MFA offers our artist members the opportunity to exhibit at local restaurants around Annapolis. Currently, we work with Paul’s Homewood Café, a restaurant blending Chesapeake staples with traditional Mediterranean cuisine, and 49 West Coffeehouse, Winebar & Gallery, a place that brings art, music, and community together with great food and drink in an ambiance inspired by the traditional European coffeehouse. Please email info@mdfedart.org if you are interested in purchasing a piece of art.
View ArtworkMerrilyne Hendrickson and Leslie Kiefer
Now exhibiting at 49 West through May 28, 2024:
Artist Bio
Merrilyne Hendrickson lives and paints in Annapolis, Maryland. She grew up in the small upstate town of Cambridge, NY. Upon graduation from Syracuse University School of Art with a BFA, she taught art in New York for several years. After relocating to Annapolis, Merrilyne earned an MA in art education from the University of Maryland. Her fine arts efforts went into handmade paper making, creating paper sculptures that received international attention. She instructed art and painting courses at Dundalk and Anne Arundel Community Colleges. Merrilyne developed her skill of hand lettering and embarked on a new creative career of painting artful names on boat transoms. Accent Graphics was established in 1979 and prospered for 34 years serving East Coast boaters. Formal art was temporarily put on the back burner. Once retired, Merrilyne turned her focus back to fine art. Plein air watercolors were a start. These impressionistic works have evolved into more expressionistic abstractions. The simplicity of color field painting is evidenced in her work. Merrilyne has always felt very close to nature and its ever-changing beauty. ”How the mist softens the distant land, how the light illuminates the clouds, and how the night sparkles with light is what inspires me. The way I feel about it is what I try to express.” Merrilyne is known for her use of color, light, and harmonious palettes.
See more of her work here
Get in touch with her at arteffects5@gmail.com
Exhibition Statement
My art is an exploration of the interplay between nature and its emotional response to it. It is a delicate balance between chaos and order, light and shadow, movement and calm. Drawing inspiration from the landscapes of my childhood and the emotions they evoke, I seek to create works that glow with that magical fascination. Growing up in the countryside, I developed a deep connection to the natural world. Through my art, I aim to capture the fleeting moments of beauty and tranquility that I experienced. Each work is a visual diary infused with the essence of these landscapes. I try to capture the exhilaration and vulnerability of nature’s balance by showing awareness of how a ray of light illuminates colors that leap out as sunlight transforms the garden. I invite viewers to embark on a journey of introspection and unveiling of endless beauty and feel somehow alive. Emotion plays a central role in my work. I believe that art is a form of communication that has the power to evoke a wide range of feelings, from joy and serenity to melancholy and longing. By tapping into my own emotional experiences, I strive to create art that resonates on a deeply personal level and shares an experience that connects and inspires reflection in those who encounter it. Ultimately, my goal as an artist is to create works that inspire a sense of wonder and curiosity about the world around us. I hope to spark conversations and connections that transcend language and culture, engaging viewers to see the world through my eyes.
Artist Bio
Leslie Kiefer is a Washington, DC-based visual artist using traditional cameras and scanners to explore the idea of ambiguous grief; and loss without the finality of death or closure. She examines dealing with aging, disability of a loved one, and loss of self through personal and metaphoric exploration focusing on natural decay. In addition, Kiefer has spent 6 years at the MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital making portraits of men and women living with Traumatic Brain Injuries. Her current work is focused on transience and the beauty of imperfection as a metaphor for the passage of ourselves through time. Kiefer has studied at the Corcoran School of Art, Santa Fe Photo Workshops, Maine Media, Photoworks at Glen Echo, and the Smithsonian Institution. Kiefer received a BA from George Washington University and an MBA from The University of Maryland. Her business career spanned 30 years managing financial assets for non-profit and family portfolios. Kiefer is a juried artist member of The Studio Gallery in Washington, DC. Her work has been exhibited in galleries in the Mid-Atlantic region, including the Maryland Federation of Art, The Target Gallery at the Torpedo Gallery, Photoworks at Glen Echo, Green Spring Gardens, Alexandria, VA, Gallery B in Bethesda, and PhotoPlace Gallery. Her work is on a long-term exhibition at the MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, DC. Her images have appeared in the CARF International and MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital newsletters.
One picture is worth a thousand words…………………………………..
See more of her work here
Get in touch with her at leslie@lesliekieferphotography.com
Exhibition Statement
My series, Grief is Not Infinite, explores ambiguous grief; and loss without the finality of death or closure. Through personal and metaphoric storytelling, my work examines how one deals with aging, disability of a loved one, and loss of self.
Just as we set out onto a new path, my dearest husband was felled by a burst of blood in his brain changing our world forever. Suddenly our future life was a blank page; all of our plans were upended, forgotten and we had to invent a new life for ourselves. One that would be joined, but not always moving together in a single direction. I wanted art to carry part of that burden.
For a long while, my husband felt lost to me, but over time his new embodiment became more visible, more alive, closer to the man I remembered. I began photographing him as a way of remembering and creating some solace, of literally seeing him.
These ways of managing the new direction of our lives coalesced in new work: seeing myself. Feeling trapped by difficult circumstances, I gave myself permission to look at who I am and how I have gotten here. Living with death and disability so near has challenged me to take control of how I tell my story and show myself to the world. From sadness and anger at where fate has taken me to the great joy and power of being alive, my work lays bare one of the most profound of human experiences: grief.
As the pandemic and resulting isolation took hold, we turned inward, as did so many, to focus on new ways of being in the world. Having long experience as a landscape photographer I was drawn to plant life in woods, parks, and neighborhoods. Early in the morning when many places are deserted, I gathered weeds, flowers, insects, stones, and sticks to create pictures. Internal and external turmoil marked days of solitude and creation. I work to see and capture the beauty and transience in images made alone in the studio using alternative processes. The blank canvas of our lives became not an object of fear but of inspiration.
Seeing in new ways has helped me to come to terms with the ongoing grief of losing my beloved husband and my world, not to death, but to massive transformation. Fate and the rehabilitation of self helped me create a parallel universe where I can see further. There, as I have learned, grief is not infinite.
Their work is on display at 49 West located at 49 West St, Annapolis, MD 21401. Open daily.
