River of Joy

In her new exhibit, “River of Joy”, Erin Lee Gafill explores the interplay of Land, Sea, and Sky on the northern California coast in a series of abstracted landscape works, oil on canvas. The exhibit opens in Coleman Hall at Gualala Arts, Friday, July 7. A public reception is set for Friday, July 14, 2023, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

According to Gafill, “As opposed to depicting what is seen and observed, these paintings are a reverent and internal response to the transcendent grandeur of the environment. The exhibition includes large canvases created during a winter residency in Gualala and at The Sea Ranch in February, 2022.”

The exhibition also includes small observed studies, painted on location from Big Sur to Trinidad, and larger studio works responding to that observational work, a kind of call and response of visual and spiritual inspiration. The largest pieces are presented here un-stretched and un-framed to express their creation process as still existing in the liminal space between idea and finished object. 

Gafill’s fascination with the atmospheric light and color of the California Coast is explored in work that draws from observation, but ultimately relies on a kind of intuitive sense and ecstatic expression. Thin layers of monochrome paint dissolve one over one another in some tonal pieces, while others retain exuberant technicolor drips conveying process & discovery. 

Gafill’s artistic journey is in a direct line from her great-great-grandmother, artist Jane Gallatin Powers, who grew up in Sacramento, just after the Gold Rush. Powers studied at the Mark Hopkins institute in San Francisco, and subsequently embarked on a life in the arts in Italy and France, where she abandoned California Impressionism for European Modernism. Gafill’s grand-parents, Bill and Lolly Fassett built Nepenthe Restaurant in Big Sur, where Erin was raised. 

The influence of her creative ancestors, the rugged natural environment of Big Sur, where she lives, and the need for “making do” in her isolated community inspired her life in the arts. 

Born in Big Sur California in 1963, Gafill is an award-winning writer, painter, and teacher with deep roots in the California arts community. For almost 30 years, she has taught arts, crafts, and creative writing programs to children and adults up and down California’s central coast. Gafill co-founded the nonprofit arts education organization Big Sur Arts Initiative in 1998 to provide arts and cultural opportunities to local children and their families.

The exhibit continues through Sunday, July 23.