gallery Walk, Bloomington.
Bloomington, Ind. — On Friday, June 3rd, for Bloomington’s Gallery Walk, Kurt and Kay Eagleman will present their recent, mixed media work in their inaugural exhibit at By Hand Gallery. The mother/son team share their Brown County Ee Oh Lay Studio where they engage in ongoing conversations about nature as inspiration and expressive brushwork as a process. Both Kay and Kurt use intense and saturated color in simplified shapes that reflect an emotional and exuberant response to their subjects that are predominately intimate florals and plein-air landscapes. The artists typically travel and exhibit together and consider themselves collaborators.
After retiring from a 25-year career in education, Kay Eagleman found the freedom to return full-time to her passion of painting nature. Nestled in the woods, her studio perfectly immerses her in the sounds and sites of Brown Country flora. She employs acrylic paint, oil and chalk pastels, and various mark-making tools to create her large-scale, gestural floral bouquets or birch tree landscapes. Alternatively, the artist uses watercolor and collage in complex color layers to represent her vision. Her goal is for her view to also experience the positive energy that drives her painting process.
Kurt Eagleman was born into a world filled with the discovery and examination of nature. Kurt was heavily influenced and encouraged by his creative parents: his artist mother and his father who is an interpretive naturalist and writer. While growing up, art was an organic way of life and as Kurt found himself immersed in breathtaking vistas and lush sceneries, he was compelled to render his environment on canvas. He has studied with Patricia Rhoden Bartels, at the Herron School of Art and Design, Indiana University Bloomington, and Venice’s Scoula International Di Grafica where he focused on figure drawing, color theory, and printmaking. When he isn’t painting, he’s collaborating with other local and LGBTQIA+ artisans to ensure their work gains visibility.
Kurt says about his work:
“Since life isn’t concrete, my work shouldn’t be either. I enjoy the process of learning, experimentation, and discovery by incorporating a mixture of interpretive and abstract styles, and often play with different mediums. My work conveys beauty and happiness, with a juvenile sense of fun and playfulness in the form of vignettes painted from personal experiences with nature, travel, and human interaction.”
By Hand Gallery is a locally owned, cooperative gallery that currently has 12 artisan members. By Hand Gallery has been in the Bloomington community for over 30 years and has a reputation for selling art works that are of good design and quality craftsmanship. Besides our cooperative members, there are over 70 additional artists who sell their work through By Hand Gallery.
The exhibit is free and open to the public.
WHERE:
By Hand Gallery, Inside Fountain Square Mall
101 W Kirkwood Ave, Suite 109
Bloomington, IN 47404
812.334.3255
Hours: Monday – Saturday 10:00am – 5:30pm; Sunday 12:00 – 4:00pm