Bits and Pieces: The Realm of Creation

On display: May 5- June 9, 2023

Opening reception: May 5, 5-7 p.m. • See it first. See it free. This event is open to the public. Come meet your neighbors and enjoy light refreshments at this event!

About the Artist:

Florida abstract painter, Margaret Schnebly Hodge is widely known as a serious large format painter with a mastery of brushstroke and color.

Since early 2020, Hodge, whose art often demonstrates her interest in the fundamental nature of existence, has been drawn to the mysterious inner mechanics of artistic creation in a series of new works which are reflections of how the cerebral cortex of our brain uniquely synthesizes bits and pieces of memory and along with our imagination creates meaning in paintings that contain a unique shorthand of colored marks, shapes, and forms. This new visual language reflects how this artist creates deep and profound meaning in abstract works of art based on the process of visualization and its relationship to conscious and unconscious memory, the storehouses of the human brain, and imagination, the unique way that an individual artist links these bits and pieces of cerebral data to create dynamic abstraction. Here, viewers in magical ways but based on the science of perception, thought, memory and creative imagination share meanings understandable to all sentient beings. Each painting contains multiple forms / codes whose ultimate expression is unique to each viewer.

Raised in Florida from an early age, Hodge grew up during the pop culture movement of the 1950’s and the counter-culture movement of the 1960’s. Her
mother’s work in outdoor recreation and her father’s work in the space industry introduced her to a wide range of experiences from running barefoot in sunshine, rain, and storms, to watching rockets reach space and the moon for the first time. The complex and dynamic flux of societal norms and the ever-dynamic physical activity and environmental conditions of those years remain influential in her work today.

-Gary R. Libby
Art Historian and Author

In the Theatre Lobby Gallery: Barbara Yeomans

Barbara Yeomans is a Florida based painter and printmaker. For the past 30 years, her work has shown in galleries, museums and various arts organizations in the US and abroad. She was born in London and grew up during WWII. This turbulent war time would later inform her work as an artist. Interested in arts and crafts at a young age, she was awarded an art scholarship, which allowed her to pursue a degree in fashion at Cheltenham College of Art.  While at college, she won design awards and studied under the leading artists of the day. In the 1950’s, her college career was put on hold when she met and married a young American man.  She immigrated to America and raised a family while continuing her interest in the arts as a volunteer arts teacher in Fort Myers, Florida. In the 1980s, Barbara returned to school and enrolled in a printmaking class at a local college. Over the years, she has had several one-woman shows in Florida, England, New Jersey and New York. Her work is sold in New Jersey at the Broadfoot & Broadfoot Gallery. Her work has been collected and placed in homes and businesses everywhere from Sag Harbor, Montreal, Calgary, New York to Milan and Hong Kong.