Artist reception for Margery Thomas-Mueller and Christopher Thomas Volpe

ALTON — Artists Margery Thomas-Mueller and Christopher Thomas Volpe both create abstract landscapes, which function as metaphors for states of being and invoke concern for the conditions of humanity and the natural world.

An opening reception for their exhibit, Nor Roots Nor Stars: Paintings by Margery Thomas-Mueller and Christopher Thomas Volpe, will be Saturday, July 20, from 5-7 p.m., at the Red Dot, 4 Drew Hill Road, in partnership with the Patricia Ladd Carega Gallery in Sandwich. Following the opening, the Red Dot will be open by appointment. For more information, visit www.patricialaddcaregagallery.com, or call 603-284-7728. 

In Thomas-Mueller’s large-scale works in ink and graphite on Yupo paper, she depicts tangled tree branches. In Volpe’s canvases combining oil paint and liquid tar, viewers see stormy abstractions, and ghostly tall ships flicker on bleak horizons. For both artists, a  theme is humanity uprooted and lost at sea. Both artists are recent winners of Emerging Artist grants as well as artistic achievement awards from the St. Botolph Club Foundation in Boston, and Nellie Taft grants.

“The title, Nor Roots Nor Stars, refers to both Margery’s huddled, rootless figures and Christopher’s port-less ships, in each case representatives of humanity seeking a solid resting place in a space in flux,” said gallery owner Patricia Carega. “As artists, Margery and Christopher have an exceptional ability to enrich natural imagery with metaphor as well as to convey messages badly needed in troubled times. These are urgent, evocative paintings created with large ambitions and commanding skill.”

Thomas-Mueller lives in Alton. Before her career as a visual artist, she directed a Manhattan-based firm designing commercial and residential architectural projects. In 2013, the Works Gallery in New York City hosted her first show. She’s subsequently had solo shows and been accepted into national and international juried exhibitions. For more about her work, visit margerythomasmueller.net

Volpe is an artist, writer, and teacher based in Hollis. He has received fellowships and grants from MassMoCA and Assets for Artists, the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and the New Hampshire Humanities Council. In addition to teaching workshops in outdoor and studio painting, he has taught at Montserrat College of Art, the New Hampshire Institute of Art, Chester College of New England, and Franklin Pierce University. He writes for 'Art New England.' Learn more by visiting www.christophervolpe.com.