Rockingham Times

Looking for the Light’

Spotlight on NH Art Association artist Lennie Mullaney

 

PORTSMOUTH – Artist Lennie Mullaney is always looking for the light.

 

“And the shadows, too,” she said. “Painting, for me, is all about a range of values. It is the relationship of light to dark that define an objects’ planes and the space between shapes.”

 

Mullaney will have a solo exhibit at the New Hampshire Art Association’s Robert Lincoln Levy Gallery during the month of October titled, “Looking for the Light.”

 

Mullaney begins her works with plein air painting.

 

“Those works are fresh and spontaneous,” she said. “I am joyfully present in the moment. Constantly squinting, I question how does this shape relate to that shape, this light to that dark, this warm to that cool? Sketches and plein air paintings, especially when done in a series, are research for future ideas.”

 

These series lead to larger studio paintings. Mullaney moves beyond the initial response to synthesize her abstraction of the subject.

 

“Everything else fades away but the elongated shadows cast by bare trees on fresh snow, the ripening red apples suspended against a brilliant blue sky, figures strolling and swimming on a sandy beach as the tide recedes,” she said.  “Do you see the light?”

 

Raised in Connecticut in a family of 13, Mullaney grew up climbing trees, drawing on whatever recycled paper could be scrounged, reading everything that could be found, and writing plays for the neighborhood kids to perform. Mullaney was blessed with a rich imagination and love of day-dreaming.

 

Holidays and summers meant trips to her grandparents’ dairy farm in the White Mountains, where she and her siblings and cousins spent many happy hours exploring the mountains, eating raspberries, listening to song birds and swimming in the lake. Thus, Mullaney’s love of nature is inseparable with her love of art.  

 

While raising her family and teaching school, Mullaney took watercolor classes with various teachers, including Jack Beal and Sondra Freckleton, Earning a Masters of Science in Art Education.

 

After her children were grown, Mullaney moved to the coast of Maine, teaching AP Art in high school.

 

Deciding her goal was to become a full-time artist, Mullaney moved to Portsmouth and graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a Masters of Fine Arts in Painting. She has studied multiple times with master artists in Italy.

 

She is a juried member of the NH Art Association and has enjoyed organizing the NHAA plein air group weekly meet-ups for many years.  

Mullaney is also a juried member of the Ogunquit Art Association and has a studio at the Button Factory in Portsmouth. She has exhibited widely and her work is in many private collections.

 

While Mullaney still enjoys volunteering in public schools, you might stumble across her in in the woods, by the sea or on a hilltop. She will be the one with old paint spattered clothes, chatting with any child who happens by.   

GO & DO

“Looking for the Light” – NH Art Association artist Lennie Mullaney

Where: Robert Lincoln Levy Gallery, 136 State Street, Portsmouth, NH, and online at www.nhartassociation.org

When:  Oct. 5 through Oct. 30. Opening reception on Friday, Oct. 7 from 5 to 8 p.m.

Gallery hours: Tuesday and Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m.

SHOWN: “Winter Sunrise,” an oil painting by Lennie Mullaney

Original source can be found here.