2 X 40

Gualala Arts presents 2 x 40, a retrospective exhibition celebrating the forty-year creative partnership of artists Joan Rhine and Jim Meilander. The show features a rich array of work produced both individually and collaboratively, tracing the evolution of their artistic practices over four decades. With more than ten awards from Gualala Arts between them, Rhine and Meilander’s combined body of work spans painting, printmaking, sculpture, hand papermaking, collage, and mixed media. The exhibition offers a compelling look at their parallel and intersecting journeys, revealing how their shared life has shaped and inspired their art.

Joan Rhine’s artistic journey began with a love of paper discovered in art school. That passion led to a lifelong exploration of handmade paper and mixed media, culminating in her founding of Submarine Paperworks with her husband Jim Meilander in 1984 at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco. The studio was re-established in Gualala in 2000, where Rhine continues to create abstract wall pieces, sculpture, and contemporary jewelry under the label Joan Rhine Designs.
Her work reflects a dynamic exchange between materials and ideas. Elements from her jewelry—metal, wire, gold leaf, and beads—often migrate into her mixed media pieces, creating a tactile dialogue between disciplines. Rhine enjoys exploring the duality of materials like paper and metal, playing with contrasts: hard and soft, geometric and organic, shiny and matte. Her inspiration comes from the natural world around her—beaches, forests, skies, and coastal structures—all of which inform her richly textured compositions.
Rhine holds a BFA from The Cooper Union and an MFA in painting and printmaking from Pratt Institute. She studied papermaking at Dieu Donné Paper Mill in New York and is an active member of the North American Hand Papermakers. Her recent accolades include multiple first-place awards in Jewelry and Ornamentation at Art in the Redwoods, and her work has been featured in exhibitions at Coast Highway Art Collective, Gualala Arts, Art Center Ukiah, and the Morris Graves Museum of Art.

Jim Meilander is a mixed-media artist whose work blends handmade paper, printmaking, collage, painting, drawing, and sculpture. His abstract imagery is a playful synthesis of the real and the imagined, often inspired by the natural and built environments that surround him. Currently, Meilander is developing a new series rooted in realistic imagery, drawing inspiration from the forest trees near his studio.

Papermaking is central to Meilander’s creative process. He begins with sketches, then paints using pigmented abaca and cotton pulp, along with fibers harvested from wild plants in Mendocino County. These natural materials yield a palette of earthy neutrals that serve as the foundation for embedded collage elements. Once dried, the pieces are further developed with acrylics, printmaking techniques, pencils, pens, charcoal, and encaustic—allowing spontaneous imagery to emerge organically.

Meilander earned a BS in Art Education from Ohio University and is also a member of the North American Hand Papermakers. His work has received numerous honors from Gualala Arts, including Best Collage at the Gualala Salon and Best of Show in Putting It All Together: Collage and Assemblage. His recent exhibitions include joint shows with Joan Rhine at Coast Highway Art Collective, as well as appearances at Art Center Ukiah and the Morris Graves Museum of Art.