The work of artist Beverly Pelletier is NOW at the Amster Gallery!

And don’t forget to join us for Meet the Artist on Thursday, March 23 from 6-8 PM right here at the J!

EXHIBIT DAYS: March 16 – May 19

The Jewish Community Center is excited to welcome a series of artwork by a variety of talented visual artists! These beautiful pieces will be on display and for sale in the Amster Gallery. Featured in the third exhibit opening on Thursday, March 16 is the work of Beverly Pelletier. Beverly is a local artist known for her acrylic paintings.

Make sure to join us on Thursday, March 23 here at the J to meet Beverly!

ARTIST STATEMENT

“Color is the pleasure of the eye and the language of love. My first oil pastels were given me by my mother when I was two. As a student of French literature, I was fascinated by the poet Paul Eluard’s use of color in his imagery. As a colorist, I prefer vibrant shades and combination of primary and secondary colors. Like the German Expressionists, I am attached to the color blue. Colors are the embodiment of dreamlike unconscious emotion, a visual world without words.

I plaster the canvas with layer after layer of brilliant paint, until I am happy with result, a veritable palimceste of meaning. There are no mistakes in art. Everything plays a role. As Braqués said, a painting is finished when the initial idea is erased. Or, in Picasso’s words, I don’t seek, I find. The composition of my pieces relies on informal balance, an effect reminiscent of syncopation.

I first began making abstract crayon paintings in my late teens, at the time of my first bipolar episode. I already had a background in art history from prep school in Switzerland. As a second generation Holocaust survivor, I had a legacy of displacement and journey. My family all drew. My father made pen and ink drawings from memory of German towns, and his sister Ilse Getz was an established New York artist. My own education was in language and literature, and I began painting regularly in my sixties. My husband, also an artist as well as a photographer and former gallery owner in Ann Arbor, shared a studio downtown on Main Street for five years. Now we paint in a home studio five minutes from our beloved four young male cats. Bill served as my mentor and inspiration in artistic development.”

The Herbert and Carol Amster Gallery offers unique and visually stunning exhibitions of a wide variety of visual art mediums by talented artists of all ages, who are based locally, nationally, and internationally. Most exhibitions include an opening reception where guests can meet and converse with the artist. See our calendar of events or search for “cultural arts.”