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Summer Salon : Select Gallery Artists

May  9th  -  May  23rd,  2008

An artist of narrative themes, Massachusetts artist Tabitha Vevers’ draws her inspiration for Distant Shores from both Cape Cod and Ireland. Their respective local mythologies of the sea, along with the light, landscape, and mood of each coast contribute to creating two distinct yet related groups of exquisitely painted clam, oyster, mussel, and scallop shells.  The Irish group were conceived and some completed during a painting fellowship at The Ballinglen Arts Foundation in County Mayo.

“My recent Cape paintings feature human and sea life in a metaphorical embrace where land meets sea. In Rapture (II.06a) the man-sized lobster suggests a thick-shelled, but passionate lover, while the giant squid in Embrace (VI.06a) embodies a seductive many-limbed partner. Other influences include Kai-awase (painted shells from 12th century Japan), Shunga (Japanese erotic woodblock prints from the 17th–19th (centuries) as well as a study of the creatures that live at the bottom of the sea.

Irish mythology as well as the ancient rocks and mist filled days of County Mayo formed a whole new visual vocabulary for me, and led to a subtler palette of pastels and muted contrast. There is an irrepressible spirit of warmth and generosity amongst the Irish people, and yet County Mayo is steeped in a history of famine and hardship. That undercurrent of melancholy led to paintings such as the ravaged mermaid in Loss and the quietly reclining woman with a tail in The Somber Lioness. On one particular walk along the beach, a conversation with a woman gathering seaweed led to my own experience of Irish seaweed baths, and later, to the paintings, Seaweed Collector and Seaweed Bath.”

Having grown up a daughter of artists, and spending summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Vevers experienced the bohemian lifestyle shared with children of other prominent visual artists and writers.   These experiences have directly influenced the ongoing Shell Series which she has been involved with for several years.

Ms. Vevers received her B.A. in painting from Yale University and studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.  She has received numerous awards and honors including a George & Helen Segal Foundation Grant, residencies at the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA, Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus, Schwandorf, Germany, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Sweet Briar, VA ‘86, ‘91, ‘93 and The MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH.