By Kelly M. Gross, Director
David Strawn Art Gallery
The Art Association of Jacksonville is pleased to welcome Connie Thatcher and Bernie White Hatcher to The David Strawn Art Gallery, 331 W College Ave., Jacksonville, January 11-26. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, January 11 from 6-8 p.m., with a “Gallery Talk” by the artists at 6:30 p.m.
Bernie White Hatcher is an acrylic on canvas and acrylic & ink on paper artist from Springfield, Illinois. The intrinsic nature of landscapes has always been the force behind her drive to create. As the years rolled by, her landscape paintings changed considerably. Hatcher says that “the passage of time has such an influence on all things – attitudes, growth rates, fashion, philosophies, science, technology, art and so much more.” For Hatcher, her sense and understanding of landscapes deepened, and with that the parameters that traditionally defined “landscape” expanded for her as well.
Hatcher accepted that she saw landscapes in new terms, and she saw beginnings, change and adaptation, disturbances and competition, destruction and decay and in its place, extinction, innovation as well as renewal. To communicate these constructs visually, her artwork had to evolve.
Stylistically, her paintings have become a synthesis that blends vague forms of representation with expressionism and abstraction. In some of her pieces there is a reference to a “horizon line” and a familiarity of shape. However, her paintings are more spontaneous with greater attention to texture, brushwork, scratching, impulsive line-work and colors that create friction, but also those that work towards harmony. All of these are suggestive of a broadened sense of landscapes. Hatcher now paints what are unplanned, intuitive responses to the metaphors she has experienced and seen in the surrounding landscapes.
In 1991, Connie Thatcher, from House Springs, Missouri, began to tire of working the 9 to 5 grind in the field of photography, so she began to sell her stained-glass creations at local art shows. She quickly became frustrated with the limitations of stained glass and began to learn techniques of fused glass. She fell in love with all the possibilities of fused glass, and she continued to work in this medium for the next 20 years.
Eventually Thatcher noticed an oversaturation of fused glass artwork at art shows and galleries. At this time, she made the decision to move more into working with metals on a line of jewelry by reflecting her love of nature and its beauty. Thatcher continued to work with this medium until the pandemic changed her world.
After supporting herself for 30 years selling her work throughout the Midwest, she realized that she was going to have to find a medium that would take 100% of her attention in order to not focus on the insanity and devastation of the pandemic. She had heard of electroforming and thought it might serve that purpose and be another technique to again translate her admiration of nature’s balance and beauty.
However, Thatcher found herself both math and chemistry challenged and to master both disciplines in order to perfect electroforming, she would have to focus all her time and attention on this new medium. In the beginning, she sometimes found herself slamming her head against the wall whimpering “now what’s wrong.” Slowly, these outbursts seemed to slowly become less often, and both her head and her walls are happy about this!
Gallery hours January 12-26 are Sundays from 1-3 p.m. and Tuesday-Saturday from 4-6 p.m.
