“Paintings from the Island I Love,” sixteen new oils on canvas by Kate Knapp, will be on exhibit from July 29th to August 11th at the Jessie Edwards Studio on the second floor of the Post Office Building. A virtual reception can be seen on July 30th.
Knapp is interested in the way “the human element responds to the landscape,” she said recently, meaning the way that balance is achieved betweenbuildings and other human creations and the natural landscape. Painted in the fall of 2020 and the spring of 2021, these paintings are Knapp’s meditations on the beauty of the island in all its various aspects. We are particularly aware of island landscapes seen from many angles. It is the angle of the light that helps to create the balance between the landscape and the structure.For example, the Narragansett Inn dominates the landscape in “Narragansett Inn in Evening Light” in this view of the back of the Narragansett, the lightfalling on the shingles and a garden hose at the unadorned rear of the building. Balancing the structure is a view of the inner ponds of the Great Salt Pond across the way.In “Andrews’ Porch, Afternoon” we look across
