STANSTEAD — Ye Olde Blacksmith Art Gallery, the old blacksmith shop located in the heart of Stanstead, offers visitors the opportunity to view modern art, in a historic setting. The gallery, seeming to hang out over the Tomifobia River, is located just across the border at Derby Line on Route 5.
The gallery opened the summer season last Thursday with an exhibition of new work by Hatley artist Caroline George, and works on paper by Sebastien Leblanc from Georgeville. The vernissage was held last Friday, and the exhibition will be available for viewing until July 6.
In “The Centaurs,” George has used mixed drawing media to portray the image of this mythical creature, half horse and half human, a metaphor for thousands of years in Western art representing a struggle between two opposing forces. A series of large panels, the etheric quality of each textured piece reflects a time gone by.
Born in Montreal, Sebastien Leblanc has been exploring various creative outlets from an early age and is currently completing a diploma in welding. This most recent body of work was inspired by the necker cube, an optical illusion originating from crystallography, where the shape can be perceived as a cube represented in either of two possible orientations.
The ambiguous line drawing was then used in philosophy as a counter argument to naïve realism, where things are not necessarily as perceived by the senses.
The exhibition runs from June 19 through July 6. Gallery hours are Thursday to Sunday, 11 – 6, and the summer season runs until September 7.
If anyone would like more information or to be on their mailing list, call 819 876-2282.
