In the midst of downtown Harwich Port, The Nines Art Gallery’s light and airy atmosphere beckons visitors inside. On the walls, entrancing oil paintings of glass bottles and dancing ocean waves are on display and enthrall visitors with the mystery as to how paintings can look so real. Since 2017, the gallery and the work of owners and artists Lauren DiFerdinando and Luther Bates, have taken the Cape by storm.

Lauren, a Pennsylvania native, moved to the Cape after college to be near the water and focus on her art. It didn’t take long until she began selling paintings and opened her first gallery, Tint, in Dennis Port in 2016. After just one season, she expanded to a new, larger space in Harwich Port, and named it The Nines.

The subject matters of Lauren’s oil paintings are the vessels through which she offers new vantage points for viewers. It is not the objects themselves that are the focus, but rather what shines through them. Glass, her signature collection of oil paintings, features various glass bottles placed along the Cape’s seaside landscapes. Her second collection, The Water Series, found genesis through the lens of her husband, Luther. The duo had the idea for Lauren to paint the ocean water photos he captures while deep sea fishing. Both collections embody a sense of clarity. “I think that the glass and light are beautiful. The bottle is the way for me to be able to paint glass. That’s why I call them ‘glass’ paintings instead of bottle paintings. The translucency in both the glass and the water is what I love. There’s something about it that’s so beautiful,” she reflects.  ...