Laurie Alberts: Elemental Reflections

Bridges and Tunnels By Laurie Alberts

Geary Gallery presents “Elemental Reflections,” featuring the enchanting naturescapes of Laurie Alberts

The Geary Gallery of Darien proudly presents its April exhibit, “Elemental Reflections,” featuring the bright and bold paintings of Vermont artist, Laurie Alberts. Her exhibit will be on display April 1-29, 2023. The Geary Gallery is located at 576 Boston Post Road in Darien. All are welcome and admission is free.

About Laurie Alberts

“In Laurie Alberts’s landscape paintings, color saturation penetrates the viewer like an elemental experience of love. Often paradoxically wavering between clarity and mood, they’re suffused as much with sensations as they are depictions of light, shadow, reflection, time, and space. While they might be “about” trees, rivers, clouds, and grasses, they are equally about seeing emotion in images free of the burden of narrative.”
— Alice Fogel, former Poet Laureate of New Hampshire and author of Nothing But, considerations on abstract expressionism

From a very early age Laurie Alberts found solace and adventure in the woods and fields of northern New England. When she wasn’t outdoors she was drawing, painting, and writing stories.

After publishing eight books of fiction, a memoir and embarking on a career teaching creative writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts, Hampshire College, and the University of New Mexico, Alberts realized she’d left painting behind far too long. Once she returned to painting, she never looked back.

As an adult returning to art, she took classes, attended workshops, and studied one-on-one with celebrated oil painters including Rosemary Ladd, Julia Jensen, Charlie Hunter, Pam Ingalls, Mary Giammarino, Michelle Dunaway, Mary McGloughlin, and others.

Contemporary painters who have influenced Alberts’ vision include the landscape abstractors Julia Jensen, John Lacey, and Carlos San Millan. Although Alberts’ own work remains more grounded in recognizable imagery than some of these artists she admires, they inspire her to continue finding new approaches and new equivalents to the physical world around her.

Alberts frequently uses cold wax medium with her oil paints because it increases luminosity and its thickness and malleability allow for scraping, scratching, and the overlay of colors and textures. She finds its very imprecision creates possibilities – directions she might not have intended, images unforeseen, paths she wants to follow.

Alberts resides on forty acres in southern Vermont and winters in a couple of vintage Airstream campers in the Red Rock Canyons of the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico. She and her husband, Thomas O’Neill, raised their daughter in both places and still live completely off the grid.

Alberts states, “Because I row my 26’ single scull on a wild section of the Connecticut River, the river, in its various seasons and permutations, often appears in my paintings. I consider rowing and painting complementary: hard work, joy, and a sense of expansion from being immersed in the light and shapes of a real place I make my own through painting.”

To view Alberts’ paintings, and to read more, visit our online gallery.

Gallery Location & Hours

Geary Gallery is open to the public Wednesday through Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and is located at 576 Boston Post Road, Darien, CT 06820. For more information, call (203) 655-6633.