Paintings by Claudia Slater on Exhibit at Bernardsville Library

Landscapes and florals by Basking Ridge resident Claudia Slater will be on exhibit at Bernardsville Public Library during the month of January. Her opening reception will be held on Sunday, January 7 from 1:30 to 4:30 pm. During the reception, Rhonda Denét and her keyboard player will celebrate Ms. Slater’s art through music, performing jazz and mellow soul—music with a universal message, “celebrating the spirit that dwells in all of us.”

A Basking Ridge resident, Ms. Slater is a self-taught multimedia artist. Coming from a family of artists, at a young age she loved drawing people and was able to capture her subjects with striking accuracy. Her art consists mostly of flowers, portraits and, more recently, fantasy. She says of her painting: “I paint many large flowers and incorporate women in some, as the woman’s form seems to fit with the flower. I love painting the delicate features of a woman as well as capturing the beauty of flowers.”

Miss Slater has a highly developed sense of color and composition, and demonstrates keen attention to detail. She captures the attention of observers through her dramatic style of painting. Her large paintings are now in acrylic although for her smaller work she sometimes uses water color. To achieve the smooth look to the skin on her portraits she uses layers upon layers of color washes.

Ms. Slater and her family moved to Pennsylvania when her two children were in grade school. Their home had a storefront in which she sold hand-painted items such as hat boxes, bird houses, furniture and paintings. She also taught art classes in her shop covering an array of techniques from marbleizing and hand-painting gourds to a two-hour session of techniques for painting flowers which she developed over the years to teach even those who thought they had no creative abilities.

The exhibition at Bernardsville Library will be on view from January 2 to January 30 during regular library hours unless a meeting is in progress. For further information, call the library at 908-766-0118.

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Pictured: “Forest Fire” by Claudia Slater