Shelf Life: Patience Haley exhibit offers a dose of color in a gray season
A new art exhibit has opened at the York Public Library featuring the work of the late painter, Patience Haley. The exhibition is another in the Library’s annual series called “Community Collects,” and celebrates works by Haley owned by art collectors from York, Ogunquit, and other local towns. The subject matter in Haley’s paintings is almost always based in nature—the sea, plant life, and especially flowers.
Haley was a resident of York when she died on Sept.13, 2020, at the age of 94.
Accompanying Patience Haley’s works are selected paintings by her late husband, Panos Ghikas, and etchings by her sister, Priscilla Haley. The spontaneity and celebration of accidental paint flows in Patience Haley’s work contrast with the carefully balanced geometries of the work made by Panos Ghikas; her husband’s small gouache works often include gold paint as well as flat geometric passages of opaque color. Haley’s strong colors also contrast with her sister’s etchings, realized in shades of black and gray on white.
Patience Haley’s favorite medium was watercolor on paper. In her statement, she attributes her preference to the way that dampened papers receive watercolor paint, allowing forms to emerge spontaneously, responding to the paper’s qualities. The wet papers cause the paint to blur, pool, run, or otherwise find its own way, while different textures of paper contribute to the varied effects. Then she sits back and considers the shapes and relationships of color that appeared on the paper and what they suggest for further development by the artist. She often finds colors and shapes that evoke flowers, seen in many of the larger works on display, which she further articulates with brush strokes and fine lines.
Explore the Patience Haley Exhibit at York Public Library through March in the Upper Level. For Library hours or more information about the exhibit, please visit yorkpubliclibrary.org or call 207-363-2818.
Elizabeth Cromley is a member of the York Public Library Art Committee.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Shelf Life: Patience Haley exhibit offers a dose of color
