Haley Art Gallery to host talk on Bill Oakes exhibit

Special to Seacoastonline
·2 min read

KITTERY – The Haley Art Gallery will host a Gallery Talk by Sharon Oakes in connection with the current exhibit: "Bill Oakes: Art, Imagination, Vision" on Saturday, Aug. 20 from 2 to 4 p.m. Sharon and Bill Oakes were married for 15 years before Bill passed away in 2005. The talk will explore how a 1990 trip to Mexico and the artist’s unique vision and expansive imagination inspired many of the exhibited works on view at the gallery through Sept. 10.

A portion of the profits from the Bill Oakes show will be donated to The Dance Hall, Kittery.

"Unraveling" by artist Bill Oakes is part of the current exhibit of his work at the Haley Art Gallery in Kittery.
"Unraveling" by artist Bill Oakes is part of the current exhibit of his work at the Haley Art Gallery in Kittery.

Sharon Oakes will also discuss how Bill, after years as a representational artist and illustrator, was so excited by Mexico’s light, textures, colors, peeling posters and rusting cars and turned from realism to abstraction. He felt abstract art encouraged the viewer to use their imagination and “see in new ways.” One of Bill Oakes’ greatest joys in life was helping others make discoveries.

Bill Oakes grew up in Maine and started painting as a child. Following his graduation from Brunswick High School, he attended Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington. Moving to Washington, D.C. to join the Navy, he was assigned to the Navy Combat Art Gallery as the first artist on active duty providing visual reporting since 1954.

His over 180 paintings and drawings of returning Vietnam vets at the Bethesda Naval hospital, sailors at the Navy diving school, and the recommissioning of the Battleship New Jersey, remain in the U.S. Navy Fine Arts Collection.

Oakes held a master’s degree in Critical and Creative Thinking from UMass, Boston, and taught at the New England School of Art and Design and the Art Institute of Boston. His illustrations appeared in books and numerous magazines and newspapers including The Washington Post (as a Watergate trials courtroom artist), The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor and Look, National Geographic, Reader’s Digest, Time, Sail and Yankee magazines. He created and self-published several art instruction manuals and produced three children’s books with one of his art students.

Haley Art Gallery is located at 178 Haley Rd. in Kittery. Call 617-584-2580 or email haleygallery@comcast.net or visit haleyartgallery.com for more information.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Haley Art Gallery in Kittery ME to host talk on Bill Oakes exhibit