The public is warmly invited to meet local painters Karen Macek  and Heather MacRae Trulson during their opening artists’ reception on Friday, July 10, 2015 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Hospice Savannah Art Gallery, 1352 Eisenhower Drive.The show will hang through September 30, 2015and, as always, a portion of sales will benefit the Daily Impact Fund, providing extra patient services not covered by Medicare or insurances.

Karen Macek is an artist and designer working in oil, acrylic, and computer graphics, who grew up in a military family, graduated from the Ealing School of Art in London, and had a career in the garment industry for more than 30 years. From childhood, she had a love of art and an imaginative spirit that undoubtedly led to a creative career. However, painting was “put aside” until retirement. Now retired and busier than ever, many of her community activities are rooted in her creative abilities. She is an active member of the Landings Art Association and Telfair Academy Guild and has attended workshops by Prof. Linda Warner, SCAD; Betsy Cain; Jane Slivka; Julie Hanson; Christine Sajecki; West Fraser; Judy Crane; Deama Tolle Perry; and William McCarthy 

Employing vivid color and expressive brush and knife strokes, Karen’s show is inspired by her recent trip to Africa.  She says, “From Chobe River plains and Okavango Delta to Sabi Sands bush, it was life as nature intended; contrasts and colors seemed more intense.  I couldn’t help but imagine how I would paint this experience.” 

Heather MacRae-Trulson was raised in New York and graduated with her Masters of Fine Arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Her Bachelor of Arts degree, with a concentration in drawing and painting, is from Hartwick College in 2010. During college she had the opportunity to travel to Glasgow, Scotland and study painting and printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art. She is currently the Director of Finance and Development at Non-Fiction Gallery and is working through ideas on the abstraction of the urban and suburban landscape in her paintings.  Her preferred mediums are acrylic, ink and watercolor. 

Heather says, “My most current works are expressions of marks making both incidental and intentional built around the study of the local landscape. Working from digital images I use observed structures and forms to draw out smaller vignettes of line and shape. From these and often directly from images I transfer certain forms and colors onto my canvas. Through this process I allow for the painting to take on its own structure and direction, for it to manifest its own intent.”