“GROW” Exhibition Opens in Galletly Gallery

The name “Grow” reflects the expansion of McLane’s and Vermeulen’s own spiritual growth as women and artists and the revealing of value and purpose of creativity through their various works. The works are about the appreciation of the natural worlds they exist in, in both their physical environments and within their own individual consciousness’.

Shani McLane studied printmaking at the University of Southern California, earning both a BFA and an M.ED. McLane’s work primarily focuses on the technique of silk-screening inks and enamels onto paper and glass. She has taught workshops at a variety of locations including Pilchuck Glass School (Washington) and Plymouth State University (New Hampshire). McLane exhibits and lectures both nationally and internationally and has received many accolades for her work including the Swedish American Fund Grant, Haugberg Fellowship, and the Frank Teton Fellowship.

McLane states “My prints are individual essays capturing my personal thoughts and influences at a particular time in my life. Similar to a journal, I record my observations, feelings, and reflections. I am especially inspired by my Scandinavian heritage and aim to have the aesthetic of minimalism enriched with beauty. A strong force in my imagery has been the amplification of natural patterns representing the importance of the natural world and its ever-changing existence as we know it. In such a fast-paced world, I am drawn to the interpretation and simplification of the overlooked beauty around us.”

As a printmaker, Shani uses her methods to promote the STEAM initiative and communicate environmental issues. In the last decade, her work has focused on the importance of the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway and the long-term shift in climate patterns. She wrote a curriculum titled, “Engineering the Glass Seed” which she taught at the Museum of Glass (Washington), Dartmouth College (New Hampshire), and The Glass Factory (Sweden). The syllabus has also been taught through the New Hampshire State Arts Council.

Valerie Vermeulen is a contemporary artist living in Holderness, New Hampshire. She has a background in poetry and writing, and is primarily a self-taught visual artist. “My work speaks directly to my raw, painterly sensibility. I build personal abstract imagery with texture, shape, line, and color. I am also greatly inspired by nature and landscape. As I have progressed in my life and art, I have developed a profound intrigue with meditation and Eastern philosophy. I consider the various spaces and assorted shapes I create often as portals or openings into the unknown. I spend a great deal of time in and out of the studio ruminating the perpetual cycles of life and death, and navigating the possibility of the present-moment. I am intrigued and committed to the examination and rising of human consciousness and how that may tie into my evolving art practice.”  Valerie has been exhibiting her work both locally and nationally for the past twenty years. Valerie is now pursuing her MFA in Art Practice at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

This exhibit is free and open to the public. The Galletly Gallery is located on the second floor of New Hampton School’s Moore Center. The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 am to 4 pm and on Saturdays from 9 am to 11.