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Creating Beautiful Connections

Cape Cod Life  /  April 2021 / ,

Writer: Sarah Tietje-Mietz

Creating Beautiful Connections

130

Cape Cod Life  /  April 2021 / ,

Writer: Sarah Tietje-Mietz

Visitors to Gallery 31 can often find Rhyno actively working on a painting, often a simple yet stunning arrangement of flowers, in an alcove serving as a studio. This allows Rhyno to devote any extra time to paint, and helps to build an awareness of how artwork is created through the viewing of her own process. She has been known to provide guests with the opportunity to try their own hand at mark-making with pastels, facilitating a more intimate connection with art as a process, and connecting the skill, technique, and craft it takes to capture the moments of beauty for sale in the gallery. 

The gallery represents artists hailing from Scotland to Oregon to Cape Cod, and Rhyno does not just act as steward for the artists but also as interpreter for their work, making a concerted effort to understand each one’s unique style. Rhyno has painted with many of the artists, and can speak to their artistic process from a greater depth of understanding because of this. She is a catalog of this information, easily delving into the techniques utilized by master pastelist Richard McKinley to capture his landscapes, diving just as deftly into the process renowned pastelist Jeanne Rosier Smith uses to render her ocean waves realistically. She is able to communicate with guests what elements are combining in a work to make it special, and because of this makes meaningful connections between the artist, their art, and the public.  

Rhyno’s curiosity and desire to forge new connections has helped develop her own voice as an artist. She categorizes her work as encompassing a “varied” style, which comes from her own desire to keep learning, developing, and stretching herself outside of one style or subject. She celebrates artists that can develop within their certain style, but for her it feels more limiting than nurturing in her growth as an artist. Instead, she absorbs the teachings of her peers and filters these through her own lens. The result is an artist who has a vast understanding and range of artistic processes and can pick and choose from this arsenal with the same ease as picking up a paintbrush. With these tools, Rhyno has leaned into a calling that challenges and nurtures her, and celebrates the life of art she has chosen. 

“When I’m expressing myself with paint, the sky’s the limit. I mean, I can do anything I want to do, can’t I?” says Rhyno. “It’s a place where you can take yourself, and just be free and let go, and not feel like you’re having to judge yourself—there’s a quietness where I can feel and hear my inner being.”

Visit Gallery 31 online at gallery31capecod.com or at 34 Main Street, Orleans!

Sarah Tietje-Mietz