The Trippe Gallery is opening the 8th Annual Art of the Garden exhibition on Friday, May 3 with a reception from 5-8 pm.
The exhibition will feature oil and watercolor paintings of flowers, gardens, and botanicals by gallery artists Jill Basham, Nancy Tankersley, Elise Phillips, Hanna MacNaughtan, Cynthia Rosen, and Stephen Haynes amongst others. It will also present a series of still-life fine art photographs by Trippe created during the pandemic shutdown. Her still-lifes became a daily discipline and an image was created each day of the spring months of 2020. All are specimens from her garden and the images were created in a makeshift studio space in an outbuilding with only natural light. What began as intricate set-ups of flowers and props morphed into an intimate presentation of a single bloom or small collection of stems. This transition mirrors the beginning days of the shutdown of learning a new way of doing things to a more contemplative look at the singularity of existence and its inherent intricacies.
The exhibition will be complemented by flower arrangements by designers of The Garden Club of the Eastern Shore who chose a painting to emulate. The idea for the annual exhibition is to honor gallery owner Nanny Trippe’s parents, Barclay and Nancy Trippe-natives of the area, and community philanthropists as well as avid gardeners. “My father loved to garden, in particular camellias and azaleas, and he is well known for his vegetable garden, while my mother was a founding member of The Garden Club of the Eastern Shore as well as past chair of the Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage. Through them, I learned a respect for nature, our local history, and giving back to our community at a young age.”
