summer art exhibits at the Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion

Out on the end of Little Harbor Road in Portsmouth is a gem of a spot. As you wind through the pine grove and descend on the harbor, it feels like you’re going back in time. Condos, beemers and bustle dissolve into crickets and sea breezes, blue jays and rhododendron. The grounds of an old seaside compound where our olonial governor Benning Wentworth once lived are now part of the New Hampshire State Park system. What is now called the Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion was owned in the early 20th century by Templeman Coolidge. He hosted art dignitary Isabella Stewart Gardner on summer excursions, and John Singer Sargent spent a couple of summers carousing, painting and dandling the host’s children.

Curator Dody Kolb is devoted to the summer art gallery established there. The Coolidge Gallery pays homage to the long tradition of fine painting by the sea. She has a reliable group of accomplished artists who rotate through thematic shows over the summer. “Still Life—Wild Life” and “Water Ways” are month-long shows that run through July and August. North Hampton resident and art student Soo-Rye Yoo and southern Maine painter Sydney Bella Sparrow add their work to the mix of Don Stone, Jane Kaufmann, Anne Dubois, Stan Moeller, Grant Drumheller and half a dozen other artists.

Soo-Rye Yoo is an established painter abroad but is currently working on her BFA in Manchester at the New Hampshire Institute of Art. With past shows in Seoul, Paris and Tokyo, she’s new to exhibiting in America. “The show is a catalyst for my thinking and painting,” she says. Seeing the work of her peers at the show highlights for her interesting differences in American and Korean visual vocabularies. She’s enjoyed meeting Kolb and selecting work for the summer shows. “When I was in my 20s, I painted with a more realistic style. My painting is more in a modern style now,” she says. Yoo’s work will appear in both “Still Life—Wild Life” and “Water Ways,” which will feature parts of her “House of the Moon” series.

Yoo’s subjects infer an exploration of boundaries, definitions and containment. Images and ideas work along a continuum from imprisonment to freedom—a life is contained within a house; a house resides upon an island. The pull of the moon works upon an ocean; earth pulls upon the moon and, in turn, feels the sun’s tug. Her hundreds of houses illustrate hundreds of lives. Viewers can be anywhere in the universe they choose.
Painter Sydney Bella Sparrow, whose work has been well received at Anderson Soule and the Cape’s Bandersock Gallery, is also new to the Coolidge Gallery this summer. Sparrow paints with a loving precision. “I like to find things I’m fond of and then bring my attention to their details technically,” relates Sparrow, who will have five paintings in the “Still Life—Wild Life show.”

Sparrow relishes the intricacy of inanimate objects. “A pear with nice blush or a leaf on it, I’ll cradle it all the way home,” she jokes. Sparrow paints her way toward an easy familiarity with her subject matter, and by the end of a series of paintings, “I find I’ve gone beyond ordinary interaction with an object. I learn about things and grow to love them in a way that’s more intense,” she says. The formal still life is historically imbued with symbols, but Sparrow would rather render than narrate. “Whatever personality traits lead you to paint realistically… I try to honor the object. I don’t try to create my own story.” Although she’s not working metaphorically, each painting is an evocative invitation, and the imaginative work is play.

Whether you are intrigued by a bobbin of blue thread or an island village, the respite from downtown’s bustle will help still your wild life. Take your lunch, dip your toes and see the show.

“Still Life—Wild Life” runs from June 24 to July 22nd. “Water Ways” runs from July 29 to August 26. An opening reception will be held on Sunday, July 29, 5-7 p.m. For more information, visit www.nhparks.state.nh.us/ParksPages/WentworthCoolidge/CoolidgeGallerySchedule.html.