June 24-July 18, 2022

Hold your phone’s camera over the orange QR code. Click on the yellow rectangle for Cindy Tower on Artsy.

May 27-June 20, 2022

April 29-May 23, 2022

March 4-March 28, 2022

MARY ELIZABETH PETERSON
SHIFTING TIDES: ART THAT SPEAKS TO EVER-CHANGING TIMES
MARCH 4-28, 2022
OPRNING RECEPTION: SUNDAY, MARCH 6, 4-6 PM

The Friends of the Willoughby Wallace Memorial Library are pleased to present SHIFTING TIDES: ART THAT
SPEAKS TO EVER-CHANGING TIMES, an exhibition featuring recent paintings by New Haven artist Mary
Elizabeth Marvin Peterson.
SHIFTING TIDES unveils a series of mixed media paintings created by the artist over the last two years during
the pandemic. While the works embrace the artist’s expressive joy for her medium, they also reveal the
reclusive nature of maintaining a studio practice amidst the worlds' shifting tides and drastic societal changes.
Peterson’s signature paint-pushing technique, in which she applies thick deposits and watery wisps of paint,
demonstrates the artist’s ongoing dedication to chance and spontaneity. The saturated hues, serendipitous
paint movement, and mark-making create uniquely immersive spaces that the viewer can almost physically
enter. The artist’s works have been described as “dynamic, hypnotic, and meditative.”
“At the very core of my paintings are life experiences. Emotions are put forward in flexible forms, and
showcased as gaping cliffs, thick brambles, seaweed or large expanses of sea and sky. For me, there is a
profound link between emotion and landscape. Our country is so diverse, and it can be shaped and expressed
in numerous unique ways. I find it mirrors the human spirit. We all feel our senses heightened when we are
confronted by novel and breathtaking things in our natural world. Taking my life experiences and molding
them into my own landscape or taking an extremely close view of rocks or seedpods is my way of working
through difficult things. Sometimes my works are associated with nostalgia, or death and renewal. Taking
something that is intangible onto a canvas with paint and drawing materials solidifies time and encapsulates
that experience.”
Mary Elizabeth Marvin Peterson was born in Hartford in 1965. She has lived in Connecticut on and off for the
last 30 years. A 12th generation descendent of a founder of Hartford and Norwalk, she happily returned
“home” in 2019. She knows the state “like the back of her hand” and is passionate about coastal, marine, and
historic preservation. A multidisciplinary artist, her paintings celebrate process, spontaneity, femininity, and
various abstract art movements. Peterson also maintains an impressive art licensing practice, including
collaborations with Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma Home. In 2021 she launched her own brand of
exclusive print reproductions, Abstract Fabulous®. She received her B.A. in Journalism and Art History from
The University of Connecticut and an A.F.A. from The Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, DC.
She is a member of the Silvermine Art Guild and maintains a studio at Erector Square in New Haven. The artist
will be revealing a new series of paintings in early Fall. She lives and works between New Haven and the CT
shoreline.
The Willoughby Wallace Memorial Library is located at 146 Thimble Islands Road, Branford. For more
information, call Mary Elizabeth Marvin Peterson at 203-209-7614 or visit www.maryelizabethpeterson.com

January 7-January 31, 2022

Marjorie Sopkin

Paintings and drawings

December 3, 2021 - January 3, 2022

Art Opening Reception: Mary Murphy Taylor — A Collected View

photographs

Sean Murtha and Allison Maltese: Reflections on Nature

Sean Murtha has drawn since he could hold a pencil and been a birder since he got his first binoculars as a young teen.  Both have remained lifelong passions and are combined in his adult work.  He paints the birds of the Long Island Sound region and the landscapes they are found in, often using a kayak to approach his subject, and puts great importance in sketching and painting directly from nature.  Light, atmosphere, and mood are more important than detail, with the primary goal to capture the sometimes fleeting experience of seeing a bird in the field. 

Allison Maltese has been photographing the natural world since her teens. Growing up in the woods of Killingworth, the trees and leaves, glacial stone, frozen icicles, and the surface of her family pond were the roots of her creative inspiration, and fed her fascination for pattern and color. This body of photographs represents an exploration into the art of water as it moves, reflects light and color and creates a myriad of shapes and patterns. The water images uniquely capture that one moment in time, freezing the impermanent medium.