The Color Red

Apr 10, 2021

Gallery One is pleased to announce the April show, “The Color Red” open to the public. March 31, 2021 through April 27, 2021.
The artists of Gallery One are seeing Red this month, or should I say they are feeling it? Red draws attention like no other color. Red emotionally, and as a design element, screams
Dominance. If you want to draw attention in your composition, use red. But additionally, red, being the warmest and most dynamic of the colors, triggers opposing emotions. While cool colors like green and blue are generally considered peaceful and calming, Red is linked to passion and love, but also to power, anger, and danger. Symbolically red is associated both with Cupid and the Devil, and studies have shown that the mere color can increase a person’s
heart rate, elevate blood pressure, and increase respiration, naturally causing energy levels to spike. The two techniques, one of using red as a design element to draw attention and show dominance, and the other using red creatively to elicit and illustrate emotion can both be seen this month beautifully depicted.
In creating her acrylic painting, “The Red Seashell,” artist Eileen Olson, shared how squeezing the red acrylic paint onto her palette immediately elicits a strong passionate feeling of power for her. You can both see that and feel that when you look at her work this month. Red dominates the composition and the swirling shape of the seashell, done in vibrant shades of red, pulls you in and excites you. Lying on the spectrum of abstraction her work, and that of fellow artists, Jeanne Mueller, in Flora and Fauna,” mixed media, and “Love you More,” mixed media, by artist Mary B. Boyd, allows you to truly feel the Emotion of the color. The use of red as “spot color,” to bring attention, and to direct the eye is beautifully at work in Lesley McCaskill’s, “The Red Umbrella,” acrylic. The composition is filled with calming blues and
greens, creating a background for the red umbrella to pop dramatically. Lesley also noted that in real life, she recommends a red umbrella to keep you oriented on a crowded beach day. Also utilizing red for a successful design element is Laura Hickman in her pastel, “Red and Green.” Red and green are complementary colors on the color wheel, (and as she notes they are also the colors of the flag of Italy) and being placed near one another in a painting creates a double whammy. Laura’s graphic painting of a charming Italian street scene vibrates with energy. In Marybeth Paterson’s oil painting, “Red Roses”, our eye is immediately drawn to her lively subject. While W. Scott Broadfoot’s oil, “Cardinal and Pomegranate,” delivers a classical rendition of a red cardinal with red pomegranate seeds, both of which symbolize passion, laid against a backdrop of green.

Three of our artists skirted the lines between abstraction and reality in their dramatic use of red. In “Field of Tulips,” an acrylic painting by Dale Sheldon, the artist fills our eyes with tulips. A plethora of octagonal shapes of varying size and color, but with the dominance of the red, our eye is given direction, and we are filled with the emotion of spring in all it is chaotic, passionate abundance. In Joyce Condry’s acrylic painting, “Red Sails,” we experience tumultuous blues
and aqua’s and then are snapped into focus by the electric red of sailboat sails navigating the turbulent sea. And finally, in Michelle Marshall’s, “Red Glade in Evening,” the usual benign marshland catches fire in reds as the glow of sunset illuminates the landscape, with the cool blues of the water providing an eye-popping contrast.
We hope you will brave the adventure of Red this month and visit us at Gallery One. We are open daily 10am – 5pm.
(Face masks and social distancing are required, please.  To ensure safety of all, we may limit the number of visitors at any one time.)
Please contact us at: 302-537-5055 or our email: art@galleryonede.com. Gallery One is open 7 days a week, 10-5. The Gallery is always staffed by an artist. Gallery One is located at 32 Atlantic Avenue,(RTn26) Ocean View, DE, 302.537.5055, www.galleryonede.com for more information

The Color Red