March 2023 First Friday: “Between Layers” by Rose Nygaard & Aprille Zammit
Friday, March 3
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Sponsored by Dr. Lourdes & Don Parker
and
Dr. Maricel Quintana Baker & Professor Kenneth Baker
During the month of March, Arts on Main will host a collaborative exhibit, “Between Layers,” featuring artwork by grandmother and granddaughter duo, Rose Nygaard & Aprille Zammit. The opening of the exhibit will take place at our First Friday event on Friday, March 3rd from 6:00pm-8:00pm. The show will run from March 3rd thru April 2nd.
Between Layers
The potent smell of acrylics and oils swirls together in a light-drenched studio, scattered with all colours imaginable…… Mexican music envelopes the room creating the lightness of a dance floor……… A space where it felt possible to create anything your imagination dreamt up…… Every summer Aprille got to step into that space of endless possibilities with her grandmother Rose.
“Between Layers” is the first time the two artists are showing a collection of work together. Rose is an abstract expressionist painter and printmaker. Inspired by colour, she builds layers upon layers of it in her paintings, monoprints, and collages. Rose graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from The American University in Washington, DC. Aprille is a multidisciplinary creative, with her two main mediums being film photography and screen printing. Inspired by nature, with reverence to the sea and capturing unnoticed moments of light. Aprille graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.
For this collaboration, Aprille travelled from her studio in Malta, Europe, to Gloucester, Virginia in 2022 to spend three weeks creating work together with Rose. “Between Layers” is a body of work in which the two artists played off each other’s different styles and backgrounds of working. Rose begins with colour, and Aprille begins with composition. Both artists layer the two to make their work. Rose and Aprille hope the work will ignite joy and lightness in the viewer.
Rose Nygaard
“I always begin my work with one colour which I then react to with the next colour and continue in this way. I have been using Acrylic paints for the last thirty years. I use Golden and Liquitex most of the time. I love the Transparent colors. Mixing some of these colors make very beautiful unusual colors, adding black or white will make the colors opaque.
I began my work without preparation; not knowing the outcome. It becomes a challenge to make it become a painting that I have not seen before. It is a challenge that I love. Creating a piece of Art, for me, is a way open for self-expression, and learning more about my likes and dislikes. It gives me visual language.”
Aprille Zammit
“The collaboration is the result of a bond created throughout the past 25 years. From a young age, I have always been an observer in my grandmother’s studio. Through film photography I began capturing moments in her process of making, watching her getting lost in a world of colour. This inspired me to do the same. Together with my grandmother we would critique her works, highlight areas that worked and others that didn’t. Pieces were cropped from within the painting to create other compositions, which at times required starting afresh over a “clean canvas” and often resulting in a multi-layered application. In this collaboration, I layered my work on top of her paintings to represent a continuum of her approach. I extracted elements forming the composition or the landscape of Rose’s art pieces and formed a symbiotic expression by layering the extractions in the form of lines and shapes onto the original art piece. Acrylic pens as well as the screen printing process were utilized to produce the work.”
Live music will be provided by Something Different Duo (Brad Sindle & Ashley Wenner). This father/daughter duo who have been performing together since 2013 at public and private events. Check out their website to learn more about them: Somethingdifferntduo.com
First Friday is on March 3rd from 6:00pm-8:00pm. This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided. Beer and wine will be available for purchase.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR 
Activities at Arts on Main are partially funded by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
