Reception: Saturday, June 4, 2-4 PM

The theme of this joint exhibition, Terra Verte, reflects our profound appreciation of the elements and essence of nature, which we strive to uniquely express in our creative work. This shared inspiration has generated a verbal and visual conversation between us and our art. This dialogue begins with landscapes steeped in history, notably New England, the American Southwest, and Italy. The imaginative responses to the natural world seen in this exhibition take both representational and abstract forms; but those distinctions are secondary. Paper, in different ways, forms the basis of this body of work. It is inseparable from both inspiration and process. For Elisa, paper is the media and the support, used as color, as texture, and as form; Sherry uses the rich qualities of soft pastel layered on colored pastel paper to create resonant, expressive landscapes en plein air.

Sherry Poirrier, originally from Washington, D.C., grew up with easy access to the stellar museum collections of the nation’s capital, especially the Freer Gallery of Art, the Phillips Collection and the National Gallery of Art. Here she was first drawn to Asian, Dutch and American Modernist landscapes, all of which have continued to shape her vision of nature and inform her art. She has exhibited her work in the New England region and taught at the Guild Studio School, local community art classes, private instruction, and landscape workshops in Massachusetts, and in Taos, New Mexico. Her work is in private and corporate collections. She studied at the Vermont Studio School, and with Lois Tarlow, and holds degrees in Visual Communications, Studio Art and Art History.

Elisa Lanzi is a papermaker and print artist. She and three other artists make up the Trout Paper Studio, a hand-papermaking shop in rural Washington County, New York. Elisa's experience includes a practicum at Dieu Donné Papermill (New York) and a bookmaking intensive at Art New England (Bennington College). She has studied and created prints at the Zea Mays Printmaking Studio in Florence, Massachusetts. Elisa also taught papermaking at the Vermont Arts Exchange in North Bennington. Her work is in private collections, and has been exhibited in New York State, Texas, Maine, Massachusetts, Brazil, among other places. Elisa's passion for art and travel, especially to the Mediterranean, finds expression in her abstract narratives. She holds degrees in English Literature and visual arts librarianship.