Beth DeWit: Solo Exhibition
ON DISPLAY: September 6 - October 31, 2024
RECEPTION: Sept. 8, 2-4pm, Ottinger Room of the Croton Free Library
Artist’s Statement
Portraits invite us into the landscape of the other. We are free to gaze without the self- conscious distance we create when we are face to face. Often that distance has been imposed upon us through social conditioning, preconceptions and misconceptions.
Through my paintings, I hope to offer viewers an opportunity to extend that gaze and to consider the faces before them; feel the subject’s presence, their value and contemplate the light inside that waits for us to bear witness.
Biography
Beth DeWit is an artist of diverse experience and is primarily self-taught. Her focus is portraiture as a means to find human connections through the vehicle of the body and the gaze. She has worked as a Decorative Painter for 24 years in the New York Metro area.
Beth is a recipient of a 2023 Arts Alive Individual Artists Grant through Artswestchester and the New York State Council on the Arts. She has exhibited widely throughout New York.
Currently a board member of Peekskill Arts Alliance, Beth holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from the University of Iowa. She is also a ERYT (Experienced registered Yoga Teacher). She lives in Peekskill, NY.
Visit her website for more information.
Pen and Ink Drawings by Theodore Cornu (1885-1986)
Don't miss this rare opportunity to view the original pen and ink drawings by local artist, Theodore Cornu, now on exhibit in the Gallery space of the Croton Free Library. Drawings from Cornu's sketchbooks depict life along the Hudson River in the years before European arrival on the continent. They are paired with published print versions from his newsletters.
An ardent historian and conservationist Theodore Cornu researched and documented the forested landscape and habitants on the land. During a period living in the Ferry House at Van Cortlandt Manor, Cornu chronicled the activities along the Hudson River and published a newsletter to inform conservation activism, inviting people of the river towns to take responsibility for the care of the natural treasure that is the Hudson Valley. Cornu enlisted pledges by citizens to commit to ecological protections. He was a great hero of the Conservation movement. We are reminded what the force and energy of one individual can have to affect positive change.
All material in the exhibit belongs to the private collection of Cornelia Cotton and is stewarded by Cornelia Cotton.
The exhibit will be on view through January 2025.
Inquires about the exhibit should be made to Emily Phillips, ejwphillips@gmail.com or 914-271-6469