A duo of abstract and expressionism, movement and energy.
Kay Cassill, IWS, NWWS, MWCS
While Kay Cassill received a B.A. from University of Iowa with Honors in English in the `Writer’s Workshop’, her focus quickly changed to the visual arts when she found herself in Greenwich Village among the avant-garde painters of the era. From there she moved to Paris taking postgraduate work at the Academe de la Grande Chaumiere. She continued traveling and moved on to Bandol on the Riviera. Eventually she traveled to Carrara, Florence and Rome – for the art – and marriage to artist and writer R.V. Cassill. Returning to New York, Cassill continued postgraduate work at the New School with artist Julian Levi. Moving back to Iowa she took up postgraduate work with famed print maker Mauricio Lasansky and painter James Lechay. While there she became a member of the Iowa Print Group. She has also taken workshops with Karen Blackwood, Donna Zagotta and Mel Stabin. Eventually she settled in Providence, RI and Cape Cod. Cassill currently winters in Michigan but maintains a home and studio in Truro, MA. where she spends some months each year. She continues today creating paintings in oil and watermedia.
Style
Over her long career Kay has approached her subject matter with intensity whether it was while carving into copper plates, painting in water media or oil on various substrates or drawing with pen and ink. Her most recent concentration has been painting with water media on Yupo and oils on canvas and linen. As for her approach to painting she feels closest to the Figurative Expressionists. Her favorite subjects include figures interpreting her story-telling ideas but she sometimes side-steps when taken by a particular land or seascape.
Rachael Van Dyke
Rachael Van Dyke is a mid-career artist creating abstract landscape work inspired by living off the grid in the Blue Ridge mountains. Van Dyke is an avid traveler as an artist-in-residence and has participated in numerous national and international residencies. These residencies, particularly ones abroad, create boundaries that she is forced to work with and cause her to alter her technique. Most of these obstacles are related to traveling abroad; adjusting to new studio space constraints, change of temperature, lack or loss of art materials, poor foreign language skills, and shipping limitations. These boundaries also create stimulation for Rachael as an artist as she is forced to understand and come to terms with her limitations to see what can be created. Being open to a new color palette or a new visual language to express the land is necessary. She chooses to explore the region through walking or bicycling, visiting museums and historic sites, and trying her hand at engaging with local residents. Each body of work is influenced by place and tells a story of the people and land that she’s encountered.