This summer, the Artists Association of Nantucket (AAN) is transforming the patio at their Cecelia Joyce & Seward Johnson Gallery downtown at 8 Federal Street into an intimate open-air gallery with a series of Artist Patio Pop-Up events. Through the summer season into September, these pop-ups invite art lovers to meet a rotating roster of talented AAN artist members as they display their work in the heart of town. Admission is free, and the casual, welcoming format makes it easy to drop by, browse original artwork, and chat with the artists themselves.
Just in time for the long holiday weekend from 10:30 am to 1:30 pm this Friday, July 3, John Carruthers brings his celebrated woodcuts to the Patio. With a Master’s degree from the New York Academy of Art, Carruthers has been carving and printing woodcuts for more than 30 years. He has been teaching and exhibiting with the Artists Association of Nantucket since 2004, and was honored at the AAN 2023 Summer Gala, with his work auctioned off in support of the organization.
Carruthers’ prints document the places he inhabits: New York City in winter, the cobblestoned lanes and harbor views of Nantucket, and the woods of New York’s Hudson Valley. Each piece is carved by hand with line cutters and gouges, inked with small rollers, and pressed onto archival rice paper or drawing paper, one print at a time. No block is printed in large editions; each impression is a near-unique artist’s proof.
On Saturday, July 4 from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm, painter Elle Foley will meet with the public and display her art on the AAN Patio. Elle Foley is a lifetime member of the Artists Association of Nantucket and one of our island’s most recognized plein air painters.
Trained as an architect with a BFA in painting, Elle is a woman with many talents. She knows all the nooks and crannies of Nantucket, capturing some of the small quiet spots in her work. Beginning each painting with a big sky, her lyrical clouds roll across the canvas and entice the viewer into a more detailed examination of each painting. Foley constructs her landscapes in careful fore, middle, and background planes, yet her paintings pulse with light and painterly gesture. Her goal is to seize that sunshine or five o’clock shade to create a brilliant mid-day horizon or a silent, shady sunset moment. Each work gives you a sense of the place in which the artist immerses herself.
Rounding out the holiday weekend on the Patio is Alexandra (Sasha) Yurkosky. This oil painter whose bold colors and energetic brushwork capture the unmistakable spirit of Nantucket will host her pop-up on Sunday, July 5 from 12 noon to 3 pm.
Yurkosky grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, but Nantucket has been in her bones since childhood; she spent summers on-island from age six and became a full-time resident in 2006. She dabbled in ceramics at the Artists Association during in the 1980s, and took her first painting class on Nantucket, developing a practice centered on the deep, complex color possibilities of oil paint.
Sasha also holds a Master’s Degree in Mathematics and works as a math tutor. She finds joy in both the structured precision of mathematics and the limitless creativity of painting, recognizing parallels between the two disciplines in their use of patterns, composition, and problem-solving approaches.
Next Friday, July 10 from 10:30 am to 1:30 pm artist Stephen Pitliuk is the Patio Pop-Up artist. A Miami native who has made Nantucket his home, Pitliuk brings Pop Art sensibility and sharp wit to a island art more typically associated with seascapes and landscape views. It’s been said that his style “will endear him to those who venture into the collection of modern art; it challenges the intellect and tickles the funny bone at the same time.”
Trained at the South Center for the Arts, P.A.V.A.C. Performing and Visual Arts Center, and the New World School of the Arts in Miami, Pitliuk developed a style variously described as Post Modern, Pop, Dadaist, and reminiscent of Jean- Michel Basquiat all rolled into one. His mixed-media works often take the form of graffiti-style text pieces that riff on the small absurdities of island life: the peculiarities of Nantucket traffic, the rituals of summer visitors, the quirks that a full-time resident would notice. Titles like I Found a Parking Space on Nantucket and I Saw a Drunken Sailor on Nantucket have made Pitliuk’s work a fun fixture among those who recognize the humor.
Fine art photographer Jennifer Wyman Bowman shows her work on the AAN Patio from 12 noon to 3 pm on Sunday, July 12. Her multidisciplinary background in design, architecture, and graphic art gives her work a distinctive compositional intelligence.
Inspired by the Nantucket landscape, Jen is drawn especially to flowers and the ocean. She describes her work as “capturing the graphic relationship between natural elements; the layering of sky, horizon, ocean, and land; the way flower petals overlap, recede, drink in the light; the endless variations in colors, forms and shapes.” She explains: “I am fascinated by what’s in between – the detail within a single hydrangea, the rhythm found in a peony blossom; the spray of a crashing wave, the patterns in water, the changing color of the horizon.”
Founded in 1945, the Artists Association of Nantucket (AAN) has grown into a thriving nonprofit with nearly 300 artist members. The AAN fosters the visual arts on the island through year-round exhibitions at its galleries as well as with educational programs, a permanent collection of nearly 1,700 works, and artist residency programs. The Patio Pop-Ups are a wonderful extension of that community mission: free, informal, and deeply connected to the island life that has inspired Nantucket artists for over a century.