ANNOUNCING APRIL 2023 ART EXHIBIT AT THE COASTAL BRANCH LIBRARY OF WALTON COUNTY

The Friends of Walton County Coastal Branch Library are honored to host several artists who are members of the Santa Rosa Golf & Beach Club during the month of April 2023.  The artwork can be viewed during regular library hours at the Coastal Branch Library on Route 331 South.

The exhibit will include several art works in acrylic, watercolor, and oil paint as well as digital photography, many of which highlight the beauty of the Emerald Coast area.  The exhibit will feature such artists as  Anne Frederick, Jo Ann Hill, Susan Lucas, Joey McKenna, Martha Osborne, Bob Peavler, Jack Rehm, and Dorothea Berkhout.  While a few of the artists are lifelong artists, a common theme for many of these artists is the development of a passion for art in their childhood, then resuming their artwork many years later.

Ann Frederick uses watercolors to paint beach and forest scenes, birds, flowers, and her children participating in sports.

Jo Ann Hill has been a lifelong artist, focusing her talents in oil, acrylics, and digital photography which she uses to manipulate images and prints with pigments on specialized paper.

Susan Lucas is a professional artist with her own studio in South Walton.  She paints in acrylic paints, giving visual form to the experience of place, expressing feelings or memories about a particular place through color and semi-abstracted landscape. She has been recognized as a significant regional artist and was the Beaches of South Walton Artist of the Year in 2004.  Her work is in galleries, corporation and university collections and has been featured in articles and books.

Joey McKenna has enjoyed plein air painting in Santa Rosa Beach and in Breckenridge, Colorado.  She has painted for over 30 years and her preferred medium is watercolor.  She is also a photographer. She has exhibited her artwork widely in the area and won a Merit Award in 2013 at the A+ Art Show in South Walton.

Martha Spence Osborne specializes in portrait painting, memorializing people and pets in oils on canvas.

Robert Peavler, whose profession is sales, has a passion for art as a way to express his creativity.

After a career in the life insurance business, Jack Rehm began oil painting, picking up a childhood love of sketching, and now paints golf scourse scenes, reflecting his love of golf.

Dorothea Berkhout paints in oils on canvas, focusing primarily in still life and landscape painting.  Now living in Santa Rosa Beach, she enjoys portraying the local beauty with its vibrant light and colors.  She has exhibited her artwork in several galleries and teaches oil painting.

For more information and for artists interested in exhibiting their work at the Coastal Branch Library please contact Dorothea Berkhout at berkhout148@gmail.com, organizer of exhibits that are part of the Friends of the Library’s community activity and outreach.

Attached are three of the paintings that will be part of the exhibit.